Associate Director at Control Risks

Description

This role is responsible for developing prospects and clients for our political risk, business intelligence and due diligence services; managing and delivering our more complicated business intelligence and political risk engagements in Kenya and other East African jurisdictions; and developing our network of sources and contacts. The position has utilisation and sales origination targets

The position’s core responsibilities are:

• Identifying prospects for business intelligence, political risk and due diligence services in Kenya and East Africa more broadly (including with entirely new clients and existing clients of Control Risks that are buyers of other services) and building marketing campaigns to engage them.
• Managing relationships with clients that are significant buyers of due diligence, political risk and business intelligence in East Africa. Understanding our client’s requirements and acting as a trusted adviser.
• Developing our products and deliverables in response to client feedback to account for local market conditions.
• Scoping, managing and delivering more complicated political risk consulting and business intelligence cases in East Africa.
• Managing and developing an inclusive, collaborative and high performing team in Nairobi and other offices.
• The successful candidate would join an established business intelligence and political risk team, with over 20 team members in seven cities in Africa and Europe. The team is growing due to the diversification of our client base by both the type or organisation and our clients’ geographical location.Client management and business development
• Identify and secure new client relationships through pro-active business development efforts in Kenya and other East African markets.
• Closely manage existing clients in East Africa that are regular consumers of business intelligence, political risk, and due diligence, and grow these relationships for other services offered by Control Risks.
• Collaborate with other regional business intelligence and political risk teams on global business development initiatives.
• Regular engagement with clients to understand how their business intelligence, political risk, and due diligence requirements are evolving, and ensure this is fed into discussions about products and services we are developing.
• Contribute to regional marketing initiatives, including thought leadership, articles, podcasts, etc. Represent Control Risks as a regional expert at conferences, marketing events/campaigns and in the media when required.

Case and project work

• Ensure proposals focus on our clients’ requirements and our ability to meet them, and that our proposals stay ahead of the market by incorporating clients’ feedback and service innovation.
• Lead more complicated business intelligence and political risk projects in East Africa, and multi-jurisdictional projects that stretch beyond this region.
• Work with other East Africa-focused political risk analysts to provide regular and high-quality coverage of relevant developments affecting the business environment in East Africa.
• Develop and manage our source and subcontractor network in East Africa.

Team management and working culture

• Foster an inclusive, collaborative environment between practice areas, offices and regions.
• Ensure that pricing, margins and value are understood in the team to ensure we capture lower and higher margin opportunities.
• Set appropriate and consistent objectives for team members of different seniority

Requirements

We are looking for candidates who demonstrate some of the following characteristics:

• Strong knowledge and understanding of the political and commercial environment for business in the region.
• At least five years of full-time professional experience in consulting, political risk analysis, emerging market analysis, market intelligence, public policy, academia, or government, with a primary focus on East Africa.
• Experience relevant to the development, finance, private equity and/or technology sectors is preferred but not essential.
• Experience delivering complicated due diligence, political risk, and business intelligence services, either in an in-house or in a consulting role.
• Sustaining trusted advisor relationships with senior-decision makers within these types of organisation, with a strong network in the East African business community including potential buyers of Control Risks’ political risk and business intelligence offering
• Identifying and growing new client relationships, or being an experienced in-house advisor to senior decision-makers
• Experience managing complex projects and presenting findings to clients.
• Additional language skills relevant for the East African market (French, Arabic, Amharic, Swahili etc) are advantageous but nor essential