Job Description
Team and role overview
Purpose
CDC’s Development Impact Management team is market-leading and provides technical leadership to assess, manage and evaluate the impact of our investments. CDC’s objective is to push the boundaries in impact management within a world-class impact framework. So we take an active approach to impact management, utilising an impact management framework based on the Impact Management Project’s consensus and the Operating Principles for Impact Management.
Our impact professionals work working side by side with our investment teams to actively manage the impact of every investment we make. This approach is designed to create deals teams with the professional capability and expertise to reflect our mandate to improve people’s lives and make a financial return.
CDC’s Development Impact Management team is made up of 14 people and operates a matrix structure of Managers organised by sector and regions (e.g. Financial Services, Infrastructure & Climate, South Asia) supported by embedded leads organised by sub-sectors and generalists, who work across products, sectors and regions.
Responsibilities
The role(s) focus on ensuring effective and high-quality impact management of the Financial Services portfolio consistent with CDC’s Impact Framework. This group includes direct debt and equity investments to financial services, trade and supply chain finance, risk sharing facilities, and financial-inclusion focused funds, among others. Depending on your seniority, you may be given oversight responsibility for the Financial Services Group portfolio, or part thereof, and people management responsibilities. The position will be expected to play an active role in the investment process, working with investees to enhance their impact and supporting the development of the wider Development Impact team. Specific responsibilities will be driven by priorities and the dynamic needs of the team at the time, but are expected to include the following:
Leadership of impact management, including accountability for impact management for the Financial Services Group portfolio, work planning for the investment teams’ resources and relationship management (internally and with investee companies):
- You will provide impact leadership and oversight to the Financial Services Group. This will include CDC’s strategies, pipeline and portfolio management activities and entail effective impact management prioritisation, resourcing, issue identification and resolution.
- Building CDC’s impact management capability and providing impact management advice for the Financial Institutions Group which is consistent with CDC’s Impact Management Framework, priorities and precedents.
- Support the development of impact-led investment strategies within the Financial Services Group, supporting origination of investments where CDC can make the greatest difference to people’s lives and the planet.
Delivery of impact management activities (supported by Sector Executives and cross-cutting resources) within the Financial Services Group.
- Assess development impact as part of the investment due diligence process. Working seamlessly with investment team colleagues to inform the investment decision and define the impact objectives.
- Develop a high-quality development impact dashboard for each investment based on the Impact Management Project’s consensus which will involve desk research, facilitating discussions, due diligence and managing external suppliers where necessary. As part of the deal team supporting investment professionals through the investment process including at Investment Committee.
- Actively manage and support investments to enhance the impact by participating in the design and implementation of initiatives and partnerships. Work directly and coaching investees and sharing knowledge and lessons learnt of best practice.
- Define the monitoring plan for the investment and collect the impact metrics to track actual impact of investments, ensuring analysis is timely and high quality.
- Assess how investments are performing against their initial development objectives, determining when course corrections are required and completing exit reviews, feeding back learning to the investment team and the broader organisation. Building the capability of the Development Impact team and our impact framework and processes.
Support the continual development of CDC’s impact management framework ensuring tools, systems and capabilities remain world class. All Manager roles are expected to lead on developing specific areas of the framework.
- Represent CDC and build, maintain and leverage a network of leading impact managers across the financial institutions sector. Build CDC’s brand within the impact management sector.
- All Manager roles are expected to include people management, coaching and development responsibilities.
- Supporting the development of the overall capability of the Development Impact team through oversight and coaching of team members with a particular focus on financial institutions. Supporting the upskilling of CDC staff more broadly on effective impact management.
The candidate
Background
- Strong academic credentials. Preferably a Master’s in Economics, Development Economics or equivalent analytical post graduate degree.
- Strong work experience in a relevant field (namely within financial services sector, financial inclusion, trade and supply chain finance), preferably as an impact manager within impact investment or, at a minimum, with a good grounding in development impact management with a private sector mindset.
- Work experience in developing countries, preferably in Africa and/or South Asia.
- Experience in management positions is required for the Manager Role.
Skills
- Practical understanding of impact management, private sector development and how to achieve development outcomes through investments in and through financial institutions. Good understanding of different products is required including equity, debt, risk sharing facilities, funds and other intermediated structures.
- Experience of making high quality judgment calls to make impact investment decisions and manage impact outcomes. Conscious of costs and benefits and capability to explain opportunities and challenges to investee companies.
- Understanding of underlying commercial strategies and ability to consider development impact in an entrepreneurial and pragmatic manner.
- Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills. Confident dealing with complexity and can combine objective quantitative analysis with expert qualitative judgment. Confident in managing data and collating and presenting evidence.
- Good knowledge and network of third parties in financial institutions sector and impact management who can be leveraged to help deliver enhanced impact with our investee companies.
- Track record in management: Organising team to meet agreed deadlines and drive productivity and cohesion. Strong project management, analysis and reporting skills, with the ability to deliver data and insights informed strategic approaches. Able to prioritise tasks and manage multiple work streams simultaneously in a complex and fast-moving environment.
- Strong communication skills: the ability to describe complex development impact scenarios with accuracy and concision and the ability to explain development impact to non-professionals and across a range of cultural backgrounds.
- Self-starter with a bias for action who is resilient, with a problem-solving approach.
- Proven capability of effective team work and strong stakeholder/relationship management.
- The role will require regular travel, mostly within Africa and South Asia to work with investees.
Our cultural values
We look for team members who aspire, as we do, to work at our best and to be:
- Impact-led, commercially rigorous
- Tenacious in the face of challenges
- Collaborative and caring
CDC is committed to diversity and inclusion and welcomes all applicants regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation.
Please provide a cover letter with your application
Role opened: 05/02/2021
Role closes: 21/02/2021
Salary: Competitive
About the Organization
Our mission
- CDC is the UK’s development finance institution. Founded 70 years ago, we invest in the most challenging markets of Africa and Asia with the aim of supporting economic development. CDC has net assets of £6.4bn and a portfolio of £4.7 billion.
- In 2019 we committed over £1.66 billion of capital to business in Africa and Asia and are now invested in 1,200 businesses which directly employ over 875,000 workers and support many more.
- CDC is wholly owned by the UK government, who has committed a further £3.5bn of capital for CDC to deploy over the next two years.
- In 2020 we have expanded our presence in Africa and Asia by opening new offices.
- At CDC, we take an entrepreneurial approach to investment. We think innovatively about ways to deploy our capital, attract and mobilise other investors, and drive transformational impact.
- Primarily, CDC invests to achieve impact and a financial return which is reinvested into more businesses. We aim to create jobs and accelerate economic prosperity and focus on sectors that will do this; manufacturing, food and agriculture, infrastructure, financial institutions, construction, health and education.
- CDC works with likeminded ambitious people who are primarily motivated by our mission to deliver impact. We are a growing team of over 450 and place immense value on diversity within our organisation.
- Read more about us on our website www.cdcgroup.com
