Director, Credit Risk Strategy Optimization Oversight

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Join a purpose‑driven team at the core of BMO’s risk management ecosystem. As the Director, Credit Risk Strategy Optimization Oversight, you will lead the end‑to‑end optimization, governance, and oversight of retail credit strategies across the consumer credit lifecycle including acquisition, account management, line management, pricing, and authorizations to balance profitable growth, PCL and KRM performance, portfolio resilience, capital efficiency, and regulatory compliance. This role sets the strategy vision, establishes guardrails and governance, and enables a test‑and‑learn culture to drive measurable improvements in risk‑adjusted returns, loss outcomes, capital usage, and customer experience. As a senior enterprise specialist, the Director provides independent, effective challenge and trusted advisory to senior leaders and cross‑functional partners.

Key Responsibilities

Strategy Optimization, Risk Intelligence & Effective Challenge, and Portfolio Outcomes

Own the enterprise credit‑strategy framework to optimize risk–reward and drive improvements in approvals, utilization, balances, profitability, and portfolio quality within risk appetite and capital constraints.

• Refine the enterprise credit‑strategy framework to ensure optimal risk–reward, capital efficiency, and compliance with risk appetite, governance, and regulatory expectations.
• Act as senior SME guiding champion/challenger design across approvals, line strategies, pricing/offers, and authorization rules using rigorous experimentation, advanced analytics, and sound risk judgment.
• Embed a disciplined effective‑challenge function across the full strategy lifecycle, ensuring integrity in problem framing, data/feature quality, model/score use, test design, monitoring, fairness reviews, and documentation.
• Convert analytical insights into scalable production strategies using bureau, behavioural, and alternative data; establish strong KPI/KRM monitoring to support performance, resilience, and early‑warning detection.
• Elevate risk intelligence by synthesizing early‑warning signals, peer benchmarks, macro trends, stress‑scenario results, and regulatory developments into actionable, forward‑looking guidance for senior leaders.
• Embed affordability, macro‑sensitivity, stress‑testing outcomes, and PD/LGD/EAD overlays directly into strategy design to ensure resilience across economic conditions.
• Review strategic business cases to ensure analytical defensibility, alignment to risk appetite, sound assumptions, and strong control considerations.
• Maintain transparent, audit‑ready documentation including strategy rationale, controls, change logs, and validation summaries.

Strategic Advisory, Governance & Oversight

• Define and enforce strategy guardrails, documentation standards, and governance routines aligned with enterprise risk appetite, Model Risk, Compliance, and OSFI expectations.
• Serve as primary liaison to 2nd Line, Internal Audit, and governance forums, providing independent perspectives on portfolio trends, emerging risks, variances, and mitigants.
• Establish strategy quality controls including pre/post‑implementation validation, back‑testing, shadow reads, and model/score usage attestations within disciplined change‑management processes.
• Connect strategy changes to capital impacts, stress‑testing outcomes, loss‑forecasting results, and risk‑appetite metrics to ensure clear traceability from policy to execution.

Analytics, Tooling & Infrastructure

• Optimize decision engines and adaptive‑control tools (e.g., TRIAD, Strategy Manager, DMP) to enable rapid deployment, segmentation, and throttle management.
• Partner with Data, Engineering/T&O, and Modeling teams to productionize risk signals scores, affordability metrics, PD/LGD overlays with strong controls, monitoring, and version governance.
• Advance visualization standards and self‑serve analytics to improve transparency, KPI drill‑downs, and executive‑ready storytelling.

Leadership, Stakeholder & Change

• Build and lead a high‑performing credit‑strategy oversight and analytics team, fostering a culture of curiosity, effective challenge, experimentation, and evidence‑based storytelling.
• Drive cross‑functional alignment with Product, Group Risk, Finance/Capital, Collections, Fraud, Legal/Compliance, Data & AI, and Technology to deliver high‑impact strategy changes and capability enhancements.
• Champion disciplined change management through strong problem statements, structured delivery plans, and clear benefits realization.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in financial services/fintech/consulting with leadership in credit strategy, portfolio analytics, or credit policy.
• Graduate degree in a quantitative field (Math/Stats, Analytics, Engineering, Finance/Econ, OR, Business).
• Hands‑on experience designing and scaling credit strategies across the lifecycle, including champion/challenger testing and KPI ownership.
• Strong program/change‑leadership skills with demonstrated cross‑functional execution.
• Advanced communication skills succinct, influential, and accessible to senior non‑technical audiences.
• Technical proficiency in Python, SQL, and BI tools (Tableau, Looker, Power BI); experience with adaptive‑control/decision engines (TRIAD, DMP).
• Broad understanding of retail banking products, risk methodologies, bureau data, and loss‑forecasting/time‑series concepts.
• Experience with experimentation platforms, score/strategy deployment, and Canadian regulatory expectations.
• Knowledge of fair‑lending/adverse‑impact analysis, model monitoring, ML ops/feature store concepts, and consumer‑credit pricing science.

What We Offer

• A strategic second‑line leadership role with enterprise‑wide visibility, influence, and the ability to shape credit decisioning across the bank.
• A meaningful opportunity to strengthen credit oversight, elevate decision quality, and enhance portfolio resilience through strategy optimization and risk intelligence.
• A culture grounded in integrity, innovation, inclusion, and performance, where evidence‑based thinking and effective challenge are valued.
• Direct access to senior leadership and cross‑functional partners, along with complex analytical and strategic challenges that support continuous growth and career progression.
• Flexibility, autonomy, and long‑term career development within one of North America’s most respected and forward‑looking financial institutions.

The above represents BMO Financial Group’s pay range and type.

Salaries will vary based on factors such as location, skills, experience, education, and qualifications for the role, and may include a commission structure. Salaries for part-time roles will be pro-rated based on number of hours regularly worked. For commission roles, the salary listed above represents BMO Financial Group’s expected target for the first year in this position.

BMO Financial Group’s total compensation package will vary based on the pay type of the position and may include performance-based incentives, discretionary bonuses, as well as other perks and rewards. BMO also offers health insurance, tuition reimbursement, accident and life insurance, and retirement savings plans. To view more details of our benefits, please visit: https://jobs.bmo.com/global/en/Total-Rewards

About Us

At BMO we are driven by a shared Purpose: Boldly Grow the Good in business and life. It calls on us to create lasting, positive change for our customers, our communities and our people. By working together, innovating and pushing boundaries, we transform lives and businesses, and power economic growth around the world.

As a member of the BMO team you are valued, respected and heard, and you have more ways to grow and make an impact. We strive to help you make an impact from day one – for yourself and our customers. We’ll support you with the tools and resources you need to reach new milestones, as you help our customers reach theirs. From in-depth training and coaching, to manager support and network-building opportunities, we’ll help you gain valuable experience, and broaden your skillset.

To find out more visit us at https://jobs.bmo.com/ca/en.

BMO is committed to an inclusive, equitable and accessible workplace. By learning from each other’s differences, we gain strength through our people and our perspectives. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process. To request accommodation, please contact your recruiter.

Note to Recruiters: BMO does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than directly from a candidate. Any unsolicited resumes sent to BMO, directly or indirectly, will be considered BMO property. BMO will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume. A recruiting agency must first have a valid, written and fully executed agency agreement contract for service to submit resumes.