Senior Operations Officer

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Description

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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. 

IFC is deeply committed to advancing gender equality and economic inclusion as laid out in IFC’s 2030 Vision for Gender and Inclusion to deliver game – changing private sector partnerships and programs to accelerate gender equality and inclusion in emerging markets. This is aligned with the new World Bank Group (WBG) Gender Strategy (2024-30): Accelerate Gender Equality to End Poverty on a Livable Planet.   As part of its Vision 2030 for Gender Equality, IFC aims to provide capital to 55 million additional women by 2030 and will strengthen its supply of inclusive capital to women-led MSMEs. 

In 2025 IFC will launch a Center of Excellence for Women’s Entrepreneurship to support women entrepreneurs by addressing three major constraints: access to finance, access to capacity building and skills, and access to markets. This initiative will leverage existing resources and networks within IFC, local accelerators and incubators, government agencies, and corporate stakeholders. The Center of Excellence for Women’s Entrepreneurship will primarily focus on filling the “missing middle” for women entrepreneurs, and support the transition of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) from micro/subsistence businesses to productive medium and large enterprises, thus contributing to the development of a thriving and sustainable private sector in emerging markets.

GEID is looking for a dynamic, senior professional / lead with relevant experience in designing and delivering operations to support women entrepreneurs to design and lead the Center of Excellence for Women’s Entrepreneurship. 

The Lead will be based in New Delhi, India and will report to the GEID Asia Pacific Regional Lead with a dotted reporting line to the Financial Institutions Group South Asia

Under the overall guidance of the GEID Global Operations Manager and the GEID Asia Pacific Regional Lead, the Lead for the Center of Excellence for Women’s Entrepreneurship will be responsible for the design and implementation of the center’s activities, both internally and externally, to support women entrepreneurs. 

Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership:

• Develop and implement the center’s strategic vision and goals, ensuring alignment with IFC’s broader objectives and initiatives.
• Co-design the center with IFC Industries, particularly Industries providing finance to W-MSMEs, such as the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) and (CSF – Disruptive Technologies and Funds). The center shall be positioned to complement and connect IFC’s existing initiatives.
• Conduct a mapping of existing IFC interventions to support women entrepreneurs and prioritize interventions to be scaled up, as well as identifying interventions led by others that IFC could partner with to take to scale.  Examples of IFC programs are SheWins, ScaleX and Invest2equal.
• Contribute to the design of IFC Country Gender Programs by identifying entry points for entrepreneurship focused activities.
• Understand the entrepreneurship ecosystem at select country, regional, and global levels as relevant and identify strategic opportunities for private sector interventions.
• Collaborate with other GEID units, including those in the Innovation unit working on solutions towards Inclusive Capital and Supply Chains.
• Act as a conduit between IFC and World Bank initiatives, ensuring effective collaboration, coordination and knowledge sharing across different programs and departments, in particular with World Bank Group initiatives focused on W-MSMEs.
• Development of key partnerships with other IFI and development partners focused on women’s entrepreneurship.

Design and develop a set of activities/services focused on women entrepreneurs:

• Financial Support: Support IFC investment teams to enhance access to debt and equity financing for women entrepreneurs.
• Identifying and building relationships with local or regional debt and capital providers to help facilitate partnerships with IFC on women’s entrepreneurship.
• Collaborate with GEID’s Inclusive Capital Lead to pilot innovative equity solutions.
• Capacity Building Programs:
• Collaborate with industries to develop and implement training programs in collaboration with local accelerators, incubators, IBRD and government agencies. These programs will provide essential non-financial support tailored to different contexts.

Market Access: 

• Collaborate with other IFC teams (including the Financial Institutions Group (FIG) and Country Advisory and Economics (CAE)) and WE-FI Code to facilitate enhanced collection of sex-disaggregated financial sector data in select markets.
• Create partnerships with corporates and key stakeholders to facilitate market entry and expansion for women-led businesses.
• Upgrade and grow IFC’s Sourcing2Equal program in collaboration with GEID Innovation unit to help facilitate market linkages for women entrepreneurs in supply chains, as well as exploring other opportunities leveraging IFC supply financing programs.

Operations:

• Contribute to an agreed number of industry-led advisory and investment projects each year to help pilot and scale interventions aimed at reaching women entrepreneurs.

Lead operational Management:

• Undertake project management activities including developing concept notes and implementation plans and undertaking regular reporting.
• Support GEID Operations teams in developing projects focused on entrepreneurship.
• Create connections between internal and external stakeholders on relevant topics for women entrepreneurs.
• Manage consultants and contractors as relevant.

Thought Leadership, Visibility and Impact:

• Collaborate with the GEID Thought Leadership unit on knowledge management, visibility and partnerships.
• Develop case studies and other relevant communications.
• Represent IFC in public speaking engagements to share experience, lessons learned, and to advance the role of the private sector in supporting women entrepreneurs, with internal and external stakeholders.
• Monitor, evaluate, and learn from interventions to ensure continuous improvement and impact.
• Establish a dedicated framework based on development outcomes and impact, for monitoring and evaluating the center’s activities, ensuring that the center meets its objectives and makes necessary adjustments.
• Reporting and Communication: Provide regular updates and progress reports to IFC management and other relevant stakeholders.
• Capacity Building: Conduct internal and external capacity building through research, case studies, tools, and training.

Selection Criteria:

Educational Background:

• Master’s degree in economics, finance, business, or a related field is required.

Experience:

• At least 8 to 12 years of relevant professional experience in private sector or private sector development in emerging markets, ideally with a focus on investment structuring with strong financial analysis skills.
• Understanding of different asset classes and investment strategies.
• Strong experience working closely with entrepreneurs.
• Expertise on women’s entrepreneurship, gender and inclusion is an advantage.
• Experience designing advisory and/or investment projects, including results frameworks to capture development outcomes and impacts.

Source: https://worldbankgroup.csod.com/ux/ats/careersite/1/home/requisition/32923?c=worldbankgroup&sq=req32923

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