Specialist Finance Portfolio Management Director

The Opportunity

Shawbrook provides finance to a wide range of customer segments that value the premium experience, flexibility and certainly we deliver. We are a purpose-led organisation, with a focus on delivering long-term sustainable value for all our stakeholders.

We have a diversified offering, with our innovative lending propositions tailored to meet specific customer needs in carefully selected markets across SME, Real Estate and Personal. Our products range from complex structured credit facilities for growth-focused businesses to mortgages for professional landlords and property investors, as well as simple loans for consumers delivered digitally. We fuel our lending through customer deposits, which we attract by delivering a premium experience, choice and consistently great value to smart savers.

The business model we have created is unique and difficult to replicate, with our 'best of both' approach combining deep human expertise with advanced digital, tech and data capabilities. This combination not only allows us to deliver excellent customer experiences, but to do so efficiently and at scale. We are proud of our innovative and agile culture, which drives consistently high employee engagement scores and makes Shawbrook an attractive destination for the best talent. If you're willing to roll up your sleeves, contribute new ideas and believe anything is possible, you're our kind of person.

Work with us because you:

• Want to be part of a bank built for the dynamics of the modern world
• Relish a challenge and enjoy a fast-paced, innovative and hardworking culture
• Enjoy finding new and better ways to solve complexity and make things happen
• Want to belong to a diverse culture that stands shoulder to shoulder with minority and underrepresented groups
• Care about society and the environment and want to be part of a business that cares too
• Want to continue to grow professionally and be the best version of yourself

The Role & Responsibilities

• Primary contact for a set of existing SF clients, responsible for managing client relationships and dealing with funding requests, ad-hoc facility amendment or increase requests, and providing regular credit or other risk updates on client performance and covenant compliance.
• To contribute to the Specialist Finance ("SF") lending activity for Shawbrook and achieve targeted levels of book growth, return on capital and profitability.
• To manage and achieve a high level of credit quality and operate to high standards of risk management, building and maintaining monitoring tools, identifying client trends, providing analysis and insights and leading new initiatives of the team.

Key Responsibilities

Background

• The SF team within Shawbrook provides tailored funding solutions to the SME market. The team's financing solutions are catered towards supporting specialist non-bank finance companies with debt facilities secured against a portfolio of receivables, or cash flow lends providing leverage funding to support sponsor backed acquisitions or to support venture capital backed businesses by providing growth capital. Our debt solutions span across a wide range of sectors, ranging from consumer finance, asset finance, SME corporate finance to property finance companies. The Portfolio Management team is responsible for developing these existing relationships whilst managing the risk for the Bank.

Portfolio Management

• Post new deal execution, to actively manage the customer relationship for a portfolio of clients and monitor facility compliance with lending covenants and terms. This includes diligent monitoring of sector trends, performance of borrower / counterparties operations, as well as facility covenants through building and maintaining monitoring sheets. Assisting clients with regular funding requests and ongoing queries.
• Ownership of the annual review and credit process, from time to time including ad-hoc amendment or increase requests and covenant restructures as appropriate. This includes being alert to new business opportunities within the existing customer base.
• Consider market, macroeconomic and regulatory impacts on the portfolio and take necessary actions where appropriate, including updating relevant Risk Committees on early warning signs and managing watchlist clients in conjunction with Business support and Credit functions.
• Play a vital role in rolling out new strategic initiatives for Structured Finance, including compliance, regulatory and risk management oversight, and attend relevant industry events. Focus on managing / overviewing portfolio performance and exposure against policy limits.
• Management of stakeholder relationships, internally being the credit division, peers and colleagues across lending divisions, compliance and client support functions, whilst externally being clients and relevant counterparties such as legal counsel, advisors, private equity houses and other industry partners

Deal Execution

• To propose, negotiate and execute: i) facility amendments (e.g. facility increases); ii) covenant waivers / resets; and iii) in-life management activity, for existing clients. Role requires detailed analysis to understand the risks of existing facilities to ensure in-life credit requests are appropriately structured to meet the customers' needs, but also mitigates risks in such a way as to minimise Shawbrook's exposure. Candidate will be responsible for the end-to-end credit process, including negotiating with clients, writing of credit papers, presenting transactions to Credit Committee and completion through to legals.

Regulatory and Compliance

• Compliance with the Bank's Risk Management Framework, including all policies and procedures. To include completion of mandatory training.
• To report all issues of regulatory concern to the Chief Compliance Officer.
• To communicate and escalate potential issues / risks in a prompt and effective manner.
• To provide support in managing and building out the overall compliance and risk management framework of SF.

Team Management

• Maintain and development strong relationships with the other parts of the Shawbrook group who play their part in the SF output, i.e. Operations, Credit, HR, Finance, Risk etc.
• Support the development and well-being of other team members. Where required, directly performance manage dedicated junior staff
• Support the attraction and retention of talented individuals to support the growth of SF.

The Person

• Quantitative Degree/CFA or similar business qualification or equivalent work experience appropriate to the role.
• Minimum of 5 to 10 years' experience in either a credit risk, portfolio management, transaction (re)structuring role preferred gained at either a bank, fund or advisory environment.
• Experience in structuring and executing SF transactions and risk management, with preferably sector expertise and knowledge of lending practices across either (i) the wholesale Lending/securitisation/warehousing markets or (ii) either the leverage finance/venture debt/healthcare and renewable markets.
• Strong experience working on SF deals in a portfolio management capacity, including management of client amendment/increase requests and familiarity with negotiation/structuring/credit/legal process.
• Strong analytical skills, including advanced knowledge of Excel, being able to manage and handle complex issues.
• Experience with financial models and good understanding of financial statements (for portfolio managers involved in analysis of receivable backed portfolios this includes cashflow/collateral analysis).
• Leadership skills combined with entrepreneurial spirit
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to quickly build rapport in order to engage employees and gain support of peers.
• Ability to develop strong relationships with all business areas
• Strong influencing skills and the ability to communicate effectively both orally and in writing with all levels of management, regulators, and committees of the Board of Directors.
• Adherence to bank's policies, compliance with all regulatory requirements, remaining in good standing with regulatory agencies.

Reward

Your Wellbeing - We take your health and well-being very seriously by providing a range of benefits to give you and your family peace of mind. These include:

• Market leading family friendly policies such as access to our Maternity, Adoption and Paternity policies from Day 1 of your employment
• Free access to Headspace, a mindfulness & meditation digital health app
• Free access to Peppy digital health app that offers personalised support through fertility treatment becoming a parent or menopause
• EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) - Offering you support on a wide range of subjects including financial concerns, mental wellbeing and more general queries around family, work, housing, and health
• Cycle to work scheme
• Discounts on gym membership
• Contributory pension scheme & death in service

Your Lifestyle - It's important you strike the right balance between your work and personal life. We provide benefits to support you when at work and when you're enjoying your leisure time.

• Minimum of 27 days holiday per year
• Option to buy or sell holiday days through our flexi-holiday scheme
• Discounts on gym membership nationwide
• Access to discounts on a range of high street and online brands
• Community support and charitable giving

Your Contribution - We're focused on rewarding those that go the extra mile in helping us achieve our goals.

• Participation in our annual discretionary bonus scheme designed to reward your contribution to our success
• Proudly Shawbrook recognition scheme focused on recognising our role models and thanking our colleagues for a job well done