Head Of Credit at Apollo Agriculture

About the role:

Apollo is seeking an experienced Head of Credit to help us grow rapidly to reach millions of small-scale farmers and ensure strong repayment and unit economics as we scale. In this role, you will take strategic and operational ownership for the full lifecycle of repayment, from setting pricing and designing products optimized for strong repayment, to ensuring that we collect loans efficiently and maintain strong unit economics. You will work across Apollo’s teams to grow our portfolio both rapidly and sustainably, from product design and data science, to risk management and collections. This is a senior role with significant leadership responsibility. This position reports to the CEO and works closely with the senior leadership team.

The role can be based in Nairobi, Kenya or Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Your day-to-day :

• Take strategic and operational ownership for Apollo’s Credit function including pricing, unit economics, repayment, and collections as we scale across Africa
• Strengthen Apollo’s credit processes, including credit risk assessment and portfolio risk management and forecasting, in close consultation with Apollo’s Head of Data Science, CFO, and Leadership Team
• Provide strategic guidance on product and pricing, balancing aggressive growth goals with Apollo’s risk appetite
• Work with our Data Science team to build credit risk models that improve repayment
• Understand portfolio performance, both quantitatively through rigorous data analysis and compared to industry benchmarks, and qualitatively through significant time in the field with our customers, and convey insights proactively to the Leadership Team
• Oversee Apollo’s overall repayment and collections strategy, and manage the collections team. This includes designing and overseeing the execution of repayment campaigns, setting team and customer repayment incentives and managing policies around deadlines, extensions, etc, continuously reviewing trends in repayment and collections, and working with other teams to collaboratively improve repayment rates

You:

• Have 5+ years in microfinance, nanocredit, agricultural lending and/or related areas.
• Have 5+ years of experience managing a field based collections team and/or call center
• Have held senior leadership positions at a financial institution, bank, or fintech
• Have experience building incentive structures for sales and collections teams and creating systems around sign offs, limits, and escalations
• Have experience creating risk rating and provisioning policies
• Are curious and empathetic
• Are a natural leader and mentor, capable of prioritizing projects that touch multiple departments. You are comfortable aligning risk management and aggressive growth goals
• Are experienced working with data science teams to develop scalable credit risk assessment strategies
• Are able to shape credit strategy and inform product development and pricing
• Are quantitative, mission-driven, and excited to solve complex problems with a passionate and growing team!

We:

• Are a collaborative team of smart and ambitious people who are dedicated to serving our customers
• Make magic happen to solve hard problems and always come with solutions when challenges arise
• Are comfortable taking risks that can result in radical scale, and understand that failures are opportunities to learn and improve
• Are considerate listeners and take the time to deeply understand and seek out ideas from the people around us, even when we disagree
• Offer a dynamic environment that fosters talent, collaboration and growth
• Take pride in our work and share the responsibility to see it through from conception to deployment
• Back up our talk with a competitive compensation and benefits package and challenging projects
• Value autonomy, honesty, transparency, and respect
• Are excited to hear from you!