Principal Application Specialist - Lending/Loan

Job Description

Commercial Lending Technology & Application Support Leadership

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Location: Chicago area

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Employment: Full-Time, Permanent

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Industry: Banking / Financial Services

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Functional Area: Commercial Lending Technology, Application Support & IT Operations

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IMPORTANT: Must Have at least 5 years of recent people-management or comparable team leadership experience .

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Position Overview

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RK Management Consultants, Inc. is partnering with a leading financial institution to identify an accomplished Commercial Lending Technology and Application Support Leader to oversee a critical lending applications support function.

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This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned banking professional to combine deep commercial lending knowledge, strong people leadership, technical understanding, and strategic thinking to drive meaningful improvements across a growing organization.

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The ideal candidate will be more than an experienced application support manager. We are seeking a forward-thinking leader who can evaluate existing operations, strengthen processes, establish meaningful performance metrics, develop a high-performing team, and proactively identify opportunities to improve efficiency and service delivery.

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The organization has a complex lending technology environment supporting multiple banking entities, with approximately 70% commercial lending and 30% consumer lending .

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Success requires the ability to understand commercial lending operations, lead technology support professionals, effectively prioritize competing demands, and collaborate across lending operations, business leadership, application development, data management, infrastructure, and external vendors.

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The individual does not need to be a hands-on software developer but must possess the technical aptitude and business judgment to understand application dependencies, diagnose issues at a functional level, coordinate appropriate resources, and lead issues through successful resolution.

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Key Responsibilities:

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1. Team Leadership and Development

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• Lead, mentor, coach, and develop a team of lending application support professionals.
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• Establish clear expectations, individual accountability, and consistent performance management practices.
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• Foster a collaborative, responsive, and high-performing team culture.
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• Provide leadership to a geographically distributed team working in a remote environment.
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• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, provide constructive feedback, and support employee development.
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• Identify opportunities for cross-training, knowledge sharing, succession planning, and improved coverage.
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• Build a culture of ownership, proactive communication, and continuous improvement.
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• Effectively manage complex personnel situations and difficult conversations with professionalism and confidence.
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2. Strategic Planning and Operational Transformation

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• Assess existing processes, workflows, team responsibilities, and resource utilization to identify opportunities for improvement.
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• Develop and implement a more structured, efficient, and scalable application support operating model.
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• Establish meaningful KPIs, reporting, and performance measures to improve accountability and transparency.
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• Introduce consistent processes for work intake, prioritization, escalation, incident resolution, and backlog management.
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• Identify recurring operational issues and develop sustainable solutions.
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• Balance immediate production support responsibilities with longer-term strategic initiatives.
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• Evaluate opportunities for process automation, workflow optimization, and reduced manual effort.
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• Recommend improvements to team structure, roles, responsibilities, and resource allocation.
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• Help position the organization to support continued growth in commercial lending activity.
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3. Commercial Lending Application Support

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• Oversee operational support for mission-critical commercial and consumer lending applications.
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• Maintain a strong understanding of commercial lending processes, products, servicing requirements, and system dependencies.
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• Support technology operations related to commercial loan origination, servicing, documentation, specialized lending, and related workflows.
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• Oversee issue identification, root-cause investigation, escalation, and coordinated resolution.
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• Ensure appropriate application maintenance, configuration management, testing, upgrades, releases, and vendor coordination.
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• Provide leadership during application outages, production incidents, operational disruptions, and other critical events.
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• Support activities associated with acquisitions, bank conversions, implementations, and application integrations.
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• Coordinate application security activities, including vulnerability remediation and patching.
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• Promote operational reliability, consistent support practices, and appropriate risk management.
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4. Application Integrations and Technical Coordination

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• Oversee application support activities involving APIs, integration dependencies, data mappings, and application configurations.
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• Understand how loan origination systems interface with core banking and commercial loan servicing platforms.
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• Coordinate with Application Development and Data Management teams to troubleshoot integration issues and resolve data-related problems.
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• Ensure appropriate configuration and maintenance of interest rate tables, lending-related mappings, business rules, and system settings.
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• Work with business and technical stakeholders to understand issues, evaluate their impact, determine priorities, and coordinate solutions.
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• Help oversee application testing, implementation readiness, defect management, and post-release support.
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• Serve as a knowledgeable technical and functional liaison rather than the primary software developer.
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5. Business Relationship and Stakeholder Management

