Description
iwoca is breaking down the barriers that stop Europe’s 20 million
small businesses from accessing finance. Traditional bank loans have
slow application processes, inflexible terms and burdensome
criteria. In contrast, we use cutting-edge technology to offer
flexible access to credit with a five minute application process and
a decision in hours.
Since 2012, we've made finance available to over 50,000 businesses
across Europe and lent over £1 billion. Our customers include
everything from cafés to car dealers, salons to solicitors. Along
the way we have built a sophisticated technology platform, won
numerous awards and grown a fun, and vibrant team.
2020 was a challenging year, but we come out of it strongly with
proven risk management and a solid balance sheet. We expect the
competitive environment to evolve favourably as businesses rebuild
in 2021 and traditional lenders retrench from SME lending.
We are looking for an experienced operations manager to take over
from our current COO who built up the German Operations function and
is moving on after close to 5 years in the role. The Head of
Operations has full responsibility for all our operational and
customer facing teams (Customer Success, Credit Analysts, KYC &
Collections). Working closely with the Country Manager and supported
by our risk, operations strategy, etc. experts you will make sure
the team grows successfully and our systems and processes continue
to develop.
As Head of Ops you will be responsible for all the DE teams who
interact with customers. You will identify ways in which DE
Operations can contribute towards our commercial goals of increasing
customer conversion and managing our loss rates, while also finding
ways to improve operations efficiency and maintain excellent
customer service. Ideally, you will be based in London or Frankfurt.
We work hard to make iwoca a place where everyone feels welcome,
where you can confidently be yourself. We understand that diversity
isn't an optional add-on, it's the core ingredient of what makes us
great.
Requirements
Your main responsibilities will include:
Operations and Team Management
- Daily ownership and management of all DE operations: you
will make sure our Customer Success, Credit Analyst, KYC and
Collections teams are efficiently and effectively progressing
applications and loans, maximising value along the value chain
- Build and develop an exceptional operations management team:
you’ll guide, support and coach the respective team leads so
they can effectively run their teams and become better managers
themselves. Building a solid managerial structure with your
direct reports will be an essential element of success for this
role as the team scales with our business
- We pride ourselves on our incredible levels of customer
service, you will ensure these standards are maintained and
where possible improved
- (Note - you will manage the Credit Analyst team, but not be
expected to be an expert on credit risk: the risk manager and
supporting analysts are tasked with improving and streamlining
our credit risk model and underwriting processes)
Process & System improvements
- Working closely with our Operations Strategy analyst (who
will also report into you), you will be looking to identify
operational patterns, improvement opportunities, anomalies, etc.
as well as management metrics, KPIs, etc.
- Ops Strat will support with analyses and implementation of
recommendations, but delivering operational effectiveness and
improvements will be your responsibility
- You will liaise with our Product teams who develop our CRM
and phone systems (entirely developed in house) to make sure
they develop the tools we need to optimise how we deploy our
operational resources
- Together with our Compliance experts ensure all aspects of
our Operations are compliant with relevant regulatory
requirements
Cross-team cooperation
- Build a strong working relationship with the UK COO, her
direct reports, and foster cross-team engagement and
cooperation. We have adopted a country P&L structure, and there
are close similarities between the operational realities of our
DE and UK operations. We are keen for both teams to adopt
standardised approaches where this makes sense, and in any case
to be continuously learning from each other
Other ad hoc tasks that arise given the nature of a rapidly
growing business like ours - this role affords considerable latitude
to explore and test ideas that you find interesting
What we're looking for:
A sharp mind, lots of drive and experience managing people,
ideally in a high-growth environment (tech, start-up, etc.). We are
looking for someone who has both people management as well as
transferable skills, a strong commercial sense and a real
‘get-stuff-done’ mentality. In practice this could mean you have
experience in consulting, banking, blue-chip management trainee,
etc. as well as some form of line management / P&L role under your
belt (this is an example only, there is no one prior career path
that we’re looking for).
We are looking for someone who has:
- Proven managerial capabilities - you know what it takes to
hire, manage, develop and retain a team of operations colleagues
working across customer service and ideally other operational
functions (this is a must-have for the role)
- Demonstrated they can independently set clear priorities,
with very strong organizational, issue resolution, and
decision-making skills. You will be expected to work largely
autonomously.
- An affinity with numbers: we have a highly data-driven
culture and you will be constantly using data to analyse and
improve the team’s performance (at times working with other
teams who run more complex analyses)
- Strong commercial instincts, able to cut through complexity
and ambiguity to make good business decisions
- A passion for customer service: keeping our customers happy
is a key element of our success. You will also have a good
business acumen and a working understanding of what makes small
businesses tick
- A fine balance of confidence, gravitas, humility and
enthusiasm. You will need a soft side to connect with, manage
and motivate a growing team, as well as gravitas to press ahead
with developments in an environment where resources are
continuously stretched
- A tolerance for the organised chaos of a maturing startup
environment where every month needs to be a record month - you
need to be able to harness this energy and turn it into positive
results
- Fluent German speaker with a high level of written and
spoken English
Benefits
We all enjoy:
- A smart, motivated and international team (we represent over
35 different nationalities)
- Every morning ’iwocans’ get fully stocked fridges with
whatever is needed to strengthen them. There are snacks (both
healthy and less healthy) for the whole day
- Once a year iwoca takes over a ski chalet in winter so that
you and your team can ski (and work) for a week. During summer
we are drawn to the sun. This year we swapped our office for a
week by a poolside villa in Barcelona.
- Access to the gym membership program
- Exclusive participation in the daily commute
- Our home is in a nice office in the heart of the big city.
In Frankfurt in the beautiful Ostend, our London office is
directly on Tottenham Court Road
- Company-wide training courses with internal and external
speakers
- 26 days of vacation a year, plus all public holidays, plus a
free day for your birthday
- A paid volunteer day that gives you the opportunity to
invest time to support a charity of your choice.
- Additional vacation so that you can take more time to travel
or study outside of your vacation entitlement.