Retention & Recovery Lead

Hello. We’re Teya.

Teya was founded on a simple belief: local businesses deserve better.

They are the cafés, restaurants, salons, shops and entrepreneurs that bring character to our high streets, create jobs and keep communities moving. Yet for too long, financial services has made life harder for them - with clunky tools, poor support and complexity that gets in the way of running a business.

Teya exists to change that.

We’re building a financial platform for local businesses across Europe - one built around simple tools, thoughtful design and real human support. Our Members rely on us to help them run their business with confidence, and that responsibility shapes the way we work.

We move fast. We care about quality. We stay close to the detail. And we believe great performance and genuine hospitality should go hand in hand.

If you want to build meaningful products, solve real problems and make a genuine difference for local businesses, we’d love to hear from you

The role

The Retention & Recovery Lead owns one pipeline that follows every merchant from the first sign they might leave, through retention, a well-run exit and collections, to write-off or debt sale.

Today we treat churn and collections as separate problems, and neither has a clear owner. In practice they are usually the same merchant at different points in time: a merchant who goes quiet in March becomes, by June, an unpaid fee, a terminal still in the field and a balance nobody is chasing. Collections activity also sits in pockets across the business, from unpaid subscriptions and fees, negative balances and chargebacks to terminal recovery, dissolved companies and fraud losses. As our credit products grow, so will the need.

You’ll bring all of this together under one strategy, one queue and one set of metrics. We want someone who knows collections and its pain points, and who approaches the whole lifecycle with a product and design mindset: redesigning journeys end to end, and deciding where AI and automation belong and where people add the most value. You’ll start hands-on and build a small credit control team as the capability grows.

What you’ll do

• Own the retention-to-recovery pipeline end to end, from the first churn signal to write-off or debt sale, running from one prioritised queue with one set of definitions.

• Work with our data team to build and run an AI retention engine that identifies merchants heading towards churn, recommends the next best action for each and puts them in a queue to be worked. Prove what works with holdout groups, and do more of it.

• Agree with Commercial how save conversations are delivered, and make sure our own risk actions, such as held settlements, are weighed before they push a good merchant out.

• Design a proper exit for every merchant who leaves: a recorded reason, fees stopped, terminal returned, final balance netted and a final statement, so merchants do not need to contact Customer Relations to close their account.

• Build automated collections that start the day a balance turns negative: settlement netting, direct debit, card on file, payment links and payment plans. Journeys run through the Teya app and portal first, with phone as the exception.

• Run managed and external recovery for larger balances: credit control, payment plans, an agency panel, write-off thresholds and, as a last resort, debt sale.

• Own the recovery strategy for fraud-related balances with Fraud Operations and Legal. They keep investigation and legal action; you make sure every balance has a recovery route and a priority.

• Run the existing book as a separate remediation project with its own end date, so it does not pull focus from the new flow.

• Connect the work of Billing, Payments, Logistics (terminal recovery), Credit, Customer Relations and the termination and withheld funds process into one joined-up flow.

• Define and own the pipeline’s metrics, report them monthly, and feed what you learn back into onboarding, pricing and risk policy.

• Prepare the capability to scale with Teya’s growing credit book, and hire and lead the credit control team.

What success looks like

In your first six months

• Definitions agreed and reported for flow recovery rate, stock recovery rate and true churn.

• A single queue live, worked by hand from simple rules while the model is built.

• An exit process in place for every leaving merchant, and an automated collections first version running in at least one market.

• The credit control team hired or in hiring, and the legacy book project under way with a clear plan.

By the end of your first year

• The first retention model live, beating the rules-based baseline and tested against holdout groups.

• Flow recovery rate by day 90 tracking towards our 70% target, with time to recovery and cost to collect reported monthly.

• The first debt sale completed, where the legal and data preconditions are met.

• Measurably fewer Customer Relations contacts from merchants who are leaving or owe us money.

What you’ll bring

• Hands-on collections or recovery experience at some point in your career, ideally with small businesses, covering payment plans, agencies and write-offs, so you know where the pain points sit.

• Experience with retention, churn or customer lifecycle work, or a clear view of how retention and collections connect.

• A strong product mindset: you think in journeys, systems and outcomes, not only operational volume.

• A track record of designing, rolling out and running new processes, shipping a working first version quickly and improving it.

• A practical, curious approach to AI and automation, with the judgement to know where they help and where they don’t.

• Comfortable with data: defining metrics, working with data scientists on models and reading the results of tests and holdouts.

• A sound grasp of fair treatment and regulation in collections: treating small businesses fairly, spotting vulnerability, applying Consumer Duty principles where they apply, and knowing why we never contact a merchant under AML or fraud review.

• Experience in a smaller, fast-moving company such as a start-up, scale-up or fintech. Experience at larger organisations is welcome alongside this.

• Strong stakeholder management across Risk, Commercial, Finance, Billing and Legal, and the ability to get teams behind one approach.

• A clear, confident communicator in writing and in person, highly motivated and able to work independently.

Nice to have

• Experience of debt sale or forward-flow agreements.

• Collections across several European markets.

• Experience with credit products such as cash advance or lending.

The Perks

• Physical and mental health support through our partnership with GymPass giving free access to over 1,500 gyms in the UK, 1-1 therapy, meditation sessions, digital fitness, and nutrition apps

• Our company offers extended and improved maternity and paternity leave choices, giving employees more flexibility and support

• Cycle-to-Work Scheme

• Health and Life Insurance

• Pension Scheme

• 25 days of Annual Leave (+ Bank Holidays)

• Office snacks every day

• Friendly, comfortable, and informal office environment in Central London

Teya is proud to be an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or background can thrive and do their best work. We believe that a diverse team leads to better ideas, stronger outcomes, and a more supportive workplace for all.

If you require any reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process whether for interviews, assessments, or other parts of the application—we encourage you to let us know. We are committed to ensuring that every candidate has a fair and accessible experience with us.