Deputy Head (Associate Principal) East Africa Advisory at CrossBoundary

Primary Responsibilities

• Lead a team of investment professionals, maintaining responsibility for hiring, capacity building, performance management, and general team leadership duties
• Lead business development across multiple channels, including private commercial opportunities and government- / donor-sponsored opportunities
• Provide continuous client coverage of private capital investors, development finance institutions (DFIs), corporates ranging from SMEs to MNCs, and other relevant organizations to proactively identify advisory opportunities
• Manage relationships with key CrossBoundary clients, such as USAID; provide strategic into program design and oversee mandate execution and reporting
• Provide deal and project leadership and execution oversight to a wide range of transaction-related advisory engagements:
  • Investment target identification and screening
  • Use conventional and unconventional channels to identify and rigorously assess investment opportunities
  • For targets that are not yet investment-ready, be able to concisely map out paths to investability and resources required to achieve investability 
  • Be able to credibly articulate investment opportunities’ social and environmental impact narratives
• Investor identification and relationship building
  • Understand investor mandates, criteria, preferences, and existing portfolios
  • Understand investor appetite to work with DFIs or other development-oriented actors
  • Manage investor relationships
• Detailed commercial due diligence/vendor due diligence
  • Directly conduct or facilitate investor (‘buy-side) commercial due diligence
  • Compile and curate a comprehensive virtual data room
• Robust, multi-faceted corporate and project finance models, including valuations, of private companies using rigorous, defensible methodologies
• Draft investment memoranda and teasers, author and update sophisticated financial models
• Recommendations on optimal transaction structures based upon near-, medium- and long-term company strategic objectives and capitalization parameters, available instruments, and investor preferences
  • Draft detailed illustrative term sheets for debt and equity deals

• Market assessment and ongoing market analysis
  • Conduct macroeconomic and geopolitical market assessments
  • Provide sector analysis of priority areas for investment

Qualifications

Ideal candidate will have the following skills and qualifications (* indicates required):

• Demonstrated leadership skills, preferably in fast moving and complex environments*
• Excellent analytical ability and discipline; ability to think clearly, structure problems logically and then design and implement solutions that focus on the core issues*
• Excellent quantitative skills: ability to apply analytical rigor to complex and uncertain tasks*
• Knowledge of corporate finance and familiarity with company evaluation and valuation techniques*
• Ability to build strong relationships with clients and colleagues in stressful environments*
• Excellent presentation skills: ability to communicate clearly and effectively with diverse audiences*
• Comfort with ambiguity; ability to operate effectively in a changing context*
• Willingness to work and live in sometimes challenging environment*
• Knowledge of East African investment landscape (or previous work experience in East Africa) *
• Experience working with a range of stakeholders (including private equity firms, Development Finance Institutions, and development agencies) to support investments in high impact sectors
• 8+ years of experience working in high caliber finance or consulting organizations
• Past experience working in investment space in East Africa preferred
• Bachelor’s degree required. A Master’s degree in Business Administration or Finance or other relevant advanced degree preferred (extensive relevant experience may be accepted as equivalent)