Description

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 in developing countries. In fiscal year 2023, IFC committed a record US$43.7 billion to private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity as economies grapple with the impacts of global compounding crises. For more information, visit www.ifc.org.

The Financial Institution Group (FIG) is one of IFC’s key Departments responsible for a significant portion of IFC’s business volume, profitability and development reach, approximately 40%. FIG engages in a wide range of sub-sectors including Microfinance, SME, Gender, Climate, Insurance, Capital Markets, Housing, Distressed Assets, and other areas, with both investment and advisory services delivered globally to IFC’s clients through IFC’s global network.  FIG has three main objectives: 1) financial inclusion 2) servicing the real economy and 3) mobilizing third-party resources.

FIG’s East Asia team is based across the region with main hubs and offices in Singapore, Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila, Beijing and Hanoi. The team members work on both new business development and portfolio management across the region. With a diverse network of markets, the pipeline of new transactions ranges from investing fresh equity in banks to structured finance products which help develop local capital markets.

FIG East Asia Regional Industry Team is seeking a Senior Investment Officer with significant market and industry experience to help grow and develop its business across the region.

Duties and Accountabilities:
•  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.
•  Work 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.
•  Help shape upstream market creation approaches or interventions for a sector, product, or region and engage with senior officials across the WBG and government offices to identify viable market and regulatory reforms that may involve IDA or FCS countries, and influence outcomes of the Country Private Sector Diagnostics.
•  Lead formulation and coordinate implementation of a business development strategy for a small sector or country, or substantively influence business development strategies for a larger sector, product, or a region.
•  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 quarterly review meetings.
•  Lead teams in structuring deals that strike a balance between client’s expectations and protecting IFC’s and other lenders’ rights.
•  Bring lessons learned from previous transactions and portfolio management and evaluations of development impact into discussions on the design and structuring of complex transactions.
•  Look at projects across region to draw comparisons and determine fit with the current portfolio. Conduct quality control to ensure accuracy and adequacy of analytical work performed by junior staff to assess transaction.
•  Assess and articulate the development impact of more complex transactions at the sector or subsector level.
•  Maintain high-level relationships (CEO and other C-suite levels) with clients in a region or large country to understand industry trends and create new short-term and future business opportunities.
•  Negotiate straightforward waivers, amendments, and rescheduling; and prepare official restructuring memos for approval.
•  Oversee or supervise assigned staff and consultants.
•  Develop assigned staff and members of the broader team through mentoring, coaching, and providing on-the-job learning opportunities.
•  Ensure quality control of work products.
•  Ensure efficient/effective use of resources.
•  Oversee or supervise assigned staff and consultants.
•  Develop assigned staff and members of the broader team through mentoring, coaching, and providing on-the-job learning opportunities.
•  Ensure quality control of work products.
•  Ensure efficient and effective use of resources.
•  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.
•  Prepare investment committee materials focusing on financial and nonfinancial risk assessment and deal structuring.
•  Use networks to keep project moving and collaborate with key internal stakeholders to obtain buy-in on deals and negotiate risk and mitigation strategies. Ensure seamless communication flow and cooperation among all IFC team members and external stakeholders.
•  Shape business leads into actionable concepts ready for mandate by identifying and screening potential investment opportunities, preparing the investment thesis, and leading the pre-CRM structuring of those opportunities.

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 or achieving them.
•  Capacity to lead successful negotiations with clients and different stakeholders based on an in-depth understanding of IFC requirements, policies, and practices as well as client and stakeholder interests. Ability to offer alternative solutions to capitalize on opportunities and overcome impasses.
•  Engage at a senior level to offer alternative solutions in complex contexts, overcome impasses, and ultimately enable delivery of projects or programs.
•  Has 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 in 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.
•  Excellent written and verbal communication skill. Ability to describe complex issues, approaches, and lessons in a manner that is relevant and understandable to clients/stakeholders.
•  Ability to comment effectively on documents, develop junior staff as writers, and lead the writing process of business specific documents.
•  Ensure final products are aligned with the needs and expectations of intended audiences.
•  Integrate a broad range of complex issues, challenges, perspectives, and recommendations into a cohesive narrative.
•  Able to clearly articulate IFC’s requirements, value-add, financial and nonfinancial risks, development impact, and sustainability measurement in a way that is relevant to and understandable by clients and stakeholders.
•  Ability to communicate technical information in an understandable and concise way to a nontechnical audience.
•  Able to orally present and confidently defend a sound rationale for proposed deals in a compelling way that is appropriate to the audience and engenders their support, including by contributing to (and supervising contributions of team members) the preparation of well-written IRM books, board papers, and complex portfolio documentation.
•  Able to clearly illustrate the long -term financial and economic benefit of IFC/WBG offerings and how those benefits align with client and government needs and priorities, including in more difficult contexts (IDA and FCS).
•  Ability to engage and guide productive discussions with key stakeholders and decision makers where there is resistance to proposed business opportunities or deals and where mutual understanding ultimately occurs.
•  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.
•  Tap into and leverage resources through expertise in an industry, region, or sector, including leveraging on market dynamics, navigating regulatory structures, and mitigating risks.
•  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.
•  Test
•  Recognized for financial expertise across a region or sector, and for the application of that expertise and innovative ideas to turn leads into viable business propositions and pipelines that are aligned with IFC, industry, and country strategies; are bankable; and have additionality and development impact.
•  Ability to serve as a point of reference on portfolio guidance both from a commercial and process standpoint based on in-depth understanding of portfolio operational policies, practices, and procedures.
•  Ability to balance details of individual assets with a big-picture portfolio view to lead the supervision of individual assets and play an important role in formulating and implementing portfolio strategies.
•  Ability to discern patterns and identify issues with portfolio projects and assets early on in order to act proactively in ensuring the quality of the assets.
•  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.
•  Ability to identify systemic risks and integrity issues in the sector.
•  Ability to bring projects to closure by anticipating the needs of key stakeholders, and where a project is likely to face challenges, and effectively apply mitigating strategies.

World Bank Group Core Competencies

The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

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