Back Office Originations Manager

**Prodigy Finance - who are we?**

Prodigy Finance is a platform that delivers socially responsible financial services; making it possible for students from more than 130 countries to fulfill their dream of studying at the world’s top universities and schools by financing their international postgraduate studies. Our purpose is to democratise access to lifechanging education, whilst delivering competitive financial and social returns to alumni, institutional and private investors.

Our borderless and innovative model enables education loan financing to students from across the globe, whilst using predicted post-degree affordability rather than present-day salary in assessing creditworthiness. Since 2007, Prodigy Finance has extended over US$1 billion through the platform to fund over 25,000 students.

We are funded by some of the most highly regarded and pre-eminent financial institutions in the world, including Index Ventures, Balderton Capital, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and more recently the US DFC and CPPIB.

**What will you do in the role?**

We are looking for an experienced Back Office Manager to look after our Originations Back Office Team. This person will be fully accountable for mastering and managing the back office loan disbursement and school administration functions. The role will extend to the strategic integration and consolidation of multiple systems and processes within the Originations Back Office space to ensure world-class, efficient and consistent delivery for both the business and our customers.

Prodigy Finance’s Customer Success and Originations Team is located in South Africa, with the role reporting to the Head of Customer Success.

**What are some of the responsibilities of this role?**

Specific responsibilities include:

- Oversee and manage, through direct and indirect reports, the Originations Back Office operations end-to-end capability
- Manage both the project and business as usual work in relation to the loan originations systems, ensuring that accurate and compliant processes, calculations and documentation is executed on a daily, weekly and monthly basis
- Oversee the disbursements and cash management including timely reconciliation of accounts
- Working with the Head of Originations, review, develop and implement the proposed back office operations strategy, associated processes and structure
- Working closely with the Operations and Product team to manage and drive down back office costs while helping improve automation and customer satisfaction
- Ensuring that key performance SLA’s are maintained within the Originations Back Office, addressing variances against targets in performance
- Initiate or oversee risk event identification or root cause analysis to prevent or remedy where necessary
- Providing effective leadership of a growing team - including managing performance development, motivation, incentives and hiring
- Identifying and building relationships with key outsourcing partners, ensuring that agreed service levels are maintained and improved while targets are being achieved
- Working closely with the rest of the business to ensure optimal alignment
- Manage Cost and budget requirements for all back office systems and services
- Team player with the ability to establish positive working relationships across various functions. You understand that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts
- Passionate about customer experience and a clear sense of being able to translate the customer journey into clear actions by channel
- Driven, energetic and ambitious and not afraid to get your hands dirty. You know the strategy but like to get into the detail
- Biased to action; able to create ideas, think outside the box, be a problem solver and solution finder, be proactive, use initiative to develop and improve
- Highly organised, able to multi-task and project manage; can correctly prioritise multiple issues, can process large amounts of data from disparate sources and can use good critical judgement to make correct assumptions and decisions
- Committed to and actively strives to improve, seeks learning and self-development opportunities, and learns from experience
- Able to work autonomously without micro-management and clear direction, in a rapidly changing and often ambiguous environment; possess the self-motivation and inner drive to set and deliver against tight deadlines
- Able to diagnose issues, find the necessary data, analyse the alternatives, and engage in a methodical problem solving process
- Align and prioritise actions and resources in advance to achieve the best possible outcomes
- A relationship builder and a people manager. Highly presentable with excellent communication and interpersonal skills across a number of stakeholder groups. Improves capability and confidence in self and in others
- Analytical and able to use data to support your decisions and suggestions
- Seeks out the opinion and help of others, takes advice on board and giv