Executive Head: Unsecured Lending, Johannesburg

Overview Limit management

Empowering Africa’s tomorrow, together…one story at a time. With over 100 years of rich history and strongly positioned as a local bank with regional and international expertise, a career with our family offers the opportunity to be part of this exciting growth journey, to reset our future and shape our destinyas a proudly African group.

Job Summary The Executive Head: Unsecured Lending is accountable for the end‑to‑end strategy, performance, and transformation of the Personal&Private Bank’s Unsecured Lending, including Credit Cards, Overdrafts and Personal Loans. The role owns profitability, growth, risk outcomes, customer value, and long‑term relevance of the unsecured portfolio, ensuring the Bank remains competitive against traditional peers, digital‑native lenders, retailers, telcos, and fintech ecosystems, while operating within a regulated banking framework. The Executive Head: Unsecured Lending is accountable for the strategy, performance, and long term competitiveness of the Personal&Private Bank’s unsecured lending portfolio, delivering customer centric Credit Card, Overdraft and Personal Loan solutions with disciplined risk, strong returns, and sustainable growth.

Job Description Key accountabilities Unsecured Lending Ownership Own the end-to-end performance of the Unsecured Lending portfolio (Credit Cards, Overdrafts and Personal Loans). This scope covers product, risk outcomes, collections, lifecycle, innovation.

The value chain this role owns is origination, product design, pricing, limit management, collections and analytics.

Accountable for:

Strategy

P&L and balance sheet performance

Credit losses and risk outcomes

Capital efficiency and returns

People and talent strategies and development

Technology enablement solutions and innovative, progressive digital enablement

Managing risk and compliance

Set and execute a 3-to-5-year unsecured lending strategy aligned to Personal&Private Bank and Group objectives

Balance growth, conduct, customer fairness, and risk appetite at portfolio level

Product House Leadership (Cards, Overdraft&Personal Loans)

Lead the Unsecured Lending Product House which includes the Card, Overdraft and Personal Loans product houses, ensuring:

Market leading value propositions

Competitive pricing and features

Strong customer acquisition and usage

Drive synergies across the Unsecured Lending Product Houses to optimize the cost to go-to-market

Card propositions (rewards, partnerships, digital wallets, lifestyle ecosystems)

Personal loan solutions (flexibility, lifecycle lending, refinancing and consolidation)

Overdraft solutions

Ensure product propositions remain relevant across customer segments in Personal and Private Banking.

The role will own operations in terms of processing, servicing and collections execution and partner with channels to optimize these processes keeping the customer at the centre of the solutions.

Partner with Finance on product profitability, cost allocations and capital modelling.

Partner with Technology on credit systems changes, card enhancements and digital journeys.

Customer‑Led Proposition and Lifecycle Management

Shift from product‑centric to customer‑centric unsecured lending models.

Embed lifecycle thinking across:

Acquisition

Limit management

Pricing

Usage stimulation

Early intervention and collections

Deliver purpose‑led solutions aligned to evolving customer behaviours and financial needs

Credit Risk, Analytics and Decisioning Partnership

Partner with Credit Risk to:

Embed advanced analytics and decisioning across origination, pricing, limits, and collections.

Credit policy, decisioning models and approvals.

Optimise risk‑adjusted returns at customer level.

Ensure responsible, explainable, and well‑governed use of data and analytics.

Use insight to improve approval rates, reduce losses, and enhance customer experience

Collections and Recovery Value Chain Oversight

Own the end-to-end collections and recovery strategy for unsecured lending, including:

Early-stage delinquency

Distressed collections

Pre legal and off-balance sheet recovery

Balance recovery performance with:

Customer lifetime value

Fair treatment and conduct outcomes

Govern third party collections partners and suppliers.

Innovation, Digital and Ecosystem Enablement

Drive the evolution of unsecured lending propositions through:

Digital channels

Embedded finance

Strategic partnerships

Identify and incubate new unsecured revenue streams

Ensure rapid experimentation is paired with disciplined scaling and commercial rigor.

This role will own technology decisions and budgets that impact the product focused on enhancing franchise value and penetrating deeper into the Absa customer base, pricing and servicing operations.

This role will prioritise change and develop the roadmap and partner with the technology teams to enable the delivery of these ambitions.

Governance, Risk and Regulatory Stewardship

Strengthen governance, control, and assurance frameworks across all unsecured lending activities.

Ensure compliance with:

Credit regulation

Consumer protection standards

Conduct risk expectations

Represent the unsecured lending franchise in:

Internal governance forums

Regulatory engagements (as required)

People and Leadership

Lead multidisciplinary teams across:

Products

Analytics

Collections

Operations (in partnership)

Build a high performance, risk aware culture.

Develop leadership succession and critical skills within the unsecured lending franchise.

Minimum Requirements

Qualifications

Post-graduate degree or Honors degree in Quantitative Analytics, Finance, Economics or related field.

An MBA is preferred or a specialist Masters qualification.

Experience: 12+ years’ experience in banking or financial services, including senior leadership roles in coverage, enablement, sales or strategy. Proven track record of managing complex, high‑value client relationships at executive level and with eco-systems partnerships

Deep understanding of South African Business Banking, credit, risk and regulatory frameworks.

Extensive experience in Personal or Private Banking products

Experience operating in high‑risk, high‑impact environments

Exposure to cross‑functional and enterprise‑wide coordination

Skills

Deep understanding of credit risk and portfolio performance drivers

Strong commercial acumen (margin, capital, cost of risk)

Uses data and analytics to guide decisions and detect early risk

Brings credible sector insight and market understanding

Translates strategy into practical execution and playbooks

Strong balance‑sheet, pricing and funding literacy

Executive‑level communication and governance judgement

Competencies

Creating and Conceptualising

Enterprising and Performing

Leading and Deciding

Analysing and Interpreting

Strategic Visioning

Business Acumen

Customer Obsessed

Inspirational People Leadership

Education Master\'s Degree: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required), Postgraduate Degrees and Professional Qualifications: Business, Commerce and Management Studies (Required)

Absa Bank Limited is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer. In compliance with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, preference will be given to suitable candidates from designated groups whose appointments will contribute towards achievement of equitable demographic representation of our workforce profile and add to the diversity of the Bank. Absa Bank Limited reserves the right not to make an appointment to the post as advertised

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