Senior Investment Officer

IFC — a member of the World Bank Group — is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities. Our mission is to leverage the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet.

The Manufacturing, Agribusiness & Services (MAS) Industry Group plays a key role in supporting IFC’s strategic priorities, covering investments in the global manufacturing and services, agribusiness, health, and education sectors. MAS’ sectors play a critical role in providing goods and services to consumers, addressing core needs, creating jobs, contributing to government revenues, and stimulating growth. In IFC’s client countries, these sectors can account for as much as 80% of overall economic activity and can account for up to 90% of employment activity, particularly in the poorest countries.

MAS is seeking an experienced Senior Investment Officer to be based in Beijing, China to complement its team to cover manufacturing and agribusiness for its East Asia and Pacific operations. The successful candidate will be a key member of the Asia Pacific MAS team and will work closely with IFC offices in the region as well as global team to develop new business opportunities, execute transactions as well as manage portfolio investments. 

The Senior Investment Officer will have 12-15 years of investment experience, preferably in managing clients in the manufacturing and agribusiness sectors. Strong deal structuring, client negotiation and legal documentation coordination experience is required. Knowledge of specific business, social, environmental, and developmental issues related to these sectors is preferred. The candidate will play an active lead role in full life cycle of the project, from business development to exit. 

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Develop long-term relationships with key clients and other stakeholders (e.g., government officials, regulators) at the working level to identify and act on opportunities for repeat business and engage effectively with other syndicate lenders at the working level.
• Collaborate with clients, including in FCS countries, to identify how IFC can add more value to their company and improve the quality of IFC’s investment.
• Engage in discussions with investment officers to gather insights for lessons learned on important topics and to identify additional areas where lessons learned could improve business development and transaction structuring.
• Supervise the gathering of lessons learned on important topics across the portfolio, connect trends from different areas of the portfolio, and make recommendations on how these could improve business development and transaction structuring.
• Gather market intelligence to stay informed of emerging trends in sector and country that could have broad impact on a country or subsector portfolio.
• Lead quarterly assessments of ratings, loan loss reserves, or valuations for country, region, or sector portfolio; and conduct quality control over work performed by analysts and more junior investment officers.
• Analyze strategically important portfolio trends to identify where they are most concentrated and the contributing factors. Take a leadership role in discussing findings and their implications at review meetings.
• Negotiate straightforward waivers, amendments, and rescheduling; and prepare official restructuring memos for approval.
• Perform complex, credit risk rating assessments, covenant compliance reviews, and development impact assessment. Review the quality of portfolio review work performed by more junior staff.
• Oversee the portfolio management work of analysts and investment officers for assigned portfolio to identify gaps and create a macro view of the financial, compliance, and risk status of the portfolio, anticipating emerging risks.

Selection Criteria

• Master’s degree in a related field and at least 12–15 years of relevant experience. Related fields of education include business, finance, or economics or an area of expertise specific to a sector, subject matter, or industry specialty. Relevant experience could include a proven track record in business consulting or investment banking, or operational experience in the sector or technical or professional field.
• Capacity to understand, enable, and participate in market creation opportunities for multiple countries by demonstrating long-term perspective, open-mindedness, persistence, innovation, and ability to leverage all available tools (including de-risking tools); good understanding of the roles and value-add of IFC and WBG in new markets.
• Understanding of relevant country strategies and obstacles for achieving them.
• Must have a reputation for listening carefully to clients and stakeholders and asking targeted questions to understand their needs and determine the viability of a business opportunity.
• Ability to build long-term engagement with clients and credibility by demonstrating knowledge of their business, sector, and culture; maintain an ongoing dialogue on their business needs, operations, and strategies as well as opportunities for strategically aligned business deals.
• Ability to maintain client engagement during portfolio stage to identify growth opportunities, address emerging problems, and focus on actions that promote sustainability and ensure that overall development impact objectives are met.
• Build and maintain extensive networks in sectors, country, and region to bring new engagements, and business opportunities.
• IFC/WBG: Ability to interact effectively with working level WBG staff and participate in collaborative interventions or /projects that enable private sector investment by exercising sensitivity to differences in corporate cultures, priorities, and operating practices and /requirements.
• Public Sector: Ability to participate and constructively contribute to meetings with mid-level government officials on constraints to private sector investment in their countries.
• Ability to develop a client engagement plan and implement it by maintaining ongoing relationships with senior-level clients, developing a deep knowledge of their business and priorities, anticipating their unexpressed needs, and helping them look beyond markets where they are currently active.
• IFC/WBG: Ability to learn from and exercise influence in working level relationships across WBG to: (i) develop a deeper understanding of how they work and their priorities and interests; (ii) advocate for IFC’s priorities; and (iii) identify opportunities to work together to open new markets for private sector investment.
• Public Sector: Ability to understand the political context and mindset of government officials to connect their interests with what it would take to create a business climate and incentives for private sector investment in their countries.
• Networks: Possesses an extensive internal and external network with key players in the sector, country, region, or specialization (e.g., legal, credit industry specialists), and an ability to leverage those networks to maintain expertise, identify and capitalize on business opportunities, bring deals to closure, and obtain approvals.
• Ability to supervise staff in business development, processing, portfolio management, or specialty area by providing technical guidance and delegating work to build and effectively use talents of staff and balance workloads.
• Ability to guide, advise, mentor, and coach junior staff and peers to develop and broaden their scope of skills, including providing on-the-job learning opportunities. Critical for FCS and other challenging markets.
• Must be able to tap into and leverage resources through expertise in an industry, region, or sector, including leveraging on market dynamics, navigating regulatory structures, and mitigating risks.
• Ability to read and anticipate shifts in market trends and the implications for IFC’s current and future business.
• Ability to review the financial analytical work performed by team members for moderately complex transactions based on in-depth analytical and financial modeling skills and experience to know what to look for in efficiently ensuring quality control and directing the appropriate analysis to understand risk factors in a project.
• Ability to direct and review complex financial information and financial analytical work performed by team members and quickly assess what it means as well as identify where there are gaps, inaccuracies, or inappropriate applications.
• Ability to balance details of individual assets with a big-picture portfolio view to lead the supervision of individual assets and play a key role in formulating and implementing portfolio strategies.
• Ability to discern patterns and identify issues with portfolio projects and assets early on and to act proactively in ensuring the quality of the assets.
• Must have restructuring expertise that includes thorough understanding of financial instruments and main investment agreements for optimal structuring.
• Capacity of problem solving to effectively articulate options and recommend actions for both distressed assets and emerging issues for strategic and top tier clients to achieve outcomes that benefit both IFC and its clients.

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ats/careersite/JobDetails.aspx?id=30144&site=1