Head of Risk / Risk Lead

Your mission

We are looking for an experienced and hands-on Head of Risk / Risk Lead to join topi and take end-to-end ownership of credit and fraud risk across our SME hardware subscription products. You will define risk strategy, scale our decisioning capabilities, and ensure we grow responsibly while delivering fast, seamless customer experiences.
This is a senior, high-impact role at the intersection of risk, product, data, and operations, with real influence over how topi makes credit decisions at scale.

Your profile

Here are just a few of the things you’ll do in this role:

Own credit and fraud risk end-to-end

You will be responsible for the overall risk strategy across SME lending- covering credit risk, fraud risk, and their interaction across the full customer lifecycle (onboarding, underwriting, renewals, and portfolio monitoring).

Design and scale automated risk decisioning

You will lead the development and evolution of automated credit decisioning, working with modern risk engines and orchestration tools (e.g. Provenir, Taktile, Oscilar, or similar systems ) to balance speed, accuracy, and risk outcomes.

Be the SME risk authority for Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Belgium & the UK

You will bring deep knowledge of the German SME landscape, translating market realities into robust risk policies, scorecards, and decision rules. Netherlands, Austria, Belgium & the UK will also be included in your remit.

Build and refine risk frameworks

From eligibility criteria and risk segmentation to limits, pricing inputs, and exception handling - you will ensure our frameworks are clear, scalable, and well-governed.

Partner closely with Product & Data

You’ll work hand-in-hand with product managers, engineers, and data to embed risk logic into user journeys, APIs, and workflows, ensuring risk is a product enabler - not a blocker.

Stay close to the details

Despite the seniority of the role, you remain hands-on: reviewing complex or high-risk cases, deep-diving into financials, and investigating edge cases or emerging risk patterns.

Monitor and manage portfolio performance

You’ll track portfolio KPIs, loss drivers, and early warning signals, using insights to iterate on models, rules, and policies.

Be a trusted internal risk partner

You’ll collaborate with commercial, operations, finance, and leadership teams, clearly explaining trade-offs and aligning risk appetite with business objectives.

Who we’re looking for

We’re looking for a senior risk professional who combines deep credit expertise with modern, tech-enabled thinking .

• ✅ Must: 7+ years of experience in credit risk / underwriting for SMEs, ideally within fintech, banking, leasing, or asset-backed finance.

• ✅ Must: Proven experience owning or leading credit risk frameworks, policies, or portfolios.

• ✅ Must: Hands-on familiarity with automated credit decisioning systems such as Provenir, Taktile, Oscilar, or comparable rule engines / orchestration platforms.

• Deep understanding of financial and non-financial SME risk - including cash flows, leverage, collateral, sector risk, customer concentration, and business models.

• Strong knowledge of the German, Austrian, Belgian, Dutch and UK SME market and local risk drivers.

• Comfortable working with data, metrics, and models, including Excel and BI tools; ability to reason about model outputs and rule logic.

• You can communicate complex risk topics clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• You are structured, decisive, and comfortable making trade-offs in fast-moving environments.

Nice to have

• Experience with asset-backed financing, leasing, or equipment finance

• Experience collaborating with data science teams on scorecards or ML-based models

• Fluent German (spoken and written) and strong professional English.

• Working knowledge of SQL

• Previous experience in a scaling fintech or startup environment

You will fit right in if you enjoy

Thinking in systems and portfolios – not just single decisions, but how risk behaves at scale over time.

Using data to challenge intuition – and intuition to challenge data.

⚙️ Building things that last – clear policies, clean decision flows, and scalable automation.

Operating in fast-moving environments – where pragmatism matters as much as precision.

Being a business partner – aligning risk, growth, and customer experience.

Why us?

topi is a Berlin-based fintech enabling businesses to access IT hardware through flexible subscription and rental models instead of upfront purchases. Our API-first platform allows retailers, manufacturers, and partners to offer hardware subscriptions seamlessly at the point of sale.

Following our acquisition by PEAC Solutions - owned by HPS / Blackrock , a global asset finance and leasing platform, topi combines fintech speed with strong financial backing and international scale. We operate across multiple European markets and focus on delivering fast, automated, and risk-aware financing solutions for SMBs.

Our mission is to make business hardware more accessible, flexible, and sustainable - supporting better cash-flow management and modern device lifecycles.

About us

The Demo Daten GmbH is a fictional company created by Personio to familiarize our customers with our software.

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