Being highly versed in lending practice, credit and business analysis, the job entails the assessment of a business in terms of understanding and interpreting financial statements, the business cycle, business strategy and industry analysis in order to make an informed and substantive credit decision. Different from my previous role as a junior credit manager as I had to learn how to apply my mind strategically, particularly with regard to driving sales growth as well whilst growing the bank’s lending opportunities within the portfolio. Most importantly, I had to broaden the spectrum of how I viewed risk to become all encompassing of the greater economy, globally and locally and the impact from an industry standpoint (including industry analysis) as well; with the business itself forming the microcosm within the macrocosm; I would approach my understanding of the business in this context. Through this process my knowledge of various industries has grown as well.

This role was created in order to groom me into the role of a credit risk manager, the aim was to gradually grow and nurture my skills. At the beginning my mandate was R 2m and grew to R 5m towards the end of my tenure in this role.

The role was my entry into the credit team, my skills were noticed as an analyst within the sales team and I was offered the opportunity to learn and grow in the credit team. I handled the administrative aspects of the team and reviewed deals before the credit managers, focusing on the technical aspects of the limits – mostly orientated towards the detail such as exposures, securities and covenants.

As a sales role, the primary focus was general banking and service queries, although an element (roughly 30% of the role) was focused on assisting the sales executive with writing credit proposals, which would go to credit. Towards the end of my tenure, I was engaging with credit on my own where needed, writing credit proposals – doing business, industry and financial analysis. I also began guiding the sales executive, finding sales opportunities based on my assessment and guiding their engagement with credit.

As part of a graduate induction program in general banking, credit assessment and customer relationship management, I worked with a credit scoring system and dealt with customers with regard to their asset based finance requirements. Primarily based at WesBank.