The IFC FCS team is seeking a highly motivated and experienced GG1 Investment or Operations Officer on a Development Assignment to be based in either Guinea, Niger or Burkina Faso, to support the implementation of the Local Champions Initiative (LCI) in Sahel and West Africa. The role will report to the AFI Program Manager based in Nairobi.
Duties and Accountabilities:
Lead client engagement and relationship management on the ground to ensure high client satisfaction and the program relevance with ongoing advisory engagements;
Work with external clients and World Bank Group colleagues to finalize training needs assessment and deliver technical support to selected local champions;
Work collaboratively with IFC Investment/Upstream/Advisory and CMA colleagues to align advisory to help build a pipeline of investment projects, support the processing of investment leads and propose compelling “one IFC” solutions to champions;
Manage and coaching the STCs supporting the LCI work;
Liaise with industry and country office colleagues and other relevant units to ensure consistency of vision/efforts and align actions on business development and pipeline building efforts in target countries
Build strong relationships with the Upstream, Investment and Advisory teams to identify key priorities and implementation support needs
Support the IFC CMU and IFC Industries on business development, investment processing and portfolio activities in covered countries;
Support the preparation and implementation of strategic documents in covered countries;
In liaison with industries, develop and monitor a strong Advisory portfolio to support existing LCI clients and engage with potential new ones;
Ensure the application of a gender and conflict lens to all funded interventions;
Develop and maintain relationships with external stakeholders, including government representatives, development partners, private companies, NGOs, financial institutions and the World Bank colleagues;
Perform periodic reporting and liaison as required with Development Partners and IFC Africa management team on progress and designated achievements;
Ensure LCI is delivering in line with the M and E plan;
Provide operational and strategic input into IFC’s FCS activities in the Sahel and in Guinea;
Operate with a relative degree of autonomy, under the overall guidance of the AFI project manager and FCS director;
Selection Criteria:
A post-graduate degree in one or more of the following disciplines: economics/ finance/ business management ideally with 10 years or more field experience;
Significant private sector development commitment and experience with a successful track record in designing and implementing development programs, preferably in Africa;
Minimum of 5 years operations experience
Strong commitment to private sector development in Africa;
Extensive experience working in a challenging business environment and/or conflict affected countries will be a distinct advantage;
Solid understanding of the private sector and refugee matters. Ideally, has already demonstrated experience in designing private sector interventions in refugee hosting areas.
Self-starter, mature and flexible personality; able to work in a multicultural, fast-paced team environment;
A team player with outstanding people management skills, ability to work with colleagues from different teams who are not reporting to him/her and achieve outstanding results while meeting tight deadline and maintaining strong client service orientation;
Strong analytical and presentation skills working with data using standard office software Excel, Word, Powerpoint;
Excellent written and oral communication skills in English and French.
