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What We'll Bring:

Director, Financial Services Research and Consulting, South Africa

We aim high—and are reaching for new heights every day. This is a terrific time to join our team as we build on our commitment to integrity, service, reliability and innovation. These values stand behind the decisions we make every day, as well as our relationships at work and with the customers we serve. We believe in the power to achieve and are taking it in bold new directions.
Join our team of associates worldwide and make a difference. Enjoy a competitive compensation and benefits plan, work-life balance and a great team atmosphere.

What You'll Bring:

The Director, Financial Services Research and Consulting is a senior leader and a key contributor to the perception of TransUnion in the marketplace as an authority on lending and risk dynamics. We are looking for a seasoned subject matter expert with mastery of a wide range of consumer lending industry practices, products and functions through the entire customer life cycle. This role drives thought leadership in two ways: first, the incumbent manages sophisticated research initiatives aimed at understanding why consumers behave the way they do with credit, what external forces influence that behavior and what lenders need to know to manage the risks and opportunities associated with that behavior. Second, this role provides critical assistance to the Sales team in presenting advanced concepts to customers, and in exploring customer challenges across products/business units/functions, all while helping elevate the level and relevance of discussions that our Sales team has with customers. This role serves as a consumer lending product, industry and research expert for the Sales force and for our customers. In short, you motivate our customers to see us as a trusted partner instead of a vendor.  You will accomplish this through a variety of direct and indirect customer engagement vehicles. This role is located and based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

What you’ll bring:

• You will draw on your extensive experience in driving thought leadership initiatives within the financial services industry.
• You have an understanding of credit data and solutions, and its’ applications within the financial services market.
• You have experience in working with traditional and trended credit data and driving insights from data to address key business problems and telling an impactful story.
• You have experience in conducting a quantitative research study from start to finish: designing the scope, analyzing the findings, and communicating it in a meaningful way to an audience of large scale.
• You are highly credentialed, with several years of experience in increasingly senior roles at multiple financial institutions and/or consulting firms with a focus on retail banking.
• You are also highly educated, with an advanced degree in business, statistics, operations research, finance, banking, or another related field.
• You have an innate, unquenchable curiosity to understand why consumers and businesses behave the way they do.
• You have tenacity—finding the answer to a difficult question is a challenge you enjoy.
• You do not let obstacles hinder you; rather, you find innovative approaches to resolve, overcome or otherwise avoid those obstacles.
• You are a senior leader and can drive complex projects with minimal supervision.
• You are adept at collaborating and managing a team of contributors to an initiative and maintaining their enthusiasm, even when they don’t report to you.
• You are comfortable in the role of a mentor, training junior analysts how to think about the consumer lending business and how to tackle complex questions analytically and systematically.
• You are skilled at evaluating data and summary statistics to find the underlying insights, and to guide a research project in the most fruitful direction.
• You are an expert with the Microsoft Office product suite, particularly Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
• You are an eloquent speaker, equally comfortable addressing an audience of 4, 40 or 400.
• You have a great sense of the BUSINESS QUESTION. You realize that data must be transformed into business intelligence to be meaningful.
• You are comfortable discussing concepts at all levels of an organization, from entry-level analyst to CEO. You have the ability to tailor your conversational approach to the audience—technical where you need to be, and strategic where appropriate, but always aimed at answering the business question.
• You have a strong customer service orientation. You mean it when you ask, “How can I be of service?” You recognize that internal customers are as important as external customers.

Impact You'll Make:

How you’ll contribute: 

• As an authority on consumer credit, you will drive research and analytics projects around complex market dynamics, including ideation, study design, results analysis and final publication and implications to lenders and consumers.
• You will evaluate those dynamics and their impact on customer needs, and translate those insights into actionable strategies and revenue-generating solution sets.
• You will speak eloquently on behalf of TransUnion to share our insights at both our own conferences and at 3rd-party industry events.
• You will drive our thought leadership more broadly as a TransUnion spokesperson to print, radio and television media outlets.
• You will author articles based on our research for publication in industry-specific journals.
• You will lead the development and ongoing execution of one or more Advisory Boards in your region, consisting of 10-14 senior leaders of lending organizations (customers and prospects) who provide insights and guidance on industry trends, TransUnion research studies and new product concepts.
• You will support our sales teams through consulting as a financial services thought leader, helping our clients identify and address emerging challenges and opportunities in the marketplace.
• You will help educate our sales teams on consumer lending concepts, including consumer behavior dynamics, regulatory issues, economic forces, risk and marketing drivers, and more. You will support the development of- and lead efforts to improve sales fluency and sophistication when discussing industry concepts and trends across a range of lending concepts and functions.
• You will represent qualified expertise and immediate credibility on joint sales calls with acceptance as the subject matter expert, quotable resource and as the acknowledged industry consultant. In doing so, you will establish strong customer relationships built on trust, credibility, integrity, mutual respect and a sense of shared purpose.
• You will attend various industry association functions and seminars to maintain your knowledge of industry trends, best practices and competitive product offerings. By staying abreast of industry changes, you will maintain your own expertise in our dynamic industry. You will also educate/inform both internal TransUnion management and also our customers regarding the impact of industry dynamics on customers and TransUnion clients.
• Through all these efforts, you will drive the sense of TransUnion as an authority on lending and risk dynamics and a worthwhile, trusted partner to our clients and prospects.

This is a hybrid Position and involves regular performance of job responsibilities virtually as well as in-person at an assigned TU Office Location for a minimum of two days a contacted.

For positions based in South Africa, preference will be given to suitably qualified candidates from designated groups in line with the company's Employment Equity plan and targets.

Please note only shortlisted candidates will be contacted

This is a hybrid position and involves regular performance of job responsibilities virtually as well as in-person at an assigned TU office location for a minimum of two days a week.

TransUnion Job Title

Sr Manager, Research & Consulting