Strategic Investment Specialist

Senior Investment Officer Job Description

About the Company:

The International Finance Corporation is a member of the World Bank Group, focusing on promoting private sector development in emerging markets. With over 100 countries worldwide, our mission is to utilize our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities.

Job Summary:

We are seeking an experienced Senior Investment Officer to join our team in Singapore, focusing on Agribusiness and Forestry for East Asia and Pacific operations. The successful candidate will be a key member of the Asia Pacific MAS team, collaborating with IFC offices in the region and global teams to develop new business opportunities, execute transactions, and manage portfolio investments.

Key Responsibilities:

• Develop long-term relationships with key clients and stakeholders to identify and act on opportunities for repeat business.
• Collaborate with clients 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 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:

• A Master's degree in a related field and at least 12–15 years of relevant experience. Relevant fields of education include business, finance, or economics or an area of expertise specific to a sector, subject matter, or industry specialty.
• The 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.
• 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.
• The 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.
• The 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.
• The ability to build and maintain extensive networks in sectors, country, and region to bring new engagements, and business opportunities.
• The 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.
• The ability to participate and constructively contribute to meetings with mid-level government officials on constraints to private sector investment in their countries.
• The 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.
• The 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.
• The 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.
• 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.
• The 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.
• The 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.
• The ability to read and anticipate shifts in market trends and the implications for IFC's current and future business.
• The 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.
• The 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.
• The 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.
• The 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.

Salary:

The estimated salary for this position is around $120,000 - $150,000 per year, depending on experience and qualifications.

Benefits:

As a World Bank Group employee, you will have access to a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, life and disability insurance, retirement plan, and paid leave, including parental leave.