Founding Credit Manager in Newcastle

We’re building a disciplined, scalable lending business from the ground up - with a strong focus on compliant growth, high-quality underwriting, and tight operational execution.

This is an opportunity to help shape how credit is done from day one, not walk into something already built.

As Founding Credit Manager, you will own the day-to‑day credit function at Skyso - leading front‑line assessment across secured personal and auto lending, and setting the standard for credit quality from launch.

Ultimately, this is expected to be a People Leader role who will hire Credit Officers as Skyso scales.

You’ll manage deals end‑to‑end from initial scenario through to settlement, working closely with brokers and sales to drive strong approval quality and conversion outcomes - all while ensuring alignment with Skyso’s credit policy and risk appetite.

This is a hands‑on role at the centre of the business.

You’ll be actively assessing deals, influencing structuring decisions pre‑submission, and partnering with Growth and Operations to build a high‑performing lending engine from the ground up.

The role reports directly to the CEO.

To help build a strong culture from day one, the role is based in our central Newcastle office, with an expectation of at least three days per week onsite.

Key responsibilities

• Credit assessment and decisioning
• Assess loan applications across secured personal and auto products in line with credit policy, risk appetite, and responsible lending obligations.
• Analyse income, expenses, serviceability, security position, and overall borrower profile.
• Apply judgement on borderline applications - balancing risk, commercial outcomes, and policy intent.
• Document clear, auditable credit decisions with appropriate rationale and conditions.
• Deal structuring and broker engagement
• Workshop live scenarios with sales agents and brokers to optimise deal structure prior to submission (improving first‑time approval rates).
• Liaise directly with brokers on submissions - missing information, structuring changes, and conditions.
• Where required, engage directly with customers to clarify information, validate inconsistencies, or progress applications.
• Pipeline management and settlement execution
• Manage a high‑volume pipeline across application stages: submission, conditional approval, verification, documentation, and settlement.
• Work closely with Sales and Operations to ensure conditions are satisfied, documentation is accurate, and deals progress efficiently to funding.
• Maintain strong turnaround times without compromising credit quality.
• Credit quality and risk monitoring
• Support ongoing monitoring of credit outcomes - approval quality, early arrears signals, and exceptions.
• Identify patterns or issues (e. g. broker quality, document inconsistencies, risk drift) and elevate appropriately.
• Contribute practical feedback into credit policy and process improvements.
• Compliance and responsible lending
• Ensure all assessments meet NCCP responsible lending obligations and internal compliance standards.
• Maintain clean, auditable files - evidence of assessment, verification, and decisioning must be complete and defensible.
• Required experience
• 5+ years in a credit assessment or lending role within a bank, non‑bank lender, or specialist finance provider.
• Strong experience assessing consumer lending applications (auto finance and/or personal loans preferred).
• Exposure to non‑bank lending structures, risk‑tiered pricing, and broker‑originated applications is highly desirable.
• Working understanding of responsible lending requirements and how they apply in practice at the assessment level.
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