AVP, Strategy Sciences (L11)

Role Title: AVP, Strategy Sciences (L11)

Company Overview:

Synchrony (NYSE: SYF) is a leading consumer financing company that has been at the heart of American commerce and opportunity for nearly a century. Synchrony delivers credit and banking products that empower tens of millions of consumers to improve their financial lives and access what matters most. Leveraging innovative solutions that are shaping the future of retail commerce, Synchrony supports the growth and success of some of the nation’s most respected brands, alongside hundreds of thousands of small and midsize businesses, including health and wellness providers. Committed to excellence in service and culture, Synchrony is proud to be named as #3 as a Great Place to Work® in India and is honored to be ranked the #1 Best Company to Work For® in the U.S. by Fortune magazine and Great Place to Work®. For more information, visit www.synchrony.com.

Organizational Overview:

Credit Team decisions credit actions across the lifecycle of a customer – from acquisition to account management to collections and recover – we work towards managing credit and fraud losses and elevating customer experience through powerful and proprietary insights on customer risk and credit behaviors. The actionable insights are driven by access to numerous alternative data sources, new age technologies, focused strategies, emerging algorithms, and predictive precision. Spread across 10 pillars the credit team in India caters to the entire gamut of decision sciences, from data management to model development to strategy design, and bringing it all to life through technology, and managing within the guardrails of our regulatory requirements. As part of the team, you will have access to some unique product propositions, functional and leadership training, interaction with executive leadership team and a myriad of diverse perspectives.

Role Summary/Purpose:

This AVP role sits within the Strategy Sciences team and is responsible for shaping data-driven strategies that enable sustainable customer growth, optimize portfolio performance, and drive enterprise business outcomes. The role combines advanced analytics, strategic thinking, and business leadership to identify emerging opportunities, influence decision-making, and deliver measurable impact across Acquisition and Account Management functions spanning Credit and Fraud.

Reporting to the VP, Strategy Sciences, the AVP will lead high-impact strategy science initiatives by leveraging advanced analytics, experimentation, machine learning, and deep business insights to solve complex business problems. The individual will partner closely with senior business leaders, model development teams, technology organizations, and cross-functional stakeholders to define strategic priorities, translate insights into scalable solutions, and accelerate business value through data-driven decisioning.

This position is designed for a strategic individual who can independently lead multiple complex initiatives, influence senior stakeholders without direct authority, mentor junior team members, and drive execution from ideation through implementation while balancing business objectives, customer experience, and regulatory considerations.

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategy opportunity identification & Business Advisory: Partner with Acquisition and Account Management leadership to identify high-impact growth, optimization and risk mitigation opportunities. Leverage advanced analytics, emerging trends to prioritize initiatives that deliver measurable customer and portfolio outcomes
• Business problem framing & Strategy design: Translate complex business questions into structured analytical frameworks – defining hypotheses, success metrics, experimentation approaches, and execution strategies. Balance analytical rigor with practical business considerations to influence strategic decisions.
• Advanced analytics & Data Science: Lead the design and execution of sophisticated analytics initiatives across supervised and unsupervised machine learning algorithms for customer segmentation, anomaly detection, feature engineering, predictive analytics, and pattern recognition. Additionally explore new and emerging methodologies and graph native technologies to deliver scalable business solutions and actionable insights.
• Executive Communication & strategic Influencing : Translate analytical findings into concise executive-ready narratives, impact sizing and trade-off analysis. Present insights that enable informed business decisions across senior leadership.
• Experimentation & Decision Science : Design and govern test-and-learn frameworks to evaluate new strategies, optimize customer treatment methodologies and quantify business impact. Continuously refine recommendations through post-implementation evaluations and performance measurements.
• Cross-functional leadership & Delivery : Partner closely with Product, Technology, Model Development, Data, and Business Strategy teams to influence roadmaps, improve data and decisioning capabilities, enable scalable implementation, and ensure successful delivery of enterprise initiatives.
• Innovation & Capability Building: Champion innovative analytical approaches, emerging AI and ML methodologies, and best practices in strategy science while mentoring junior team members, promote analytical excellence, and contribute to building organizational capabilities.

Required Skills/Knowledge:

• Bachelor's degree in a quantitative discipline with 5+ years of experience in strategy, analytics, or data science within consumer financial services (Credit, Marketing, Risk, Fraud, or Collections) or in lieu of a Bachelor's degree, 7+ years of data analytics/data sciences in Marketing, Risk or Collections in Financial services. 
• Strong expertise across the consumer lending lifecycle, including customer acquisition, underwriting, portfolio management, credit line management, fraud, and collections, with a solid understanding of decisioning strategies and portfolio optimization.
• Advanced analytical and technical proficiency in SQL and SAS, with strong working knowledge of Python (or equivalent programming languages), automation, and data visualization / conversational AI tools.
• Experience applying advanced statistical and machine learning techniques (e.g., logistic regression, tree-based models, ensemble methods, clustering, optimization, neural networks) to solve complex business problems.
• Working Experience with LLMs underpinning Generative & Agentic AI protocols
• Proven experience developing data-driven strategies using and test-and-learn methodologies to deliver measurable business outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to translate complex business problems into scalable analytical solutions, applying structured problem-solving, sound business judgment, and strong quantitative rigor.
• Passion for innovation and continuous improvement, with the ability to identify emerging analytical methodologies and translate them into practical business applications.
• Strong leadership and stakeholder management skills, with experience leading cross-functional initiatives, influencing senior leaders, and partnering effectively across Business, Product, Technology, Data Engineering, Model Development, and Operations.
• Excellent executive communication and storytelling skills, with advanced proficiency in Excel and PowerPoint, and the ability to communicate complex analytical concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Desired Skills/Knowledge:

• Masters Degree Preferred
• Exposure to cloud-based analytics platforms, big data technologies, or modern data ecosystems (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, Spark, Hadoop, or similar) is preferred.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Bachelor’s degree and 5+ years of experience in data analytics/strategy within Credit, Marketing, Risk or Collections in Financial services, or in lieu of a Bachelor's degree, 7+ years of data analytics/data sciences in Marketing, Risk or Collections in Financial services. 

Work Timings: 2:00 PM to 11:00 PM IST

This role qualifies for Enhanced Flexibility offered in Synchrony India and will require the incumbent to be available between 06:00 AM Eastern Time – 11:30 AM Eastern Time (timings are anchored to US Eastern hours and will adjust twice a year locally). This window is for meetings with India and US teams. The remaining hours will be flexible for the employee to choose. Exceptions may apply periodically due to business needs)
We are proud to offer flexibility at Synchrony. Our way of working allows you the option to work from home or workspaces in our Regional Engagement Hubs—Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Kolkata, or Delhi/NCR.
Occasionally you may be required to commute or travel to Hyderabad or one of the Regional Engagement Hubs for in person engagement activities such as business or team meetings, trainings, and culture events.

For Internal Applicants:

• Understand the criteria or mandatory skills required for the role, before applying
• Inform your manager and HRM before applying for any role on Workday
• Ensure that your professional profile is updated (fields such as education, prior experience, other skills) and it is mandatory to upload your updated resume (Word or PDF format)
• Must not be any corrective action plan (Formal/Final Formal, LPP)
• L9+ Employees who have completed 18 months in the organization and 12 months in their current role and level are only eligible.
• Employees at L9+ can apply for this opportunity.

Grade/Level: 11

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