U.S. Bank
Head of Credit Portfolio Risk
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At U.S. Bank, we’re on a journey to do our best. Helping the customers and businesses we serve to make better and smarter financial decisions, enabling the communities we support to grow and succeed in the right ways, all more confidently and more often—that’s what we call the courage to thrive. We believe it takes all of us to bring our shared ambition to life, and each person is unique in their potential. A career with U.S. Bank gives you a wide, ever-growing range of opportunities to discover what makes you thrive. Try new things, learn new skills and discover what you excel at—all from Day One.
As a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bank, Elavon is committed to building the platforms and ecosystems that help over 1.5 million customers around the world to achieve their financial goals—no matter what they need. From transaction processing to customer service, to driving innovation and launching new products, we’re building a range of tailored payment solutions powered by the latest technology. As part of our team, you can explore what motivates and energizes your career goals: partnering with our customers, our communities, and each other.
We actively uphold transparent and fair hiring practices that support individual opportunity, inclusive culture, and career mobility across all levels of our organisation. We offer meaningful opportunities for growth, a culture of inclusion, and a strong commitment to transparency and integrity in everything we do.
Job Description
Role Overview
The Head of Credit Portfolio Risk is a senior leader role within the Second Line of Defence Credit Risk Management function, reporting directly to the Chief Credit Officer for Europe. The role is responsible for leading the Credit Risk Management function’s risk oversight and delegated credit decision making process across multiple credit portfolios, including corporate lending, payments, institutional exposures, vendor-related credit risk, and structured credit investments.
The role will operate with a delegated credit approval authority reflective of the level and importance of responsibilities assigned to this role. The Head of Credit Portfolio Risk will lead a team of credit risk professionals who are specialised across the range of portfolios the Bank operates in.
The Head of Credit Portfolio Risk is tasked with ensuring consistent, high‑quality, and risk‑aligned credit decisions, reporting, and insights across all material credit activities. The role is central to the effectiveness of USBE’s credit risk governance framework and will be responsible for the administration and secretariat of the Credit Committee and associated sub-committees, ensuring that portfolio insights, forward-looking risk assessments, and expert judgement inform risk appetite, strategy, provisioning, and senior management decision-making.
Key Responsibilities
Credit Decisioning & Approval Authority
- Act as a senior Credit Approver across all of USBE’s credit portfolios, exercising independent delegated authority on complex and material credit proposals.
- Oversee the Bank’s delegated credit approval framework across First Line and Second Line, including calibration, consistency of decision-making, performance, and ongoing refinement of delegated authorities.
- Lead, develop, and manage a team of Second Line credit approvers, ensuring strong technical capability, sound judgement, and alignment to risk appetite.
- Establish portfolio-wide decisioning standards, including challenge expectations, documentation quality, and evidencing of credit rationale.
- Provide escalation and adjudication on complex, borderline, or high-risk transactions.
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Credit Risk Governance & Committee Administration
- Lead the operational effectiveness of the Credit Committee, including agenda focus, quality materials, and alignment to the Terms of Reference.
- Oversee the administration of supporting governance forums of the Credit Committee, including Chairing sub-committee meetings, providing clear distinction from Committee-level responsibilities.
- Ensure that governance outputs are insight-driven, forward-looking, and clearly linked to risk appetite and portfolio resilience.
- Support the Chief Credit Officer in executive and Board-level engagements; deputising when required.
- Ensure governance structures remain aligned with regulatory expectations and evolving best practice.
Portfolio Strategy & Risk Appetite Stewardship
- Lead the development, articulation, and ongoing refinement of the Bank’s credit portfolio strategy, covering all major asset classes.
- Responsibility for ongoing monitoring and challenge of compliance with risk appetite metrics and limits.
- Translate macroeconomic, geopolitical, sectoral, and regulatory developments into clear portfolio positioning and risk appetite recommendations.
