Business Unit: Group Risk, Risk Analytics
Salary Range: up to circa £90,000 depending on experience
Location: Flexible
Contract Type: Permanent 

Give your career some Virgin va-va-voom

Virgin Money is all about disrupting the status quo, taking on the challenges of the future, and saying goodbye to boring banking. We’re on the lookout for like-minded individuals and innovators like you to help push us forward. We’re also transforming how we work to give our colleagues more choice, control and flexibility to live and work how they choose with A Life More Virgin.

Here’s what it means for YOU:

• 38.5 days annual leave for all colleagues (including bank holidays and pro rata if part-time)​
• Up to five extra paid well-being days per year​
• A 35-hour working week
• 20 weeks paid, gender neutral family leave (52 weeks in total) for expectant parents and those looking to adopt
• Market leading Pension & Private Medical Insurance
• Flexible benefits including Cycle to Work, Wellness & Health Assessments and Critical Illness
• Ability to work anywhere in the UK​ (where the role allows) 

And you get these Red-Hot Rewards from day one!

Here at Virgin Money, we take a huge amount of pride in what we do, working seamlessly across all areas to achieve the same goals for the business. This is an exciting time as we develop our Risk Analytics Centre of Excellence (RACE). Our ambition is to deliver first-class modelling capability by:

• Driving consistency by ensuring modelling choices are conducted consistently and coherently
• Ensuring best practice sharing across advanced modelling approaches (e.g. ML, monte carlo simulation, OpenBanking data)
• Delivering at speed with an ability to load balance across a large, centralised team of SME’s, building on pre-existing data sets and codes and rapidly engage with system implementation.
• Deliver efficiencies across a consolidated model landscape via utilisation of engineered and verified data and validated code snippets.

As a Risk Analytics Engagement Lead Manager, you’ll be a member of the Risk Analytics Team, reporting to the Risk Analytics Senior Engagement Manager. Your role has a strong focus on ensuring Virgin Money is set up with a Risk Analytics Centre of Excellence, driving enhanced modelling capability. You’ll therefore work closely with other leaders across the risk teams and the business to provide guidance, and challenge to ensure these core accountabilities are brought to life.

Whilst this role will not involve managing a team day to day, you will however deputise for the Senior Manager to ensure consistency and ongoing management of the team and deliverables, and represent, when required, the Risk Analytics team by attending and providing input to committee and Board papers, along with the regulators. You’ll work with stakeholders at all levels across the Group, particularly with Risk Finance, and Audit teams.

Day to day you’ll...

• Coordinate with the Engagement Senior Manager to improve modelling process efficiency/effectiveness (e.g., Agile modelling, Live Model View, Effective challenge)
• Support the best practice approach (manual, resources, shared insights, etc.) to codify and share innovations across RACE, involving third parties and industry forums
• Review quarterly RACE programme and alignment with strategic objectives of the bank and wider stakeholder group (e.g., Audit and Regulators)
• Monitor to ensure complete set of initiatives are adequately set up in terms of governance and stakeholder engagement and resourced
• Provide insight and MI to support progress within RACE initiatives alongside result reporting (in conjunction with Workflow manager)
• Manage, coach and support the standing up of Data Scientist team within identified programmes for short durations (up to 3 months) to accelerate delivery
• Mentorship responsibilities to other members of the team
• Ensure compliance with all corporate standards, policies, processes, and procedures and with all external legal, regulatory, and voluntary codes and practices.
• Keep abreast of all external developments and asses the Bank’s position relative to these.

There are a few essentials you need to bring… 

• Track record of leading analytics engagements (preferably in Risk)
• Technically proficient and highly numerate with a degree in a mathematical/engineering discipline
• Experienced in managing, coaching and deploying a team
• Confident communicator at senior management and executive level
• Experience in coaching and developing a small team of technical individuals
• Experience of building trusted relationships with a wide range of stakeholders at all levels, including feeding opinions and challenges into the governance process in a constructive and authoritative manner to ensure the 2nd line opinion adds value and is effective.
• Excellent and effective communication skills, both verbal and written, with experience of managing challenge and conflict
• Capacity to handle high workflows and prioritise appropriately, ensuring tasks are completed within required timeframes.
• High motivation and to demonstrate a professional "can do" attitude
• Proven excellence in influencing, challenging and guiding the business to make decisions which are aligned to strategy, regulator expectations and customer need.

The icing on the cake….

• A strong understanding of advanced development approaches deployed in risk modelling
• A broad understanding of the various types of models (IRB, IFRS9, ST, Digital Lending, Early Warning, Collections, etc.) developed within RACE
• Prior experience in a similar role involved in leading surgical interventions to aid complex, strategic projects to deliver high quality end products on time
• A strategic view of the banking industry with an understanding of how its evolution would affect the model set of assets 
• Technically proficient and highly numerate with a degree in a mathematical/engineering discipline

We really need you to have the skills and experience listed in the essentials section above, but the rest is just our wish list, so please don’t let that put you off applying, we’d love to hear from you!

Inclusion at Virgin Money

Inclusion is at the heart of everything we do here at Virgin Money. It’s good for you, it’s good for us and it’s amazing for our customers. We know that great minds don’t think alike, so we rely on your diverse thoughts, feelings, beliefs and backgrounds to be the best we can possibly be. Got any questions about this or need some support with your application? We’d love to hear from you so get in touch with our careers team at careers@virginmoney.com.

Now the legal bit…
Living A Life More Virgin allows our colleagues to be based anywhere in the UK (if the role allows it) but we will need to you to confirm you have the Right to Work in the UK.

If we offer you a job and you accept, there are some checks we need to complete before you can start with us. This will include a credit and criminal record check, as well as providing 3 years' worth of satisfactory references.