Associate Director, Small Business Lending & Credit

For almost 70 years, Export Finance Australia has helped Australian businesses grow and succeed internationally with finance to secure opportunities, expand into new markets and diversify their presence. We support critical minerals and defence sectors, finance projects that strengthen economic resilience and advance net zero, and back Australian investment in sustainable infrastructure. 

Working with banks, other Government agencies and international partners, we back Australia’s exporters, supply chain businesses and industries, contributing to a more stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific while advancing Australia’s trade, investment and economic security objectives.  

Small businesses are a critical part of the Australian economy, and supporting these exporters is a core part of our mandate, and an area of focus for EFA.  Our Small Business products deliver term lending up to $350,000 and bank guarantees up to $500,000, with typical business turnovers between $1m - $10m.  
We have a significant opportunity to develop the Small Business Lending channel into a key enabler of customer growth for EFA. This involves establishing external partnerships and maximising direct-to-EFA lending opportunities in order to support a greater number of small businesses.  This role is critical to achieving this objective, by driving the sales pipeline to deliver required targets and completing credit analysis of transaction before submission to credit risk

Your new role

Location: Sydney
Role Type: Full-time, Permanent

About you

• Key driver of the growth outcome of the Small Business Lending channel, including sales volume, customer growth, and portfolio renewals in conjunction with the Small Business team.
• Form strong external partnerships to generate export finance lending growth.
• Oversee a program of external activities to generate interest in EFA and help achieve targets.
• Manage transactions through the sales pipeline to maximise signings including engaging with customers and deal submission, and SBL team. 
• Manage credit analysis and assessments throughout the customer lifecycle from initial transaction assessments and writing new deals through to requests for renewals and repeat business. 
• Manage the credit processes for customers with a high-risk profile or material value transactions as needed.
• Engage with Credit to discuss papers prepared, articulate reasoning for decisions, support analysis with evidence. 
• Engage with Legal and Compliance teams during the credit assessment, documentation and execution phases of a transaction to ensure a smooth process for the customer. 

Qualifications & Skills

• Minimum 7+ years previous experience in a similar role/industry.
• Tertiary education in finance highly preferred or relevant experience in business lending. 
• Sales experience, strong track record of selling SME finance products and services to customers in a banking setting.
• Credit experience, notable experience and expertise in transactions within SME banking and preferably export sector along with ability to position and negotiate a transaction with credit management.
• Deal management, ability to identify where a sales deal looks unlikely and step away from proceedings and the ability to manage rejections when they arise
• Small Business customer and sector knowledge to understand the factors impacting the small business and export sectors, stays up to date with policies, trends and competitive activity. Understands what SME customers need from their lenders.
• Proficient credit skills to quickly determine the strengths of a transaction and mitigating circumstances and complete underwriting before submission to credit risk
• Risk mindset, applies knowledge and experience of managing risk to the portfolio, solve complex problems, ability to adapt the risk approach to differing customer circumstances and facilities in line with EFA’s approach to risk.

Even if you haven’t ticked every box but this role resonates with you, don't rule yourself out just yet, we'd love to hear from you!

Our benefits and culture

We are small enough to have an impact, BIG enough to make a world of difference and it starts with our people.

We support flexible working and pride ourselves in fostering a culture that is inclusive, diverse and collaborative. We are proud to be certified as a 2025 Great Place to Work for a fifth consecutive year, recognised on the 2023 AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list and listed as one of Australia’s Best Workplaces for Women in 2025. 

In line with our commitment to our people, we have a comprehensive array of benefits available to our employees:

• Generous leave provisions (e.g. Annual Wellbeing day) and leave purchase opportunities
• 18 weeks of paid parental leave for primary caregivers
• Thorough induction onboarding program
• Fitness Passport along with other Health & Wellbeing initiatives
• Gender affirmation leave
• Income Protection Insurance
• Community volunteering
• and many more!

Our headquarters is based in Sydney CBD, and we have a national presence across Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.

Eligibility

Australian Citizenship - To be eligible to apply for this position, applicants must hold Australian Citizenship at the time of application.

Security Clearance - To be eligible to apply for this position, applicants must be able to obtain and maintain a Baseline security clearance.

How to apply

Applications close: 6 April 2026.  

Interviews will occur in parallel, so please apply ASAP.
Enquiries: Careers@exportfinance.gov.au      
  
To apply, please email your CV to Careers@exportfinance.gov.au      

By choosing to apply, you agree to the recruitment privacy policy.

We invite and welcome applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people from diverse cultural backgrounds, people with disability and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. 

If you are a candidate with a disability, let us know how we can provide you with additional support.

About us

Export Finance Australia is Australia’s export credit agency.  

We provide finance to support Australian export trade and overseas infrastructure development across the Pacific and Indo-Pacific. Through our loans, bonds and guarantees, we support businesses – from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to large corporates – foreign governments and infrastructure projects, to take on the world. 

Working with banks, other government agencies and our partners, together we are helping drive international success for Australian businesses.

The reason our people join us, stay with us and grow with us is because they wholeheartedly believe in our purpose. They can see the impact we create for our customers.

We are a highly purpose-driven organisation. We seek to create an inclusive culture that values our customers and employees. Our people are expected to champion this and play a key role in achieving those outcomes. In working towards our strategy, our people display our IMPACT leadership behaviours of Frank & Fearless, Dexterous & Agile and Careful & Diligent

For more information about us, please refer to our website

Applications from recruitment agencies will not be considered on this occasion.