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• Serve as a trusted technology partner to commercial lending leadership, loan operations, lending product teams, and other business stakeholders.
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• Develop strong relationships through proactive, direct, and consistent communication.
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• Translate business needs and operational challenges into clearly defined technology support priorities.
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• Evaluate competing requests based on business impact, urgency, risk, resource availability, and strategic importance.
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• Lead escalations and facilitate timely resolution of complex issues.
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• Communicate effectively with senior leadership, technical professionals, business users, and external vendors.
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• Advocate for necessary resources and improvements while demonstrating sound financial and operational judgment.
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• Establish credibility through responsiveness, accountability, and informed decision-making.
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Commercial Lending Technology Environment

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Experience with one or more of the following platforms or comparable commercial lending solutions is highly desirable:

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• FIS ACBS — Advanced Commercial Banking System
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• FIS IBS — Integrated Banking System
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• FIS CLS / Commercial Loan Servicing
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• FactorSoft
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• Shaw Spectrum — particularly dealership floorplan financing
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• LaserPro — lending documentation
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• Cybar — letters of credit applications
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• nCino — familiarity with loan origination workflows and integrations
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• Salesforce — related platform familiarity
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• ServiceNow — incident management, workflow tracking, escalation, and reporting
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**Experience with complex commercial lending structures, including loan participations and syndications , is particularly valuable.

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The organization operates across multiple separately chartered banking entities, making familiarity with multi-entity banking environments, core banking integrations, and acquisition-related system conversions advantageous.

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Required Qualifications:

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• 10+ years of experience within banking or financial services, with substantial exposure to commercial lending operations, lending systems, application support, or related functions.
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• At least 5 years of recent people-management or comparable team leadership experience .
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• Deep working knowledge of commercial lending products, servicing processes, systems, and business workflows.
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• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop employees, establish accountability, and build strong team performance.
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• Proven success improving processes, establishing structure, and driving operational efficiencies.
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• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and business prioritization skills.
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• Ability to assess the business impact of application issues and coordinate effective resolution.
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• Experience working collaboratively with business stakeholders, technology teams, and vendors.
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• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including comfort with escalations and challenging conversations.
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• Ability to manage competing priorities in a complex, fast-paced banking environment.
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• Technical aptitude and willingness to develop additional expertise in lending applications, integrations, and related infrastructure.
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Preferred Qualifications:

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• Direct leadership experience in commercial lending application support or lending technology operations.
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• Knowledge of FIS ACBS/CLS, FIS IBS, or comparable commercial banking applications.
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• Experience with commercial loan participations, syndications, or specialized lending products.
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• Experience supporting dealership floorplan financing, commercial loan servicing, or lending documentation systems.
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• Familiarity with ServiceNow or a similar IT service management platform.
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• Understanding of APIs, system interfaces, integration mapping, configuration management, and production support.
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• Experience implementing KPIs, operational dashboards, service metrics, or support team performance frameworks.
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• Experience leading organizational improvement or transformation initiatives.
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• Familiarity with bank acquisitions, system conversions, and multi-bank technology environments.
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• Experience leading distributed or fully remote teams.
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• Understanding of nCino and Salesforce integration environments.
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What Success Looks Like:

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Within approximately the first six months, the successful candidate will be expected to:

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• Build strong relationships with the team and critical lending business stakeholders.
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• Assess the current lending application support environment, workflows, challenges, and resource needs.
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• Recommend and begin implementing improvements to team structure, processes, and prioritization.
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• Introduce meaningful KPIs and performance reporting.
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• Improve incident handling, escalations, and stakeholder communication.
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• Identify and address recurring inefficiencies and operational bottlenecks.
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• Strengthen team accountability, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and operational consistency.
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• Establish a more proactive and scalable support approach aligned with the institution's growth.
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