Global Head of Collections




Department: Collections & Recoveries




Employment Type: Permanent




Location: London




Reporting To: Kasper Thomsen




Description



YouLend is hiring a Global Head of Collections to take ownership of collections performance across every market we lend in.



This is a build role rather than a caretaker role. You will inherit a capable 35-person function and a set of processes that were designed for a smaller, simpler business. Your job is to turn that into a global powerhouse with a deliberate strategy behind it: advanced analytics, segmentation, treatment paths, contact strategy, and a performance cadence that holds all of it together.



You will own the numbers outright. Cure rates, repayment speeds, cost-to-collect, and losses are yours - and you will be expected to move them. Once accounts hit collections, they are in your portfolio, and you own them.




Key Responsibilities




The team



You will lead a global team of 35 people through five managers:

• UK and Europe (London): We are operating our eight European jurisdictions out of London with plans to set up the German team (five agents + one manager) in Berlin. The current team in London consists of 25 agents managed by four team leaders.


• United States (Atlanta): A new and small team operating with one HoD and five agents.


• Analytics and Transformation: Currently sits with the GM, but the right candidate should build and own this function independently.

Where the role sits



You will report to the General Manager of Collections and Recoveries, who reports directly to the CFO. This is a senior seat with a direct line into the executive team, and the decisions you make will be visible at board level. You will have clear C-level exposure with quarterly committee updates presented to the senior management team.



You will work closely with Credit Risk, Finance, Capital Markets, and Technology, and you will be a significant voice in how we invest in collections tooling and automation.




What you will own

• The metrics. Own the metrics which drive portfolio performance. This includes, but is not limited to, cure rates, repayment speeds, cost-to-collect, and losses.


• The strategy. Design and continuously evolve segmentation, treatment paths, and contact strategies across all markets.


• The people. Lead, develop, and upgrade your leaders. Maintain and develop a performance culture that holds across time zones.


• The operating model. Define the structure, management layers, workflows, governance, and performance cadence the function needs at global scale.

Skills, Knowledge & Expertise




What are we looking for




Essential

• You have directly owned collections outcomes and KPIs, and can talk through the decisions behind the numbers.


• You have built or materially transformed a collections function rather than inherited a mature one and kept it running.


• You have led global teams across multiple countries, cultures, and time zones.


• You have led through managers rather than only managing individual contributors.


• You have strong command of the credit and lending domain: delinquency, defaults, recoveries, write-offs, roll rates, cure rates, and credit losses.


• You are comfortable with analytics, and use cohorts, vintages, roll rates, cure rates, recovery curves, and segmentation to make decisions.


• You are comfortable with ambiguity, rapid growth, imperfect infrastructure, and shifting priorities - ideally from a scale-up of a comparable size.

Valuable

• A track record of hiring, developing, and upskilling managers.


• Command of collections economics and the trade-offs between recovery, customer outcomes, headcount, vendor cost, and credit losses.


• Meaningful operational collections experience in the US market.

Job Benefits




Why join this role

• A real mandate. You are being hired to build and make your vision come true. You will have executive sponsorship and a direct line to the CFO.


• Scale ahead of you. The function is global today and expanding into new geographies - you will decide what it looks like next.


• A serious team. You will be surrounded by high-quality people who push each other through direct feedback and aligned incentives.


• Speed over process. We have a data-driven culture with a low tolerance for red tape - only results and impact matters.