Head of Auto Recovery

The Team

Upstart’s Auto Servicing team is seeking a candidate to join the team as a Head of Auto Recovery, to lead our repossession and remarketing operations, overseeing the full asset recovery lifecycle — from delinquency to post-charge-off liquidation. This is a critical leadership role responsible for shaping our recovery strategy, guiding vendor partnerships, and building a high-performance team that ensures we maximize value recovery while maintaining a compliant and customer-centric approach.

We’ve built a functional foundation by leveraging forwarders and outsourced remarketing partners. We are seeking a subject matter expert to evaluate, reimagine, and scale our capability into the future. Candidate must have deep industry knowledge, a strong operational mindset, and the ability to drive results through data and strategy.

Position Location - This role is available in the following locations: Remote

Time Zone Requirements - This team operates on the East/West Coast time zones.

Travel Requirements - As a digital first company, the majority of your work can be accomplished remotely. The majority of our employees can live and work anywhere in the U.S but are encouraged to to still spend high quality time in-person collaborating via regular onsites. The in-person sessions’ cadence varies depending on the team and role; most teams meet once or twice per quarter for 2-4 consecutive days at a time.

How you’ll make an impact:

• Collaborate with the Director of Auto Servicing to define the strategy for repossession and remarketing
• Own and Evolve the Recovery Lifecycle: Lead strategy and operations across repossession, skip tracing, remarketing, and deficiency collections.
• Be Our Industry Expert: Evaluate whether we are using the right vendors, tools, and methods — and recommend improvements rooted in best practices.
• Drive Strategic Transformation: Assess when and how we should transition from forwarders to direct agent models, or implement hybrid structures.
• Optimize Vendor Management: Establish performance scorecards, negotiate contracts, and manage forwarders, LPR providers, skip vendors, and remarketing partners.
• Accelerate Speed to Liquidation: Streamline processes to reduce cycle times from repo to auction and improve overall return rates.
• Data-Driven Leadership: Analyze performance metrics, uncover insights, and lead continuous improvement efforts.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Partner with Product, Legal, Compliance, Risk, and Engineering to build systems, write product requirements (PRDs), and launch operational tooling.
• Lead & Develop a High-Performing Team: Mentor your recovery team and foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and ethical practices.

   

Key Responsibilities:

• Strategy & Vision
• Act as a visionary leader to anticipate future needs and guide the long-term evolution of Upstart’s auto recovery function.
• Design scalable, future-ready systems and processes that support sustained portfolio growth and operational resilience.
• Stay ahead of industry trends and ensure Upstart’s repossession and remarketing strategies remain competitive, compliant, and high-performing.
• Benchmark performance against peers; identify gaps and opportunities.
• Advise on technology integrations to improve speed, visibility, and recovery outcomes.
• Build metrics and dashboards that provide full transparency into recovery health.
• Vendor & Relationship Management
• Determine when to use forwarders, direct agents, LPR tech, and skip tracing partners.
• Own vendor contracts — from negotiation to performance enforcement.
• Leverage deep industry relationships to stay ahead of trends.
• Operations & Execution
• Oversee daily operations across recovery and remarketing.
• Improve borrower outreach, coordination with agents, and process handoffs
• Increase remarketing efficiency to reduce holding time and maximize resale value.
• Team Leadership & Development
• Identify and hire top talent in recovery operations.
• Build a self-driven, resilient team that thrives in ambiguity.
• Invest in training, career development, and performance management.
• Compliance & Risk
• Ensure all practices align with federal and state regulations, and company policy.
• Proactively mitigate reputational, legal, and operational risk.

What we’re looking for: 

Minimum qualifications:

• A minimum of 7+ years of experience in auto asset recovery, including deep experience in repossession, skip tracing, and remarketing.
• 5 years in a leadership role and proven track record of developing and implementing successful repossession, recovery and post charge off recovery strategies.
• Strong knowledge of repossession and collections laws and regulations.
• Experience working with repossession forwarder and remarketing vendor software and tools, familiarity with collections best practices and an eye towards innovation.
• Agility: Ability to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment, rationalize trade-offs and prioritization, willingness to get creative to drive results.
• Big picture thinker: You understand how all stakeholders behave and perform, and are highly capable of combining different tools and methods to create an effective auto recovery strategy.
• Analytical adeptness: You are data-driven, analytical, detail-oriented and relentlessly use data to make decisions on strategy, constantly re-evaluating and updating strategy and needed to maximize effectiveness.
• Flexible amid change and ambiguity: You are excited and comfortable working in an early-stage, high-growth company with limited historical data. You learn quickly, work independently, think creatively, and adapt well to change. You are comfortable operating quickly and scrappily, and as well as other technical and non-technical audiences at Upstart.

Preferred qualifications:

• Curiosity: You are immensely curious about the root cause of issues, think critically from first principles, and never stop asking questions.
• Thought Partner: You’re open minded and thoughtful about new ideas, and can serve as a thought partner to the team.
• Strategic thinker with a builder’s mindset — you can zoom out and set vision or zoom in and fix what’s broken
• Bachelor’s  degree

What you'll love: 

Competitive Compensation (base + bonus & equity)

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with Health Savings Account contributions from Upstart 

401(k) with 100% company match up to $4,500 and immediate vesting and after-tax savings

Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP)

Life and disability insurance

Generous holiday, vacation, sick and safety leave  

Supportive parental, family care, and military leave programs

Annual wellness, technology & ergonomic reimbursement programs

Social activities including team events and onsites, all-company updates, employee resource groups (ERGs), and other interest groups such as book clubs, fitness, investing, and volunteering

Catered lunches + snacks & drinks when working in offices

#LI-REMOTE

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