Senior Lead – Enterprise Portfolio Credit Risk

Freddie Mac•McLean, VA

22h

About The Position

This role is central to Freddie Mac’s enterprise financial risk oversight, focusing on how the company anticipates, measures, and manages Single-Family credit risk throughout the economic cycle. The Senior Lead will translate macroeconomic and market signals into actionable credit loss forecasts and stress-test insights, which will inform risk appetite and capital resilience under both internal scenarios and regulatory frameworks (e.g., DFAST). As an independent risk leader, the position involves providing effective challenge to models and deterministic quantitative methods, strengthening governance and use standards, and continuously enhancing forecasting and portfolio risk analytics. The role requires close partnership across Enterprise Risk, Model Risk, and the business to monitor key risk indicators, identify emerging risks early, assess new initiatives and policy changes, and evaluate portfolio strategies such as loss mitigation and liquidation approaches. This position offers high visibility, significant influence on enterprise outcomes, and opportunities for innovation in risk analytics, model governance, and data-driven oversight, while also developing and leading talent in a fast-paced, mission-critical environment. The Financial Risk team within the Enterprise Risk Division is responsible for the oversight and effective challenge of the company’s most important risks, including credit, market, and liquidity risks. This team establishes governance, policies, and standards for financial risk management, monitors and reports on risk and control profiles, financial risk appetite, and performance of risk indicators, communicates enterprise-wide risk management issues, provides independent oversight and challenge of financial risk management practices, assesses risk to earnings and capital, and executes an integrated oversight plan.

Requirements

10 years of experience in a combination of leadership roles in risk management and credit loss forecasting, or related functions within a large, complex financial institution
Quantitative degree preferred in finance, economics, mathematics, statistics, or related field
Ability to understand macroeconomic and credit forecast models stress testing methodologies and credit risk management practices
Familiarity with relevant regulatory requirements, including CCAR/DFAST and Basel standards
Expertise in mortgage and fixed income products, model loss estimation, and loss forecasting
Understanding of uncertainties and limitations of models, methodologies, and judgments used to measure and manage stress losses and capital adequacy
Strong decision-making skills with the ability to work under pressure effectively to resolve critical issues
Experience with analyzing complex financial data and risk management software and financial analysis tools (e.g., Python, R, Excel)
Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to communicate complex information to a variety of audiences, including senior management and regulators, in a clear and actionable manner
Demonstrated track record of innovation in risk analytics, data infrastructure, or model governance practices

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree or professional certifications (e.g., FRM, CFA) a plus

Responsibilities

Analyze macroeconomic and financial drivers of credit loss forecasts; quantify their impact on losses across multiple scenarios, including baseline outlook changes, quarterly Current Expected Credit Losses (CECL), and stress tests (internal, such as Risk Appetite, and regulatory, such as Dodd-Frank Act Stress Testing)
Conduct Model and Deterministic Quantitative Methods (DQM) use assessments for new and existing models/DQMs, including material changes, to ensure they are appropriately designed and applied in risk management activities
Build strong partnerships with Single-Family counterparts and across Enterprise Risk
Evaluate, test, and enhance macroeconomic and credit models; develop and recommend new approaches to improve forecast accuracy and risk insights over time
Monitor Key Risk Indicators (KRIs) and other risk metrics to assess credit risk exposure; set quantitative thresholds and perform trend analysis to identify emerging risks
Perform quantitative analysis and modeling to assess portfolio risk exposure
Conduct independent risk assessments and issue effective challenge as part of monitoring activities, including deep-dive reviews of high-risk segments and pipeline risk analysis
Evaluate new initiatives and significant changes to assess credit risk
Perform quantitative analysis on diverse portfolio issues, including asset liquidation strategies and methodology changes
Review corporate credit policies and maintain departmental policies and procedures
Monitor industry and sector trends and emerging regulatory developments to inform portfolio credit risk management activities