YouLend
Commercial Strategy Lead
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Commercial Strategy Manager / Senior Associate
Department: Commercial Employment Type: Permanent Location: London Reporting To: Eoin O’Kane
About the Role
We’re seeking a Commercial Strategy Manager / Senior Associate to cultivate, expand, and optimise pivotal partnerships with global industry leaders.
This dynamic role spans three core areas:
- Growing partnerships with existing partners
- Acquiring and establishing new partnerships
- Leading high-priority commercial initiatives
Your work will bridge hands-on leadership of senior stakeholder relationships (Directors, VPs, Heads-of-markets), data-driven problem-solving, and execution across multiple teams.
Key Objectives:
- Cultivate trust-driven conversations to align partners and internal teams, driving measurable revenue growth.
- Leverage data (SQL/Excel) to uncover gaps, validate opportunities, and design solutions tailored to conversion, risk, and profitability.
- Construct business cases, models and roadmaps for new ventures—sizing opportunities and mitigating risks.
- Own cross-functional execution to integrate insights across Product, Risk, Capital Markets, Operations, Data, and Partnerships.
The ideal candidate excels as a commercial strategist, analyst, and coalition-builder: turning ambiguity into impact through sophisticated yet actionable strategies.
Responsibilities
Partner Growth & Strategy
- Identify and act on growth levers to boost performance across existing partners, targeting data-driven optimisations in pricing, eligibility, eligibility, and underwriting.
- Develop commercial strategies to enhance conversion, retain partner appetite, and minimise risk exposure.
New Partnership Development
- Lead the creation of RFPs, proposals, pilots, and strategy briefs to attract and onboard new major platforms.
- Engage in high-stakes discussions with senior partners, ensuring alignment on vision, ROI, and mutual risk-benefit trade-offs.
Business Case Leadership & Investment Direction
- Design and refine scalable commercial models to evaluate new markets, products, and initiatives.
- Conclude leading-edge analyses to guide strategic decisions—delivering clear size-ups of opportunities against risks.
Data-Driven Management & Improvement
- Analyse and reconstruct partner performance dashboards to benchmark, redistribute resources, and recommend course corrections.
- Drive cross-functional accountable-tics alongside metrics that prioritise growth while maintaining regulatory/operational constraints.
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Team Development & Cross-Functional Execution
- Coach associates/analysts to grow the Commercial team’s sub-function to scale operationally.
- Bridge the gap between expert fields (Risk, Data, Product, Product, Operations) to champion a unified commercial vision.
Strategic Problem-Solving
Address questions such as:
- What is the highest-leverage growth initiative to invest in next? What decisively moves the needle?
- How can we outperform underperforming strategic partners while balancing conversion, risk, margins, and customer experience?
- What is the smart negotiation approach to secure transformative new partnerships?
- How do pricing, underwriting, customer journey tweaks incrementally unlock growth at low incremental risk?
- What processes can we implement to scale partnerships sustainably?
What Great Looks Like
After 6–9 months, you’ll have: ✅ Operational autonomy—taking ownership of complexities without direct oversight. ✅ Strong internal credibility—aligned by peers in Product, Risk, Operations, Data, Capital Markets, and Partnerships. ✅ Respect among external counterparts—viewed as a forthright, long-term partner. ✅ Clear track record of making decisions, marshalling disparate teams, and achieving measurable outcomes. ✅ Potential to influence future team structures and commercial best practices.
Skills, Knowledge & Expertise
Must Haves
- 4–6 years of diverse experience blending analytical rigor (consulting, strategy, ops) with commercial acumen (e.g. founder’s associate, chief of staff, scaling roles).
- Sharpened commercial judgement—navigating trade-offs in growth, risk, pricing, customer outcomes, and partner incentives.
- Confidence navigating C-level executives—sophisticated in positioning and negotiating strategies.
- Storytelling expertise—translating intricate metrics/assumptions into persuasive business recommendations.
- SQL & Excel/Google Sheets mastery—capable of pulling, cleaning, and analysing messy data, building models from scratch.
- Self-starter mentality—operating well under muddied circumstances, unclear goals, and shifting priorities.
- Cross-functional leadership—earning momentum without positional authority.
- Executive aptitude—shaping ideas and executing them despite ambiguity.
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Pluses
- Relevant experience in fintech, lending, embedded finance, or marketplace lending.
- Python familiarity (as an add-on to SQL/Excel fluency).
Job Benefits
Culture & Impact
- YouLend is a Sunday Times Best Places to Work (2024–2026).
- Top 250 Global Fintech (CBNC, 2025), driven by high-growth ambitions.
- Fast-moving, data-saturated environment with raw upside potential.
-
100% revenue growth since 2022/23—ashing direct benefits in salary, bonuses, or equity.
Support & Resources
- Backed by private equity-led capital, with Banking Circle Group’s full pan-Europe capability.
- Team culture built on direct collaboration, shared accountability, and diversity.
Full Package
| Benefit Area | Examples |
|---|---|
| Recognise Work | Stock options |
| Health | Private medical insurance (Vitality), EAP with Health Assured |
| Parental Leave | Enhanced maternity/paternity policies |
| Lifestyle | On-site fitness centre, subsidised fresh lunches (Feedr), Deliveroo |
| offset if late-night in-office work; staff masseuse | |
| Social | Networking and recreational team/company outings |
| Monthly socials, sponsored popular sports clubs |
Commitment to Inclusion
All hiring decisions are based solely on aptitude, effectiveness, and open opportunity—unbound by biases related to race, gender, age, (dis)ability, religion, or origin.
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