Lead Credit Risk Management, Pliant
Subject Matter Expert
Digital corporate credit card solutions
Posted today
Digital corporate credit card solutions
101-200 employees
Posted today
101-200 employees
Company mission
To empower businesses to grow by providing a smart payment option that grows with their business.
Role
Who you are
- Proven operational leadership experience, preferably in a bank or fintech
- Deep understanding of credit risk underwriting for SME customers
- Experience managing teams in fast-paced, tech-enabled environments
- Demonstrated success in improving operational performance and scaling processes
- Strong financial and risk analysis skills; familiarity with open banking data and transaction-level insights is a plus
- Comfortable with APIs, decision engines, and data tools
- Strong communication skills with the ability to drive cross-functional alignment
- Determination and desire to work in a team to achieve high-quality results for our customers, even under stress
- Fluent in English; additional European languages are a plus
What the job involves
- As Lead Credit Risk Management - SME (m/f/d), you will be responsible for the operational performance of the SME credit risk function, the development and leadership of the team, and strategic execution and development of credit risk underwriting and monitoring processes
- While a strong foundation in credit underwriting is essential, the focus of this role lies in leading a high-performing team and enhancing business operations
- You will drive initiatives to achieve operational targets, optimize workflows, and continuously support the evolution of our credit tech stack towards automated decision making
- You’ll work closely with the Lead for Risk Strategy and the VP of Credit to align underwriting strategies with business goals
- You’ll also contribute to business goals by underwriting and monitoring customers yourself
- Leadership: Lead and mentor a team of credit risk professionals, setting clear expectations and goals
- Providing regular feedback and training to grow the team’s professional capabilities
- Create a team culture rooted in ownership, collaboration, and continuous growth
- Operational performance: Own, measure and drive the team’s achievement of operational KPIs and OKRs
- Identify bottlenecks and blockers in workflows and resolve them together with the team
- Continuously review and enhance operational processes to reduce handling times while keeping quality within agreed parameters
- Underwriting: Perform credit assessments for SME clients, ensuring high-quality
- Ensure documentation, compliance, and transparency across all credit processes
- Collaboration: Align credit operations with broader risk strategy in partnership with the Risk Strategy Lead
- Contribute to and support the development of automated decision strategies
- Collaborate with Commercial, Product, Data, and Legal teams to align underwriting practice and tools with business needs
- Communication: Facilitate smooth and fact-based information flow between your colleagues
- Support the development of a culture of open dialogue, which is focused on mutual respect and the joint achievement of excellent results
Salary benchmarks
Our take
The corporate credit card industry, historically dominated by giants like AmEx, has seen rapid disruption and growth over recent years. An influx of VC investment boosted smaller outfits like Divvy and Brex Inc. to multi-billion dollar operations, and this has cracked open the market to a host of smaller fintech startups.
Pliant is a German company entering the scene, but it’s a competitive one. It's hoping to stand out by prioritising seamless software integrations, competitive cashback, and a new optional feature offsetting travel-related CO2 emissions. The latter is incredibly novel and has undoubtedly won the company some press in an increasingly sustainability-oriented climate.
Plaint’s offering of both physical and digital cards, as well as its suite of advantages and services have enabled the company to be highly adaptable within the growing payments market. The company has, thus far, entered seven additional European markets and expanded its customer portfolio sixfold. Following successful funding rounds, Pliant is set to further expand operations and its business reach.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
233% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Apr 2025
$41.6m
SERIES B
Apr 2024
$21.3m
SERIES A
Total funding: $124.2m
Company benefits
- Home office and remote work
- Flexible working hours
- Mobility discount
- Budget for professional development and training
- Railcard
- Monthly food allowance
- Gympass
- Weekly mindfulness sessions
- Team events
Company HQ
Kollwitzkiez, Berlin, Germany
Leadership
Fabian Turner
(CPO/COO)Previously the Head of Operations at Lendico, and went on to serve as CPO at FinCompare.
Malte Rau
(CEO)Previously a Portfolio Manager and Head of Fintech Investments at Global Growth Cap, they then went on to found Geldspeicher GmbH.
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