Senior Manager - Credit Risk & Payment Assistance

The Senior Manager - Credit Risk & Payment Assistance is the senior functional leader accountable for the enterprise-wide customer risk lifecycle across Consumer Energy and Telco operations. The role sets the strategic direction for portfolio risk, fraud prevention, payment assistance, collections and recoveries, balancing customer outcomes, regulatory obligations and long-term commercial value.

Reporting to the GM - Service, the role operates as a key member of the Consumer leadership team, providing authoritative advice on risk appetite, portfolio performance, customer payment strategy and emerging threats. It leads significant onshore and offshore operations, owns material third-party relationships and investment priorities, and sponsors transformation that strengthens controls, accelerates automation and delivers sustainable improvements in cash, bad debt, fraud and customer experience.

• Enterprise credit risk, fraud strategy and governance: Set the strategic direction, risk appetite and governance framework for Consumer credit and fraud across Energy and Telco; provide executive advice on portfolio exposure, emerging threats and material control issues; approve policies, decisioning strategies and risk tolerances; and ensure effective oversight of identity misuse, account takeover, first-party fraud, payment fraud and chargebacks.
• Portfolio performance, collections and recoveries: Hold end-to-end accountability for bad debt, cash collections, arrears, recoveries and debt sale performance; establish portfolio strategies, investment priorities and performance guardrails; challenge business settings and treatment effectiveness; and direct agency, legal recovery and debt sale outcomes to maximise sustainable value.
• Payment assistance strategy: Set the operating strategy, service standards and governance for payment assistance; ensure customers experiencing financial difficulty receive fair, timely and sustainable outcomes; oversee assessment and arrangement effectiveness; and influence enterprise policy, product and process decisions that affect customer payment outcomes.
• Transformation, data and technology: Sponsor a multi-year transformation roadmap across risk decisioning, collections, payment journeys and fraud management; secure alignment on investment priorities; deploy advanced analytics, real-time monitoring and automated case management; and establish benefits realisation disciplines that deliver measurable commercial, customer and control outcomes.
• Regulatory, assurance and executive governance: Act as the senior accountable leader for operational compliance across the portfolio; maintain readiness for regulatory review and independent assurance; oversee material incidents and remediation; provide clear reporting and recommendations to executive governance forums; and ensure regulatory change is implemented sustainably and on time.
• Leadership, partnerships and organisational capability: Lead a complex onshore and offshore function through senior leaders; create clear accountability and succession depth; own strategic relationships with agencies, credit bureaus and payment partners; shape workforce and sourcing decisions; and build a high-performance culture grounded in judgement, customer outcomes and continuous improvement.

• Substantial senior leadership experience with end-to-end accountability for credit risk, fraud prevention, collections, recoveries, payment assistance or payments in a large regulated business.
• Demonstrated ownership of material portfolio outcomes, including bad debt, cash collection, fraud loss, customer outcomes and operating cost.
• Proven ability to set enterprise strategy, risk appetite, policy and governance, and to influence executive decisions across competing commercial, customer and regulatory priorities.
• Deep expertise in fraud typologies, identity verification, payment authentication, transaction monitoring, chargebacks, investigations and emerging-threat response.
• Strong command of payment assistance, financial difficulty, collections and customer protection frameworks.
• Track record sponsoring complex transformation, automation, analytics and control-uplift programs from strategy through benefits realisation.
• Exceptional commercial and financial acumen, with the ability to translate portfolio insight into investment choices, operating priorities and measurable value.
• Experience leading large, geographically dispersed teams through leaders and managing critical outsourced and third-party partnerships.
• Executive-level communication, influencing and regulatory engagement capability, including the ability to present complex risk matters with clarity and authority.
• Experience across both Energy and Telecommunications is highly desirable.
• Experience with Gentrack, Equifax, fraud and collections decision engines, debt sale and agency management programs is required.

What We Offer 

Working at Vocus will give you rewarding experiences and the opportunity to do extraordinary work. You will enjoy: 

• Diverse and dynamic teams with a supportive and inclusive culture. 
• Supportive career development plans with comprehensive ongoing training, support, and development opportunities. 
• Flexible hours and a hybrid working environment 
• Generous discounts on power, gas, mobile and internet; plus, discounts to over 400 retailers. 
• Competitive leave options, including anniversary leave, purchased leave, parental leave, volunteering leave, study leave, and 5 extra days of Vocus leave each year, plus more.
• Study assistance programs to excel your personal growth, learning and development. 
• Health and wellness offerings, including access to our wellbeing initiatives that can help you from a financial, psychological, and physical perspective. 

Working at Vocus is never just a job – it’s personal. We’re crazy about our customers and believe our people are the difference. Our wonderfully diverse team and a vibrant culture define us. We care about the impact we have on our people, our customers, and our communities and are committed to operating as a responsible, ethical business. 

We pride ourselves on setting audacious and ambitious goals and believe that we can play our part in changing the Australian telecommunications landscape and make a fundamental difference to people’s lives. 

With us, you’ll have the opportunity to lead and inspire teams, work on projects that are shaping the future of telecommunications and become part of a culture that thrives on creativity, encourages new ideas, and provides a collaborative and inclusive environment.  

About Us 

As Australia’s specialist fibre and network solutions provider, we own and operate 25,000km of secure, high-capacity fibre connecting people, businesses, governments, and communities across Australia to the world. Through our well-known retail brands, we deliver simple and affordable broadband, mobile, voice and energy services with the purpose of Building Critical Connections. Enabling Better Possibilities.  

Ready to take the next step? 

If you like the sound of this role and think you’d do a great job, but are worried you don’t tick every box, we encourage you to back yourself – we know that diverse groups are less-likely to apply for roles they’re not 100% qualified for, but just as likely to succeed at them!  

We are a proud equal opportunity employer committed to providing a safe, diverse, and inclusive working environment where all our team members feel like they belong. We know diversity makes us stronger and we encourage applications irrespective of background, age, origin, gender, sexual orientation, identity, or ability.   

If you feel comfortable, please let us know if you have any accessibility requirements upon application, so we can make any adjustments required to support you throughout our recruitment process.