- Oversee portfolio-level risk identification, including concentrations, emerging risks, and forward-looking vulnerabilities.
- Support scenario analysis and stress testing activities, ensuring outputs inform strategy, limits, and risk mitigation actions.
- Undertake review of credit risk elements associated with the Strategic Plan and ICAAP.
Management Information & Portfolio Insights
- Own the Credit Risk Management Information framework, ensuring senior stakeholders receive clear, decision-ready insights on portfolio performance and risk profile.
- Oversee the production of high-quality reporting on credit trends, early warning indicators, and emerging risks.
- Translate portfolio risk analysis and insights to outputs that help inform capital, stress testing and provisioning processes.
- Provide regular, concise, and impactful updates to senior management, Credit Committee, Executive Risk Committee, Board forums, and regulators.
- Ensure MI supports proactive risk management with portfolio risk analytics and early warning frameworks.
Structured Credit Risk Coverage
- Ensure structured credit exposures (e.g. CLO investments) are subject to robust independent review, clear risk articulation, and appropriate governance escalation.
- Maintain oversight of complex or non-standard exposures, ensuring structural risks, collateral dynamics, and concentration risks are adequately understood and managed in line with best practice and regulatory expectations.
- Ensure portfolio credit insights incorporate themes arising from structured credit investments and are appropriately reflected in risk appetite and governance discussions.
Cross-Functional Leadership & Regulatory Engagement
- Act as a senior point of contact for credit portfolio matters across Risk, Finance, Treasury, and the First Line of Defence.
- Ensure alignment between risk appetite, policy, credit strategy, provisioning, capital considerations, and business activity.
- Promote strong second-line independence while maintaining constructive and effective challenge.
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Leadership & People Management
- Lead and develop the Credit Portfolio Risk function, including credit approvers, MI analysts, and specialist risk roles.
- Set clear expectations on credit culture, accountability, and quality of judgement.
- Ensure appropriate resourcing and capability across generalist and specialist areas (including structured credit).
- Foster a culture of continuous improvement, technical excellence, and disciplined risk management.
Experience & Qualifications
- Significant experience (15+ years) in credit risk management within a European or international banking environment across an array of product lines – corporate, institutional, payments, and structured credit.
- Demonstrated leadership of credit portfolio management, risk governance, and credit decisioning functions.
- Experience across multiple asset classes, with familiarity managing specialist or complex exposures (i.e. structured credit).
- Strong track record operating under delegated credit authority and interacting with senior governance forums.
- Deep understanding of European regulatory expectations including risk governance and oversight standards.
- Strong judgement, credibility, and ability to influence at Executive and Committee level.
Accessibility
We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment experience. If you need adjustments at any stage of the application or hiring process, please contact your recruiter for guidance and support.
Total Rewards
U.S. Bank is committed to fair, equitable, and transparent compensation practices in line with local regulatory and legal requirements. Our total rewards approach is designed to attract, retain, and support top talent while ensuring equal pay for work of equal value. We offer a market-competitive compensation package that includes:
- Clearly defined salary ranges aligned with industry benchmarks and internal equity standards.
- Performance-based incentives for eligible employees (as defined by relevant plan rules), awarded through transparent, objective criteria that recognize both individual and company performance.
- Inclusive equitable benefits that are accessible to all employees and focused around our 3 main pillars of financial wellbeing, health & wellness).
- Continuous development opportunities including training, education support, and career progression pathways based on inclusive and transparent criteria.
- Employee recognition programs that celebrate achievements and milestones for all.
We regularly review our compensation and benefits to ensure they remain competitive, inclusive, and responsive to employee needs and market trends. Further details of the compensation package will be provided upon application. We encourage candidates to explore the full value of our offer, including monetary and non-monetary benefits, at Employee benefits and development | U.S. Bank | Elavon.
Closing Date
Posting may be closed earlier due to high volume of applicants. We aim to provide timely updates throughout the process and encourage early applications to ensure consideration.
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