Job: Chief Credit Officer

Chief Credit Officer

Our client, located in the Southeast is a multi-billion dollar financial institution with offices in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.  In the past year, they have made 3 major acquisitions.

Direct functional responsibility will include a team of 70 across retail underwriting, commercial and business banking underwriting, and credit risk.  This individual will also partner closely with the President and CEO.

The Position:

The CCO will be responsible for galvanizing and managing all aspects of the credit risk management function including design, execution and communication of policy, approval process, administration, and portfolio analysis.  This will necessarily involve working closely with all members of the executive team, the Board of Directors, regulators, and individuals at all levels within the organization.  This person will support an enterprise-wide risk management philosophy toward credit and will ensure that appropriate policies, procedures and systems are developed, implemented and maintained to identify measure, monitor and control credit risks in accordance with Bank policies, standards and applicable regulatory guidelines.  This executive will be mandated to drive and assess the current organization and sub-functions, addressing changes where necessary and applying best in class practices.  Their efforts will support the Bank’s overall objectives aimed at long-term sustainable growth and profitability.

Specific Responsibilities:

• Overseeing the credit approval process, as well as portfolio monitoring systems for all current and future credit products.
• Ensuring that credit policies are routinely reviewed, modified as necessary, and well-communicated throughout the organization.
• Maintaining ongoing support of the Bank’s credit culture for all significant lending units, which include broad client segments such as: consumer, business, wealth management, commercial and corporate banking.
• Ensure that loan loss reserve and charge-off process and procedures are consistent with industry best practices and meet current and anticipated regulatory guidelines.
• Ensuring that loan documentation, systems and procedures are consistent with the highest standards in the industry and are appropriate for all regulatory requirements.
• Ensuring that all loan systems and tracking techniques provide the appropriate amounts of information to bankers, executive management and the Board of Directors, to allow for accurate assessment of loan quality and risk management.
• Providing overall loan portfolio management oversight to ensure that the Bank’s asset quality meets stated objectives and that the emphasis of the Bank’s overall credit relationship management is consistent with the Bank’s underwriting standards.  This will necessarily include analysis of loan concentrations by loan type as well as by geography.  Oversight of future building and enhancements of existing analytical and quantitative models for the bank’s portfolio as appropriate, including the refinement of existing “stress test” procedures currently used on the portfolio.
• Helping support healthy diversification of the loan portfolio by establishing sound credit policies and proper training of bankers and credit officers enlisting a proactive approach to engaging multiple constituencies in partnership.
• Maintaining a keen awareness of competitor’s activities, their credit practices, and of overall industry best practices such that division of the Bank are well positioned to take full advantage of changes and opportunities in their target market segments.
• Serving as the Bank’s spokesperson when necessary to regulators and other external constituents including, as appropriate, customers regarding the Bank’s credit management disciplines, loan quality and lending activities.
• Providing quantitative oversight of the Bank’s credit extension activities, to include conducting ongoing evaluation of existing systems and, when appropriate, evaluation, selection and implementation of new systems to ensure that all policies and procedures are of the highest integrity and consistency.

The Person

Ideal candidates will generally have a minimum of 15 years of combined experience with institutions that have a reputation for operational excellence, and a minimum of five years leading the credit function for a business comparable in size, product mix, and complexity of a multi-billion dollar bank.  The ideal candidate will have a diverse background having touched commercial lending/leasing, retail and wealth management with a competency across quantitative analysis, structured lending, capital markets, syndication and asset based lending.  Experience should include significant lending (on the line) and/or credit experience across diversified client segments.

This individual will be a knowledgeable and seasoned executive who has the strategic vision to provide direction for the Bank’s lending and credit activities, while at the same time, a demonstrated track record of tangible operational initiatives that have served to enhance their institutions’ policies, procedures and risk disciplines.

Qualified candidates should have thorough knowledge of broader bank enterprise operations and control systems as well as in-depth knowledge of credit and credit operations.  Strengths include a thorough knowledge and proficiency in the use of advanced quantitative tools and techniques such as credit scoring, financial forecasting, modeling and the use of economic capital methodologies and the risk analytic techniques used in sophisticated portfolio management.