Head of Corporate and Commercial Portfolio Credit Risk

At Metro Bank, we believe the best banking experience starts with people who genuinely care. We’re not just delivering banking services - we’re building trust through authentic connections. Here, our people come first; our colleagues are part of a team that values individuality, collaboration, and long-standing relationships. We are also all about balance so most of our jobs offer the opportunity for hybrid working built around your role and home life, wherever possible.

This role presents an exciting opportunity for an experienced Credit Risk professional to make a significant impact within a growing and transforming business. Sitting within the second line of defence, you will play a key role in shaping lending strategy, providing independent challenge, and influencing commercial decision-making to support sustainable growth. With exposure to senior leadership, you will have the opportunity to shape credit risk frameworks, strengthen governance, and support the delivery of the Bank's strategic priorities.

• Lead and develop a team of senior credit risk professionals, providing oversight, coaching and performance management to ensure effective risk management across Metro Bank’s Corporate & Commercial lending portfolios.
• Own the Corporate & Commercial credit risk framework, ensuring lending portfolios are built, monitored and controlled within the Bank’s strategic risk appetite and regulatory requirements.
• Develop and maintain credit risk appetite, policies, lending standards and lifecycle controls, ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and alignment to business strategy.
• Chair the Commercial Credit Risk Oversight Committee (C-CROC), providing governance, approving policies and lending standards, monitoring portfolio performance and escalating material risks to senior risk committees.
• Provide independent oversight and assurance of portfolio performance, including risk appetite monitoring, portfolio reviews, policy compliance, remediation plans and risk governance escalation where required.
• Lead portfolio reporting and impairment forecasting, delivering robust MI, credit risk insights, ECL planning and oversight of individual impairments to support financial planning and decision-making.
• Act as the credit risk lead for strategic initiatives, new products and business change programmes, ensuring credit risk implications are understood and appropriate end-to-end risk capabilities are embedded.
• Own key commercial credit risk models, systems and external stakeholder relationships, overseeing model governance, risk grading frameworks, regulatory engagement (including the PRA) and external risk communications.

And... we are a bank so risk is a part of everything we do. We love people who take responsibility, do the right thing for customers, colleagues and Metro Bank and have the ability to call out any concerns.

What you will need:

• Extensive understanding of credit risk approaches, techniques, oversight and control frameworks for corporate and commercial lending through the credit lifecycle (originations, existing customer management, collections and recoveries).
• Experience operating in a Leadership role within a commercial credit policy, portfolio oversight, strategy and/or credit underwriting team.
• Knowledge in credit risk management across multiple commercial lending products including fixed term and revolving, secured and unsecured.
• Knowledge of loss drivers and lessons learned.
• Up to date with relevant UK regulatory requirements and changes.
• Strong leadership and stakeholder management skills, with experience influencing and constructively challenging Executive, Board-level and regulatory stakeholders whilst building productive cross-functional relationships.
• Strategic and analytical thinker, able to simplify complex issues, make risk-based decisions, solve problems effectively and understand the wider organisational impact.
• Proven ability to drive high performance and organisational change, setting best-practice standards, leading diverse teams, developing talent and delivering sustainable business outcomes.
• Understand the risks associated with your job and what that means for you, Metro Bank and all our stakeholders.

Our promise to you…

• We will make sure that you are well-rewarded by providing you with a competitive salary, discretionary annual bonus, and a wide range of benefits, including generous holiday allowance, attractive pension scheme, healthcare, life assurance, and a number of colleague discounts!
• We will give you the training to ensure you succeed in your role and plenty of internal opportunities to progress your career (around 40% of our recruitment comes from internal promotions!).
• This role is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) under the Senior Managers and Certification Regime. This means that if you are successful in your application, we are required to carry out additional checks that will be repeated annually while you are in this role.

Important Footnote: Diverse teams really are the best teams. We know that candidates (especially women, research tells us) may be put off applying for a job unless they can tick every box. We also know that ‘normal’ office hours aren’t always doable, and while we can’t accommodate every flexible working request we are happy to be asked. So if you are excited about working with us and think you can do much of what we are looking for but aren’t sure if you are 100% there yet… why not give it a whirl? Good luck!