Director of Credit Operations

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Company Overview

Credit First National Association is a private label credit card bank and the consumer credit division of Bridgestone Americas. The Bridgestone Americas family of enterprises, including CFNA, is comprised of more than 50 production facilities and 55K employees throughout the Americas. We provide the consumer credit solution for the Firestone Complete Auto Care, Tires Plus, and Wheel Works brands, in addition to customized retail credit services for more than 8,000 other tire and automotive retailers nationwide. At our office in Cleveland, OH, more than 300 professionals gather each day to run a successful private label credit card program. We invest in our community and strongly believe that meaningful commitment to a wide variety of philanthropic organizations builds a better world and a brand that makes us proud.

Job Category

General Management

Position Summary

We are seeking a Director of Credit Operations to join our CFNA team! The Director of Credit Operations will lead the operations and activities of CFNA a nationally-chartered Limited Purpose Credit Card Bank. This role will report to the President & CEO of CFNA and serve as a senior leader on the Bank's executive team. The Director of Credit Operations will function as a leader, innovator, and strategic thinker. This role will oversee over 4 million issued cards, over $1.2 Billion in accounts receivables, $1.7 Billion in sales. She/he will profitably drive, create, market, distribute and administer private label credit card programs for Bridgestone Retail Operations (BSRO), the BATO (Bridgestone Affiliate Tire Operations) affiliated dealer channel, the non-BATO (Bridgestone Affiliate Tire Operations) dealer channels, and new business segments outside of these channels. This director ensures activity is in strict compliance with regulatory requirements as specified by Federal and State Law, and the Federal Reserve Banking regulations as examined annually by the Office of the Comptroller of Currency. This role provides strategic oversight and leadership to a team comprised of over 300 associates including 3-6 direct reports. Key functions include Authorizations / Underwriting, Customer Service, Collections, Back-Office Operations and Quality. The position will also drive the growth initiatives to generate revenue while maintaining and enhancing CFNA's current operational (customer facing and back office) business lines. This leader will motivate and inspire team members to function as a high-performance organization to better serve the division's customers, establish new business opportunities, reduce costs, leverage technology, enhance revenues and increase the visibility of CFNA credit cards through progressive introduction and management of strategies to improve the customer experience. We are relentlessly focused on empowering you with unique opportunities to make a meaningful impact and help shape your career.

Responsibilities

In this role, your primary responsibilities will include:

• Technically supervising, mentoring, coaching, and training a diverse set of staff representing at least 300 teammates.
• Assist CFNA leadership/management in the strategic directions of the organization.
• Prepares accurate operating budgets and strategic plans, and controls expenses within the budget constraints.
• Manages the extension of retail credit sales through a network of Bridgestone store and dealer retail locations nationwide, providing quality, cost-effective and timely point-of-sale decisions.
• Develops, tests and executes collection strategies and operating procedures which optimize collection resources and strategies.
• Develops, monitors, and controls all aspects of the credit & collection decision systems to proactively and efficiently respond to changes in operating procedures dictated by marketing policy, changing economic conditions, legislation/regulatory governance and other environmental factors.
• Evaluates performance of credit management strategies for new account evaluation, credit limit assignment, add-on sales decisions and collection follow-up.
• Approves the selection, monitoring and evaluation of a nationwide network of outside collection agencies and attorneys to ensure maximum recovery is achieved as measured by net return.
• Plans contingent strategies that permit timely response to changing volume levels
• Coach employees to provide superior service based on responsiveness, accuracy, consistency, and human respect.
• Promotes a work environment that attracts, motivates, and retains dedicated employees.
• Partners closely with Strategy and Analytics team to ensue fraud mitigation and prevention strategies are effectively mitigating losses.

Required Qualifications and Knowledge:

• Bachelor's degree; Business Administration or related field

• MBA preferred plus 10 years of general management experience.
• 15+ years of progressive financial services and contact center experience.
• Omni-Channel customer experience strategy and servicing knowledge, including voice of customer techniques, chat, email, and digital cardholder communications strategies.
• Demonstrated knowledge of customer service, collections, underwriting/credit, credit card operations, and back-office operations functions.
• Developing people, staff, developing goals, including leading organizational design elements for a dynamic organization.
• Excellent situational leadership skills of both exempt & non-exempt (hourly) associates. Thrives in start-up and turn-around business situations.
• Expertise in contact center information technology, telephony, workforce management, associate incentives, and quality program implementations & vendor partnerships.
• Expertise working with business process outsourcers (BPO's) and strategic workflow outsourcing.
• Strong third-party vendor management expertise and contract negotiations.
• Sizable P&L and budget experience.

Other Qualifications to include, but not limited to:

• Workforce Management
• Customer Service & Experience technical expertise: phone, email, chat, correspondence, digital solutions.
• Quality & Voice Of Customer technical expertise
• Contact Reduction & One-Call Resolution strategies
• Collections
• Underwriting, Disputes, and Fraud Management
• Back-Office Contact functions: such as correspondence, chat, email, social media, and escalated complaint solutions.
• Contact Center Technology Solutions: such as telephony, knowledge management, IVR/VRU, skills-based routing, agent user interfaces, fraud & disputes.

Minimum Qualifications

Bachelor's degree; 10+ years of relevant experience including 7+ years management or leadership experience or master's degree; 8+ years of relevant experience including 5-7 years management or leadership experience.

We are building a team as diverse as the world we serve. We believe in championing all perspectives, individuals, and teams. If you find this opportunity compelling, we encourage to apply.

What we offer

At Bridgestone, what really matters is to foster co-creation opportunities and empowering you to be creative and curious to make mobility safer, more efficient, and more sustainable for future generations. Whatever role you fill, when you represent Bridgestone, you are a valued teammate, and part of our larger mission to “Serve Society with Superior Quality”, for that, we offer you more than just a competitive compensation; we will provide you:

• A supportive and engaging onboarding experience to ensure a smooth transition into our team.
• The opportunity to develop and grow, through training and regular mentorship.
• Corporate Social Responsibility activities.
• A truly global, dynamic and challenging work environment.
• Agility and work/life effectiveness and your long-term well-being.
• A diverse and inclusive team.

Bridgestone is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. It is our policy to consider for employment all individuals regardless of age, color, national origin, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, race, religion, gender, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law.

Employment Eligibility

If hired, a Form I-9 Employment Eligibility Verification must be completed at the start of employment. Temporary work authorization or the need for sponsorship may disqualify you from employment.