Head of Portfolio Operations at Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF)

Key Responsibilities:

• Fully establish a Portfolio Operations Office (PMO) and lead the development and adoption of the common set of processes, standards, and templates for AECF’s programs.
• Manage the effective delivery of AECF’s competitions (open call, due diligence, investments review and decisioning, and contracting) taking lead as the middle office and ensuring complete documents are maintained.
• Ensure there are robust resource plans that consider capability and capacity requirements for current and upcoming programs.
• Coordinate operational start-up teams for new programs or projects.
• Set up structures for monitoring of internal program delivery metrics, for all stages of portfolio management.
• Maintain live portfolio metrics across the different AECF mandates – competitions, portfolio management, investment, advisory and fund administration.
• Work closely with Program Managers and Compliance team to track agreed milestones, budget variances to determine need for budget realignments.

Suitable Candidate should

• Hold a master’s degree or equivalent in business, finance, economics, sustainable development, or related field. Project Management qualifications e.g. PRINCE2 will be an added advantage.
• Possess at least ten (10) years of experience in program/project management, operational excellence or portfolio performance in a debt fund, financial institution or development institution providing capital to SMEs.
• Possess solid experience in project management, from designing, planning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting.
• Have experience managing donor-funded programs/projects targeted in the private sector.
• Possess the ability to develop effective strategies based on analysis of challenges, potential risks and opportunities, linking the vision to reality and creating tangible solutions.
• Be an excellent and visionary leader with great interpersonal skills, strong work ethic, impeccable integrity and good judgment.
• Be able to demonstrate a track record in stakeholder management – effectively partnering with the executive team, functional, program/investment leads and donors/investors.
• Possess a high degree of initiative and energy, “can-do” attitude, flexibility, teamwork and attention to detail.