Chief Lending Officer

Korn Ferry has partnered with our client on their search for Chief Lending Officer

The Chief Lending Officer will serve as the enterprise executive responsible for the client’s lending production strategy across consumer, home/mortgage, and business lending. Reporting directly to the President & CEO, the CLO will participate as a member of the Executive Team and share responsibility for the organization’s overall strategy, culture, financial performance, risk discipline, and member impact.

The role is open following the departure of the client’s prior CLO, who joined the organization as a mortgage leader and later assumed responsibility for consumer, business, and mortgage lending under the newly created CLO structure. The client has an interim coverage model in place and is prepared to take the time required to select the right leader. The priority is quality of fit, not speed.

Our client is seeking a lending executive who can strengthen the lending organization, unify teams across business, consumer, and mortgage, and help scale the credit union’s statewide growth agenda. The right leader will combine technical lending depth with cultural maturity, a strong relationship orientation, comfort with mission-driven banking, and a practical approach to improving systems, processes, and team capacity.

This is not a back-office credit administration role. It is an executive leadership role that requires internal team leadership, external relationship-building, business development partnership, and active participation in the client’s broader values-based banking strategy. The CLO will be expected to be visible, engaged, and credible with employees, executive peers, community partners, business relationships, and external lending partners.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary executive leader for the client’s loan production activities across consumer, home/mortgage, and business lending.
• Participate as a member of the Executive Team and contribute to enterprise strategy, planning, budgeting, culture, and leadership decision-making.
• Develop and execute long-term lending objectives and strategies that support the client’s financial performance, member impact, CDFI commitments, market expansion, and values-based banking strategy.
• Recruit, lead, manage, coach, and develop direct and indirect reports across lending; provide performance feedback, build management capability, and strengthen accountability and engagement.
• Define lending team goals and ensure the long-term financial viability, service quality, speed, and efficiency of lending production and processing operations.
• Establish and manage lending team budgets; monitor operational effectiveness, financial results, technology efficiency, product relevance, and program performance.
• Ensure the member experience is efficient, consistent, and service-oriented by setting realistic goals and maintaining high-quality service standards across lending product and processing areas.
• Work closely with the CFO and senior Finance leaders to monitor loan portfolio profitability, balance sheet implications, funding considerations, loan losses, risk mitigation, and ALCO-related matters.
• Partner with business banking leadership on commercial lending strategy, credit discipline, portfolio composition, risk management, and growth in small business operating relationships.
• Provide executive leadership for mortgage activities, including originations, processing, underwriting, servicing, investor relationships, secondary market considerations, and regulatory/agency guidelines.
• Maintain knowledge of Fannie Mae and other investor secondary markets; manage product relationships with vendors, investors, and relevant government agencies.
• Identify and act on new market opportunities by developing or refining lending products, partnerships, and programs aligned to member needs and the client’s impact strategy.
• Ensure legal, regulatory, agency, and social compliance across lending production and processing areas.
• Maintain effective reporting, documentation, workflow, and departmental scheduling methods; complete monthly and periodic reports as requested.
• Stay current on economic, business, regulatory, and financial conditions affecting the client, its members, its markets, and the broader lending environment.
• Serve on required committees, including the Executive Management Team, ALCO, and business lending committee, with participation in other committees or task forces as appropriate.
• Represent the client internally and externally with professionalism, credibility, and commitment to the credit union’s mission, values, and member service expectations.

The Candidate

Experience and Professional Qualifications

• Ten or more years of progressive lending, banking, credit union, community banking, mortgage, commercial/business banking, or related financial services leadership experience.
• Demonstrated leadership experience across a multi-discipline lending function. Experience across mortgage and business lending is highly valued; consumer lending experience is beneficial.
• Strong mortgage leadership credibility is important, including experience with production, operations, secondary market, servicing, processing, underwriting, or mortgage team leadership.
• Experience leading, coaching, and developing managers and teams in a collaborative, values-driven culture.
• Strong business lending acumen, including understanding of commercial real estate, small business operating credit, portfolio management, credit policy, risk rating, and loan committee processes.
• Understanding of consumer lending products, member experience, loan processing, credit standards, and production efficiency.
• Ability to partner with Finance on profitability, NIM, loan losses, risk mitigation, balance sheet composition, liquidity, and ALCO considerations.
• Knowledge of regulatory and agency guidelines relevant to lending, including mortgage investor standards and secondary market requirements.
• Experience identifying and implementing process, technology, vendor, workflow, automation, or data improvements that enhance efficiency and service quality.
• Familiarity with CDFI, community development, workforce housing, clean energy, energy resilience, low-income, underserved, or impact-oriented lending is preferred but not required; authentic interest in this work is required.
• Credit union experience is preferred but not mandatory. Our client is open to candidates from credit unions, community banks, mission-driven banks, CDFI-oriented institutions, and adjacent lending environments who can align with the organization’s mission and culture.
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, economics, or a related field is preferred; equivalent experience may be considered depending on background.

Skills and Competencies

• Values-based leadership: Demonstrates genuine commitment to cooperative ownership, empowerment, inclusion, impact, and responsible banking.
• Cultural maturity: Builds trust, communicates transparently, gives and receives feedback well, and strengthens team connection rather than creating silos.
• Empathy with accountability: Leads with kindness and respect while setting clear expectations, making decisions, and holding teams responsible for outcomes.
• Strategic lending judgment: Understands how loan growth, credit quality, pricing, liquidity, capital, profitability, secondary market options, and mission outcomes interact.
• Mortgage and business credibility: Can quickly earn confidence from experienced lending professionals, executive peers, external partners, and community stakeholders.
• Team building and change leadership: Diagnoses organizational dynamics, improves morale, develops leaders, and creates the conditions for teams to perform at higher levels.
• External relationship orientation: Comfortable building relationships with real estate professionals, builders, title companies, business owners, housing partners, community organizations, and market leaders.
• Technology-forward mindset: Curious and pragmatic about automation, workflow improvement, digital lending tools, data, and AI-enabled opportunities without pursuing technology for its own sake.
• Communication: Clear, concise, credible, and effective with employees, executives, board members, members, partners, vendors, and regulators.
• Execution discipline: Balances strategic thinking with operational follow-through, timely reporting, budget ownership, project management, and measurable progress.
• Adaptability: Comfortable operating in a growing, multi-market organization that is expanding beyond its historical geographic center and continuing to evolve.