---
title: 'Director of Portfolio Risk at Zilch'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-portfolio-risk-zilch-zilch-312bt4mss389'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-18'
---

# Director of Portfolio Risk at Zilch

- **Company:** Zilch
- **Location:** Zilch, United Kingdom
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Posted:** 2026-09-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-18
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zilch/8de0c0dc-6fc3-442e-95f8-12abfed30c20

## Job description

Who we are: We're one of Europe's fastest-growing fintech companies – on a mission to create the world's most empowering way to pay. We launched the product in 2020 and achieved double unicorn status, valued at $2 billion, and since then have taken on more than 6 million customers.

Our mission is to become the best way to pay for anything, anywhere and say goodbye to credit costs for everyone. This is huge. Want to join us? About the role. This is an exciting opportunity to step into a key leadership role at a fast-growing fintech, playing a central part in Zilch’s continued growth journey. As Director of Portfolio Management, you will own how we manage credit risk and drive sustainable profitability across our existing customer book. You’ll be responsible for shaping and evolving the strategy that determines how we grow customer value over time, how we manage exposure, and how we balance customer outcomes with commercial performance. Zilch is at an exciting stage of its journey, with strong momentum and significant opportunity ahead. This role sits at the heart of that trajectory, working closely with senior stakeholders across the business to optimise the performance of a growing and increasingly valuable customer portfolio. While this is a leadership role, it is also a hands-on one. You’ll lead a small, high-performing team, while remaining close to the detail, setting direction, guiding execution, and ensuring we are making smart, data-driven decisions across the customer lifecycle. With a high degree of ownership and visibility, this role offers a strong platform for senior development and the opportunity to play a meaningful role in shaping how Zilch manages risk, profitability, and customer growth at scale. Key responsibilities.

- Own and evolve Zilch’s portfolio management strategy, balancing profitability, credit risk, customer value, and risk appetite
- Define and optimise customer management frameworks across the existing book, including credit limits, product graduations, exposure management, and lifecycle treatment strategies
- Develop a deep understanding of portfolio economics and customer behaviour, using this to inform strategy, trade-offs, and prioritisation
- Take ownership of portfolio performance and key risk metrics, driving continuous improvement across profitability, losses, utilisation, arrears, and customer outcomes
- Lead the development and refinement of credit limit management strategies, ensuring exposure is allocated effectively and sustainably
- Shape product graduation and lifecycle strategies, identifying opportunities to deepen customer relationships while managing risk appropriately
- Monitor portfolio performance and emerging risk trends, identifying opportunities and taking action to optimise outcomes
- Partner closely with Product, Data, Finance, Operations, and Commercial teams to deliver initiatives that improve portfolio performance
- Drive targeted initiatives and projects, ensuring clear delivery, robust measurement, and measurable commercial impact
- Provide clear, data-driven insight and recommendations to senior stakeholders, supporting key strategic and risk decisions
- Maintain strong governance across portfolio management activity, ensuring strategies are well controlled, documented, and aligned with risk appetite
- Lead and develop a small team, setting clear direction while supporting their growth and impact

What we’re looking for.

- Strong experience in credit risk, portfolio management, customer management, or lifecycle strategy, ideally within fintech or consumer lending
- A track record of improving portfolio profitability while maintaining disciplined credit performance
- Good understanding of portfolio dynamics, customer unit economics, credit performance, and risk-adjusted returns
- Experience designing and optimising strategies across credit limits, exposure management, product graduation, or customer lifecycle management
- Strong analytical capability, with the ability to translate data into clear decisions and commercial action
- Experience operating with ownership in a fast-paced, data-driven environment
- Comfortable working hands-on while also setting direction and leading others
- Strong communication skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders and operate with senior visibility
- Good understanding of governance, controls, and risk appetite frameworks within a regulated lending environment
- Commercially minded, with the ability to balance growth, profitability, risk, and customer outcomes

Benefits. Compensation & Savings:

- Pension scheme.
- Death in Service scheme.
- Income Protection.
- Permanent employees enjoy access to our Share Options Scheme.
- 5% back on in-app purchases.
- £200 for WFH Setup.

Health & Wellbeing:

- Private Medical Insurance including;
- GP consultations (video, telephone or face-to-face).
- Prescribed medication.
- In-patient, day-patient and out-patient care.
- Mental health support.
- Optical, dental & audiological cover.
- Physiotherapy.
- Advanced cancer cover.
- Menopause support.
- Employee Assistance Programme including:
- Unlimited mental health sessions.
- 24/7 remote GP & physiotherapy.
- 24/7 helpline for emotional & practical support.
- Savings & discounts on everyday shopping.
- 1:1 personalised well-being consultations.
- Gym membership discounts.

Family Friendly Policies:

- Enhanced maternity pay.
- Enhanced paternity pay.
- Enhanced adoption pay.
- Enhanced shared parental leave.

Learning & Development:

- Professional Qualifications.
- Professional Memberships.
- Learning Suite for e-courses.
- Internal Training Programmes.
- FCA & Regulatory training.

