Meet Athena, the Home Loan Wrecker
Athena Home Loans burst into the industry in 2019 to shake things up and change home loans for good.
We're reimagining home loans and showing Australia there's a lender on their side. Home loans are all we do. We continue to rewrite the rules of home lending, creating tools, products and policy that put the power back in our customers' hands. Athena has been recognised amongst multiple consumer lending and industry awards including Canstar Outstanding Value and Innovation Excellence awards, RateCity and Mozo awards, Fintech Lender of the year, and made AFR Boss best places to work list.
We are seeking a Head of Credit Strategy to lead and evolve our credit risk framework, lending policy and overall credit approach. Reporting directly to the Chief Risk Officer, this is a senior leadership opportunity to influence business-wide decision making, drive innovation and shape the future direction of credit risk within a fast-growing lender.
About You
You will bring strong residential lending and credit risk experience, along with the ability to balance strategic thinking with hands-on delivery.
What you will do:
- Be a strategic leader responsible for setting the Credit Risk Appetite for Athena which includes monitoring market trends, understanding the competitive landscape and knowing all legislative requirements
- Collaborate with senior leaders to deliver innovation agenda, communicate updates and deliver credit risk changes
- Responsible for uplifting of credit skills across the team and supporting sales teams to understand and apply policy in their interactions
- Maintain and drive critical policies for the continued success including Risk Appetite Statement, Responsible Lending Obligations, Lending Policy and DLA Framework
- Manage critical vendor relationships related to credit services including contract negotiations and on-going management
- Participate in industry discussions, including regular Australian Retail Credit Association workshops to strengthen the credit bureau reporting system
- Perform probably of default modelling to make informed appetite and policy decisions in order to maintain approved risk appetite mortgages portfolio
- Have oversight into risk control performance within the end-to-end application value chain (i.e., policy waivers trends, rules engine outcomes, DLA decisions/mitigation, quality results)
- Undertake thematic reviews (i.e., reviews based on application risk combinations such as LVR, postcode, serviceability, employment type/length or environmental hazard events)
You will have:
- Deep credit risk expertise across residential mortgages and secured lending
- Strong understanding of credit policy, risk appetite, and responsible lending obligations
- Experience within banking, non-bank lending, or fintech environments
- Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills
- Commercial acumen with a balanced approach to risk management
- Experience leading change, policy improvements, or strategic credit initiatives
What’s on Offer
- Senior leadership role reporting directly to the CRO
- Opportunity to influence strategy and decision making within a high-growth lender
- Innovative and collaborative working environment
- Hybrid working model
- Competitive salary package + bonus + ESOP
You'll be joining an experienced team, passionate about being best in class in everything we do. We have a relaxed and fun atmosphere where you can bring your unique self and skills to help us all grow as a team. Be great, be you, play nice.
At Athena we are committed to a workplace that embraces diversity, equality, and inclusion. Athenians are free to let their own brand of freak fly.
Please be sure to add [email protected] to your contact list to ensure delivery of all correspondence from us.
Skills Required
- Deep credit risk expertise across residential mortgages and secured lending
- Strong understanding of credit policy, risk appetite, and responsible lending obligations
- Experience within banking, non-bank lending, or fintech environments
- Strong stakeholder engagement and communication skills
- Commercial acumen with a balanced approach to risk management
- Experience leading change, policy improvements, or strategic credit initiatives
What We Do
The big banks are definitely having a lend… locking borrowers into a life sentence, charging them for sneezing, and giving 0% interest in treating customers like people. We know, we used to work for them. Enter Athena, the Game-Changing Goddess of Good Stuff. She spoke to us (well it was more of a roasting) and talked of a brighter future where people could be freed of their mortgage handcuffs. “It’s not about getting a home loan, it’s about getting rid of a £#!*ing home loan!” She was right. We did the sums, and worked out that without the big bank costs and complications, and by creating our own ground-breaking tech platform that enables us to bypass the banks to access new methods of funding, then we actually could slice a pretty huge chunk of time and money off the life of the loan. Finding a short-cut to financial freedom, Athena’s vision is now a reality. Now you can enjoy a home loan with a whole new level of service, speed and savings.
