Vice President of Product, Tala
Lending & Retention
$230-300k
Digital financial services, credit, savings and more
Open for applications
Digital financial services, credit, savings and more
501-1000 employees
Open for applications
$230-300k
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To build a modern credit infrastructure where consumer credit is more accessible.
Role
Who you are
- 15+ years of product leadership experience, ideally in fintech, lending, digital banking, or consumer financial services
- Proven track record of scaling lending or retention products in high-growth environments
- Strong understanding of credit dynamics, risk management, and unit economics
- Customer-obsessed with deep empathy for underserved populations and emerging markets
- Experienced leading global, cross-functional teams across product, engineering, and operations
- Analytical and data-driven, with expertise in experimentation, A/B testing, and customer insights
- Strategic thinker who can operate at both vision and execution levels
- Excellent communicator and influencer across executive teams, investors, and regulators
- Champion of diversity, inclusion, and building mission-driven cultures
What the job involves
- We are seeking a strategic VP – Lending & Retention to define and drive the future of Tala’s lending ecosystem
- This leader will be responsible for building customer-first lending experiences, maximizing portfolio performance, and deepening long-term customer relationships
- The successful candidate will also help operationalize and expand our capital market initiatives
- This role sits at the heart of Tala’s growth engine
- You will craft a differentiated lending strategy that balances customer delight, risk management, and profitability
- You’ll partner across engineering, data science, credit, operations, and marketing to ensure Tala continuously evolves with customer needs while advancing financial inclusion at scale
- This is a pivotal leadership opportunity to shape how millions of underserved customers access and retain financial services, while positioning Tala for sustainable growth
- Define Product Vision & Strategy
- Develop and communicate a bold product roadmap for lending and retention aligned with Tala’s mission and growth objectives
- Balance innovation with portfolio health, risk, and regulatory compliance
- Capital Markets & Funding Leadership:
- Partner closely with Finance & Capital Markets to ensure sustainable and diversified funding
- Translate portfolio and product performance into narratives that resonate with investors and regulators
- Anticipate and influence macroeconomic and regulatory shifts that impact capital and credit supply
- Own the Customer Lifecycle
- Lead product strategy across the entire lending journey and customer conversion funnel – acquisition, underwriting, disbursement, repayment, and re-engagement
- Design retention initiatives that drive repeat usage, loyalty, and lifetime value
- Build & Lead Teams
- Lead, mentor, and grow a world-class product team focused on lending, and retention
- Foster a culture of impact, innovation, and accountability
- Lead Best-in-Class Repayments and Recoveries plans
- Identify optimization opportunities to enhance our repayments rates ratio
- Leverage 3rd party best practices and partners to significantly drive recoveries financially
- Global to Local Balance:
- Build a product strategy that drives global lending performance while tailoring execution for local customer, cultural, and regulatory contexts
- Collaborate closely with GMs and market teams to ensure product decisions resonate locally while supporting the enterprise portfolio
- Drive Performance & Insights
- Establish KPIs for lending product performance, including portfolio quality, customer engagement, and unit economics
- Leverage data, experimentation, and customer insights to continuously optimize
- Cross-Functional Leadership
- Partner with risk, operations, finance and marketing to ensure lending products deliver strong financial and social outcomes
- Collaborate with design and engineering to create seamless, mobile-first experiences
- Innovation & Differentiation
- Stay ahead of fintech, credit, and retention best practices globally
- Identify opportunities to introduce new credit features, loyalty programs, or adjacent financial products
Our take
Billions of people across the world can't access traditional credit, usually because they don't have a formal credit history or consistent financial records. Banks tend to rely on credit scores from bureaus, which leaves many people locked out. So Tala is focused on this group, offering small loans through a mobile app to people who would otherwise struggle to borrow money.
Tala uses an alternative approach to decide who can get a loan. Instead of relying only on credit scores, it looks at different types of data, like how customers use their phone, interact with the app, and manage money. Its technology then quickly assesses rick and can send out loans in minutes.
The company has grown to serve millions of customers across markets like Kenya, the Philippines, and Mexico, and has lent billions of dollars in total. It is also starting to offer more than just loans, including payments and money management tools. While Tala faces strong competition from companies like Brand and other digital lenders, it remains one of the better-known players trying to expand access to credit.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
19% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 9 rounds)
Oct 2021
$145m
SERIES E
Aug 2019
$110m
SERIES D
Total funding: $350.7m
Company HQ
Santa Monica, CA
Leadership
Shivani Siroya
(Founder & CEO)Shivani previously worked as an Analyst for Credit Suisse, UBS Financial Services, Citigroup, Janani and the United Nations Population Fund. They are also a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum.
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