Director - Lending Strategy

BMO•Toronto, ON

2d•CA$110,500 - CA$192,500

About The Position

Join a pioneering team shaping the future of Canadian Retail Credit Strategies. We’re building next-generation, end-to-end credit solutions that span the entire lifecycle—from acquisition and account management to collections—anchored in a holistic Lending Decision Strategy and aligned with Canadian Personal & Business Banking (P&BB) priorities. Our approach combines cutting-edge decisioning software, advanced decision trees, and innovative credit models to deliver smarter, faster, and more customer-centric outcomes. This is your opportunity to influence credit cycles using modern modeling techniques and best-in-class decisioning applications, all within a high-performance, customer-focused environment. If you’re passionate about leveraging data, technology, and strategy to transform lending decisions and drive meaningful impact across Canadian P&BB, this is the team for you. The Director, Unsecured Account Management Strategies leads the design, development, and execution of advanced risk mitigation strategies across the full suite of Personal Banking lending products. This role is accountable for driving high‑quality strategies mitigating risk in unsecured portfolios, elevating client experience, and strengthening portfolio resilience through next generation decisioning, customer experience, and data‑driven strategy design. Leveraging state‑of‑the‑art decision‑tree technology, machine‑learning enabled models, and optimization platforms, the Director shapes how lending decisions are made. Acting as both a strategic leader and hands‑on practitioner, this role sets strategy across the customer lifecycle through exposure management, behavioural segmentation, early‑warning interventions, and ongoing client management. As a designated model user, the Director provides critical direction on the use of risk models, scores, and analytical signals that differentiate business credit risk. They partner closely with model development, platform owners, and channel leadership to ensure strategies are effective, well‑governed, and aligned to Personal Banking’s risk appetite and growth objectives.

Requirements

Extensive experience in unsecured lending, including lifecycle account management strategy.
Advanced understanding of consumer and/or credit risk modelling, business financial analysis, and model‑enabled decisioning.
Proficiency with decision engines, decision‑tree and optimization software, and analytical platforms (e.g., FICO, SAS, ARGOSS, ML scoring systems).
Strong analytical, strategic, and problem‑solving skills with the ability to translate insights into executable strategies.
Proven ability to lead large, cross‑functional initiatives and influence senior stakeholders.
Deep familiarity with credit policy, regulatory frameworks, and model governance.
Demonstrated commitment to innovation, testing culture, and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

Build and optimize end‑to‑end unsecured lending exposure management strategies using advanced decision‑tree and optimization platforms.
Align interventions to risk managed growth, profitability, risk appetite, and client experience objectives.
Ensure strategies consistently support fair, efficient, and scalable lending decisions.
Serve as a primary model user, guiding how models, scores, and analytical signals are interpreted and incorporated into account management strategies.
Partner with model developers to integrate new and enhanced risk tools into strategy logic, ensuring proper calibration and governance.
Identify and champion new analytical tools, behavioural scores, challenger models, and alternative data sources to improve predictive accuracy and decision quality.
Lead ideation of segmentation schemes and decision pathways that unlock incremental value.
Lead structured experimentation to evaluate, iterate, and scale customer and account treatments and account management strategies.
Drive continuous improvement through evidence‑based strategy refinement.
Own strategy design for credit limits, exposure optimization, early‑warning treatments and portfolio‑level risk mitigation.
Partner with Personal Banking Acquisition, Collections, and Product teams to ensure aligned actions across the customer lifecycle.
Collaborate with Technology, Analytics, Underwriting, and Operations to translate complex strategy logic into deployable decision rules.
Ensure technical feasibility, model governance alignment, and operational integrity across systems and platforms.
Deliver deep, data‑driven insights on portfolio performance, channel trends, client behaviour, and emerging risks.
Recommend proactive adjustments to maintain outcomes within risk appetite.
Ensure all strategies comply with credit policy, regulatory expectations, and model governance standards.
Lead documentation, monitoring, and validation of strategy effectiveness.
Act as a strategic advisor to senior Personal Banking and enterprise leaders.
Influence decisions related to credit policy, product design, client experience, and risk appetite across business units.