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Wilmington, Delaware, United States
Onsite
Become an everyday champion — and build a career where your impact fuels financial progress.
What We Do
CardWorks Financial Group is a diversified financial services platform building ethical solutions across credit, lending, and the full customer lifecycle. Through our family of companies, CardWorks Financial Group tackles the complex challenges that larger financial institutions leave behind. We’re embedded throughout the credit card ecosystem as a lender, servicer, and merchant acquirer.
Who We Are
With nearly 40 years of operating history, our track record is solid: disciplined in downturns and built to accelerate in recovery. The CardWorks Financial Group companies take precise approach in complex markets, as a top three non-prime focused general purpose card issuer and a top fifteen U.S. merchant acquirer.
Our team tackles the industry’s most complex credit and payment challenges. And we believe that excellent work starts with a team that feels supported, respected, and empowered to grow.
CardWorks Servicing, LLC provides end-to end operational servicing functions for credit cards, secured cards, and installment loans. We service consumer and small business loans across the credit spectrum and offers backup servicing and due diligence services to capital providers and trustees.
Founded in 1997, Merrick Bank is an FDIC®-insured financial institution headquartered in South Jordan, Utah, with over $10 billion in assets. A wholly owned subsidiary of CardWorks Financial Group, Merrick Bank serves roughly five million cardmembers and more than 100,000 merchant customers, offering credit cards, recreational loans, deposit accounts, merchant services and bank sponsorships to consumers and businesses.
Carson Smithfield, LLC provides a variety of post-charge-off debt recovery services, including digital self-service, IVR, live agent, and external agency management.
Position Summary and Role Impact:
The Director, Data Science – Competitive Intelligence, AI Insights & Strategic Analytics is a highly visible leadership role responsible for transforming internal, external, structured, and unstructured data into actionable business intelligence, competitive insights, and strategic recommendations. Sitting at the intersection of analytics, risk, strategy, technology, and market intelligence, this role leads the development of enterprise reporting, competitor benchmarking, AI-driven intelligence solutions, and executive decision support capabilities across CardWorks Financial Group.
This position combines advanced analytics, machine learning, Generative AI, competitive intelligence, and industry research to identify growth opportunities, anticipate market movements, evaluate competitor performance, monitor emerging risks, and support strategic decision-making. The role serves as a trusted advisor to executive leadership, business unit leaders, risk management, regulators, auditors, and board stakeholders by delivering data-driven insights that influence business strategy, portfolio performance, and market positioning.
The successful candidate will champion an AI-first and market-first mindset, leveraging machine learning, Large Language Models (LLMs), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and AI-powered automation to accelerate intelligence gathering, uncover hidden opportunities, and create sustainable competitive advantage. This leader will also drive the build-out of enterprise analytics capabilities, including KPI reporting, portfolio performance measurement, market intelligence platforms, competitor monitoring solutions, and executive AI copilots.
Essential Functions:
Requirements for Success:
Education & Experience:
Leadership Competencies
Ideally, the qualified candidate will work at the following location(s): South Jordan, UT, Woodbury, NY, Wilmington, DE. A hybrid work model or fully remote model can be considered based on hiring manager decision and priorities of the role.
The salary range for this position, if located in NY Metro/NY State is $146,409 to $162,676. However, please note that the salary range will vary for other geographic areas.
#INDHP
Our Employee Value Proposition
We offer a total rewards package comprised of a competitive base rate of pay, variable pay incentive programs based on the role, and a comprehensive benefit suite. Offered rates of pay are determined based on job-related knowledge, relevant experience, skills, certifications, and geographic location.
We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to age, race, color, sex, or gender identity/expression (including pregnancy, childbirth, transgender status, or sexual orientation), religion or creed, ancestry, citizenship, national origin, disability, military or veteran status, marital status, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
We do not tolerate discrimination, harassment, or retaliation. Employment decisions are based solely on qualifications, merit, and business needs. Everyone is welcome here, and we hire based on your ability to do the job, not any protected characteristics.
If you need help or reasonable accommodation during the application or hiring process, please let your TA Partner know.