Workplace Perks:

- Hybrid working: office-based Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday; remote working Tuesday and Friday
- Casual dress code.
- Workplace socials.
- Healthy snacks.

## About Zilch

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Zilch is a London-based fintech that offers a direct-to-consumer, ad-enabled payments and credit platform, letting users pay now or over time with no interest while earning rewards.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C; last extended in 2022 to £122m total)
- **Headquarters**: London, United Kingdom (with an innovation and technology hub in Krakow, Poland)
- **Founded**: 2018
- **Founders**: Philip Belamant (CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Financial technology (Fintech) – payments, consumer credit, and advertising.
- **Target customers**: B2C – consumers across the credit spectrum (subprime to prime). Also B2B – merchants who pay for high-intent customer access through the Zilch app.
- **Mission statement**: “To eliminate the high cost of consumer credit. For good.”

## Products & Services
- **[Zilch Payments Platform]**: A virtual payments card (and soon a physical Visa card) enabling online and in-store purchases.
  - **Pay Now**: Pay upfront and earn up to 5% cashback in Zilch Rewards.
  - **Pay over 6 weeks**: Interest-free installment option.
  - **Pay over 3 months**: For larger purchases; no interest, no late fees.
- **[Zilch Ad Network]**: An ad-enabled platform where merchants pay performance-based commissions for access to Zilch’s high-intent customer base. Revenue is shared with customers to subsidise credit costs.
- **[Snooze]**: A feature allowing customers to delay payments by up to 8 days for flexibility.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed (Zilch is a private unicorn, named UK’s fastest-growing tech unicorn by the Financial Times in 2025).
- **Key Metric**: **Total funding** – £122m (Series C extended, closed in 2022 from a £42m extension on the initial £83m Series B round). Also secured a £150m securitised debt facility led by Deutsche Bank in 2025.
- **Recent Financials (FY 2025)**:
  - Revenue: **£110.3m** (93% increase YoY)
  - Gross Merchandise Value (GMV): **£1.9bn** (73% increase YoY)
  - Net losses reduced by 79% year-over-year; achieved first quarter of operating profit in July 2024.
  - 5-year CAGR: 378% on revenue, 285% on GMV.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**:
  - Debt facility from **Goldman Sachs Asset Management** and **Deutsche Bank**.
  - Multi-year strategic partnership with **Visa** (expanding acceptance to over 150 million merchants).
  - All major UK credit referencing agencies.
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Nearly **5 million registered customers**.
  - Monthly GMV exceeded £200m for the first time in 2024.
  - Pay over 3 months product, launched in 2024, now represents 14% of total volume.
  - Spend per active user up 27% compared to FY 2024.
  - Ranked UK’s fastest-growing tech unicorn by the Financial Times, Deloitte, and The Sunday Times in 2025.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Ad-enabled business model**: Zilch subsidises the cost of credit through merchant commissions, creating a two-sided network that rewards both customers and merchants.
- **No interest, no late fees, no penalties**: A genuinely consumer-friendly credit product that aligns the company’s success with customer wellbeing (they do not profit from customer debt).
- **Direct-to-consumer model**: Zilch owns the customer relationship end-to-end (not a white-label product), allowing them to generate first-party data and optimise for conversion rates that far exceed traditional digital ads.
- **Strong unit economics**: Revenue take rate of 6.08% on GMV, and gross profit margin of 49%. Massive growth with improving profitability.

## Strategic Focus
- **Expanding acceptance and usage**: Launching a physical Visa card in the UK in September 2025 to increase wallet share and everyday spend.
- **Growing product breadth**: The new Pay over 3 months product is seeing strong repeat behaviour, and Snooze is being rolled out across all credit purchases.
- **Geographic expansion**: Growing across Europe, with a tech hub in Poland for innovation.
- **Capital efficiency**: Focused on profitability and reducing net losses, leveraging a £150m securitisation facility to scale GMV towards £8bn annually.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Values-driven with a focus on “doing it for our customers,” “doing it the right way,” and “doing it brilliantly.” Emphasis on trust and autonomy.
- **Hybrid working**: Zilch operates a hybrid model, reducing daily commuting.
- **Benefits**: Private medical insurance, enhanced parental leave, free snacks and drinks, 5% back on purchases via Zilch Rewards, training budget, learning platform, and online therapy/mental health support.
- **Growth & development**: Regular reviews, hackathons, a training budget, and an internal learning platform. Zilch invests in employee career progression.
- **Team size**: 289 employees (including contractors) as of March 2025. Flat, impact-focused structure.
- **Inclusive environment**: Zero-tolerance for discrimination; equal opportunities policy for all applicants and employees, including disabled persons.

## Sources
1. [Zilch – Careers Page](https://www.zilch.com/uk/careers/)
2. [Zilch – About Us](https://www.zilch.com/uk/about-us/)
3. [Zilch – Homepage](https://www.zilch.com/uk/)
4. [Zilch – Open Roles on Ashby](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/zilch)
5. [Zilch Holdings Limited FY 2025 Annual Report](https://www.zilch.com/pdf/financial-statements/zilch-technology-limited-annual-report-and-financial-statements-FY-2025.pdf)

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