Branch Manager & Head Coach - University of Nevada, Reno
This Is Not a Typical Branch Manager Job
If you've spent your career running a teller line, hitting weekly product goals, and managing schedules in a beige lobby — this isn't the role for you, and we mean that with respect. We have those roles. This isn't one of them.
We are opening something different at the University of Nevada, Reno: a campus space designed to graduate financially fluent adults who happen to bank with Rize for life. The person who leads this place will be part teacher, part coach, part talent developer, part community organizer, and part business builder. They will also oversee a traditional Reno community branch (off campus) — but the campus branch is the headline, and the model we build here will eventually live on campuses across our footprint.
We are not looking for the most polished banker. We are looking for the person who can stand in front of 40 first-year students at a residence hall workshop and make them care about a credit score — and then turn around and develop a team of student employees into the next generation of financial professionals.
What You’ll Actually Do
Develop young people. This is the job. You will lead a team of Peer Financial Guides — undergraduates from across UNR — and your most important output is who they become. You will coach them on how to have a real conversation about money. You will teach them to read a paystub, explain APR without jargon, and recognize when a peer is in financial distress. You will create career pathways from peer guide to senior guide to summer intern to full-time Rize team member. Several of them will go on to careers in financial services because of you. Some won’t — and that’s a win too. They’ll carry what they learned for life.
Teach. A lot. You will personally deliver workshops on first paychecks, first credit cards, first apartments, predatory lending, NIL banking for athletes, and senior send-offs for graduating students. You will train your team to deliver them too. You will partner with UNR faculty to embed financial content into existing courses and help shape a future for-credit financial life skills course. If teaching energizes you, this role will feel like home. If it drains you, please don’t apply.
Live on campus, not in the lobby. Sitting behind a desk waiting for foot traffic is not the strategy. You and your team will be at orientation, move-in week, Greek chapter meetings, multicultural org events, athletics functions, career fairs, late-night finals study sessions, and faculty office hours. You will know the Dean of Students, the head of residence life, the athletics compliance officer, the career center director, and the business school department chairs by first name within 90 days.
Build the UNR partnership into something real. Most bank-university partnerships are a logo on a card and a kiosk in the student union. You will push past that — research collaborations, emergency micro-grant programs, scholarship initiatives, academic integration, NIL infrastructure. You will be the working-level face of Rize to UNR, and you will know when to escalate to executive sponsors on both sides.
Coach, don’t sell. We measure this place differently. Yes, you will be accountable for member growth, branded card adoption, and product engagement — but the deeper scoreboard is behaviors changed. Students who built emergency funds. Students who avoided predatory credit. Students who graduated with a 700+ score and a Rize relationship intact. You will be expected to defend this longer arc when pressure mounts to optimize for short-term branch metrics.
Run a real branch, too. You will also oversee a Reno community branch with traditional operations, compliance, risk, scheduling, audits, and member service standards. The two branches are different animals, and you will need to switch contexts fluently between them. This is not a campus-only role.
Hold the line on the model. Internal pressure will come — from peers, from corporate, occasionally from yourself — to make the campus branch look more like a regular branch. Your job is to resist that gravity while still delivering real, measurable results. We need someone with the spine for that.
What You’ll Be Accountable For
The traditional stuff: Operational integrity, compliance, risk management, staffing, scheduling, budget, performance reviews, and member service standards across both locations.
The stuff that actually matters: Student member growth and retention; branded UNR debit card adoption; credit builder enrollments; workshop volume and attendance; faculty partnerships established; Senior Send-Off completion rates; emergency micro-grants distributed; NIL athlete relationships; Peer Guide development and pipeline conversions; and the Member Engagement Score for your student cohort compared to peer young-adult segments.
Who We’re Looking For (and Who We’re Not)
We welcome non-traditional applicants. Strongly.
