Head of Credit & Underwriting (m/w/d)

YouLend is hiring a Head of Underwriting, EU to build and lead our European underwriting function across nine markets, with Germany our fastest-growing market.

You will scale our Berlin underwriting team to 25+ people, develop Team Leaders, and own underwriting performance across Credit Eligibility, Credit Decisions and KYC/KYB.

This is a senior leadership role combining credit risk, people leadership, operational excellence and commercial decision-making. You will balance approval and conversion rates with credit losses and risk-adjusted returns, while helping shape YouLend's underwriting strategy and capabilities across Europe.

Key Responsibilities

• Build, lead and scale the EU underwriting function in Berlin, including hiring and developing Team Leaders and underwriters.
• Own underwriting performance across decision quality, approval rates, turnaround times, credit losses and risk-adjusted returns.
• Play an active role in Credit Committee and act as a senior escalation point for complex credit decisions.
• Partner with Credit Risk to implement and improve credit policies, risk models and underwriting strategies.
• Use portfolio and operational data to identify risks, bottlenecks and opportunities to improve performance.
• Establish strong quality controls, training and underwriting standards across the team.
• Partner with Compliance, Capital Markets, Commercial and Tech to improve underwriting tools and processes.
• Support the launch of new products, partners and European markets.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Significant experience in underwriting, credit risk or lending, ideally within fintech, banking or financial services.
• Strong understanding of credit risk in Germany and/or continental Europe.
• Proven people leadership experience, ideally including leading managers or Team Leaders.
• Strong commercial judgement and understanding of risk-adjusted returns.
• Data-driven approach with the ability to make decisions using imperfect information.
• Experience driving operational and organisational change.
• Strong stakeholder management and communication skills.
• German (B2+) and professional English are required for regular communication with German-speaking and international stakeholders.

Nice to Have

• SME or business lending experience.
• Embedded finance or Merchant Cash Advance experience.
• Experience with SQL, Python, R or similar analytical tools.
• Experience scaling underwriting across multiple European markets.