If your background is in any of the following, we want to hear from you:
- High school or community college personal finance or economics teaching
- Financial coaching at a nonprofit, JumpStart Coalition, or community development organization
- University residence life, student affairs, career services, or first-gen student programming
- Youth program leadership at a community foundation, Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, or similar
- Athletics compliance, NIL advising, or college athletic department student services
- Military service with leadership and training responsibilities, especially involving young adults
- Adult education, workforce development, or apprenticeship program management
- Credit union or community banking with documented youth or community development work
You do not need to have managed a branch before. You do not need a finance degree. You do not need to know what Synapsis or Temenos are on day one — we will teach you. What we can’t teach is the instinct to develop people, the patience to coach, the courage to teach in front of a skeptical room, and the credibility to walk into a Dean’s office and be taken seriously.
Honest about what we’d struggle to teach
- A genuine love for developing young adults — not as labor, as people
- Comfort being in front of a room, on a podcast, on a panel, at a tabling event
- The ability to translate financial concepts into language an 18-year-old will actually absorb
- Relationship-building stamina — you will meet a lot of new people every week, for years
- Sound judgment under ambiguity — this role doesn’t come with a playbook; you will write it
- A backbone for defending the model when the short-term metrics look soft
Things we do require
- Bachelor’s degree, or equivalent experience that makes the degree irrelevant
- Demonstrated leadership of a team — paid staff, volunteers, students, or a meaningful program
- Strong written and verbal communication; presentation skills are not optional in this role
- Ability to learn financial products, compliance frameworks, and core banking systems quickly
- Willingness to work some evenings and weekends — campus life doesn’t run 9 to 5
- Travel within the Reno market and occasional travel to Rize HQ and partner campuses
What we’re not looking for
Someone whose primary motivation is “ready for the next step up.” Someone who sees student employees as cheap labor. Someone who needs a predictable, traditional environment to thrive. Someone who is uncomfortable being measured on long-term outcomes instead of monthly product counts.
The Team You’ll Lead
Eight to ten Peer Financial Guides at the UNR branch — undergraduates from across majors, deliberately diverse in background, paid meaningfully above other on-campus jobs because we believe this is the most valuable student work on campus. A traditional team at the Reno community branch with the experience and continuity to run that location well. Virtual MSC partners who will handle warm handoffs from both locations.
You will report to the Director of Branches and partner closely with our Chief Growth Officer on the strategic arc of the campus model.
The Real Test
When the first cohort of UNR seniors you’ve worked with graduate and tell people, “the most important thing I learned in college didn’t happen in a classroom” — you’ve done the job.
If that sentence stirs something in you, please apply. If it sounds overwrought, this isn’t your role — and that’s okay.
The Standard Requirements
Physical Requirements
Consistent with a branch leadership role: frequent movement within and between locations; occasional lifting up to 15 pounds (supplies, marketing materials, event equipment); extended periods of standing during events; close visual work with documents and digital systems; and the ability to respond appropriately to operational and emergency situations. Reasonable accommodations will be made for qualified individuals.
Working Conditions
Indoor climate-controlled workspaces with regular off-site activity on campus and in the community. Some evening and weekend hours are required, particularly during peak academic periods (orientation, move-in, finals, graduation). Regular local travel between the two Reno locations.
Mental and Emotional Demands
Sustained relationship-building, public speaking, coaching across performance levels, managing competing priorities, and maintaining composure and judgment under pressure. Requires discretion and confidentiality in handling member and student information; professionalism in representing Rize within the university and broader community; and the resilience to lead a non-traditional model through inevitable periods of skepticism and adjustment.
Why Rize?
At Rize Credit Union, our purpose is to help people rise beyond financial barriers and achieve brighter futures. We believe banking should be personal, accessible, and empowering. As we expand into Reno, you'll have a rare opportunity to build something meaningful, develop future leaders, and leave a lasting impact on an entire campus community.
Ready to help us launch something extraordinary? Apply today!
Compensation
The expected pay range for this role at Rize Federal Credit Union is $90,000- $112,000/year. This range is based on candidates living locally in Reno, NV.
Actual compensation is determined by experience, education, skills, internal equity, and other job-related factors.
As part of the hiring process, candidates who receive a contingent offer will undergo a background investigation, which may include employment verification, credit review, criminal records search, Social Security verification, and government registry checks. Candidates must also meet eligibility requirements to be bonded under a fidelity bond.
Rize Federal Credit Union is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
