Job Description
Team and role overview
As a development finance institution, BII has a dual mandate to create both investment and development impact. In the context of BIIs new 2022-26 five-year strategy, BII is focused on two areas of diversity finance:
- promoting gender equity and increased representation and inclusion of women at all levels in our portfolio
- increasing our investments in Black-owned and -led companies and fund managers in sub-Saharan Africa. This is known as our Black Ownership & Leadership for Development (BOLD) approach.
We approach Gender & Diversity by focusing on three pathways:
- Originating with a gender and diversity lens to intentionally target our capital to enterprises, financial institutions and funds that meaningfully support women and black African owners and leaders.
- Mainstreaming integrating diversity and inclusion as core factors in our investment decision-making and portfolio management, and building capacity on diversity-lens investing both within BII’s internal teams and the wider market.
- Creating value across our portfolio by partnering with our investees to enhance gender balance, increase representation of Black leaders within SSA, and foster inclusive cultures.
BII’s focus on BOLD
BII formally launched its BOLD initiative in 2022, with the aim of investing representationally in our markets, and increasing the number of black-owned and led businesses and funds in our sub-Saharan Africa portfolio. The initiative evolved from ‘Umoja Works’, our Africa-focused internal staff network, and is grounded in a concern that across Africa, black entrepreneurs and business leaders continue to access capital at lesser rates than other races and ethnicities. While BII remains in the early stages of executing it BOLD Strategy, efforts are underway to refine our origination approach and product offering, and to minimise internal biases in order to increase BOLD deal sourcing.
BII’s delivery model for BOLD
The execution of BOLD at BII is a shared function of the BOLD Implementation Group, the Africa Coverage Teams and the G&D Team. While there is some fluidity in terms of responsibilities, the main respective functions of these teams are set out below:
The BOLD Implementation Group is comprised primarily of Investment Officers across BII’s sectoral teams. It is responsible for setting the strategic direction for BOLD; driving increased BOLD deal origination; and is jointly responsible with the G&D Team for comms/training on BOLD.
The Africa Coverage Team comprises all BII staff based in our Africa offices, many of whom are responsible for in-country relationship management and deal sourcing. They play a key role in actively identifying BOLD opportunities and feeding back to the G&D Team and BOLD Implementation Group on-the-ground barriers to investment in BOLD businesses, to inform BII’s BOLD strategy.
The G&D Team is a dedicated team within BII’s Impact Group responsible for driving gender- and diversity-lens investing. It is responsible for the BOLD framework, the assessment of all deals for BOLD eligibility, and the BOLD scoring methodology. It is also responsible for BOLD-related Technical Assistance, and external comms and field-building work on BOLD. Together with the BOLD Implementation Group, it is jointly responsible for comms/training on BOLD.
The role
This job description relates to the duties, tasks and responsibilities of the Gender & Diversity Finance Manager (BOLD) position – the weighting of which may change over time. These will vary to some extent depending on activities and evolving priorities across the Gender & Diversity Finance team and BOLD Implementation Group and will, of necessity, remain flexible as workplans evolve. The ideal candidate will be a self-starter who is highly collaborative and innovative in nature, be a strong communicator and have an interest in how the private sector can drive impact BII’s markets and portfolio. While the candidate will be expected to contribute to the wider goals of BII’s Gender & Diversity Team, (s)he will primarily focus on advancing our BOLD ambitions. As such, the candidate will need to bring practical experience of driving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) within an investment organisation – ideally focused at transaction level. It will be important for the candidate to bring diversity finance expertise beyond that of gender.
The candidate can be based in our office in London, or in one of the following BII offices in Africa, Lagos, Nairobi or Johannesburg.
Responsibilities
Core responsibilities of the G&D Manager (BOLD) include (but are not limited to):
- Support to BOLD Implementation Group Co-Chairs to execute BII’s BOLD ambitions. This includes but is not limited to conceptualising and driving BOLD initiatives and mainstreaming into BAU; producing quarterly updates for the Inclusion Steering Group; and ensuring excellent coordination between the G&D team, the Implementation Group (IG), and its various sub-groups.
- Strategy development: Engaging with BOLD Implementation Group, Head of G&D and Corporate Strategy Team to periodically reassess BOLD strategic direction, ambitions and how these can be realised.
- Finalising BII’s BOLD assessment and scoring methodology and refining BII’s BOLD framework and assessment tools to ensure our definitions, processes, and data structures respond to and help realise our ultimate BOLD ambitions in a sensitive and context-appropriate manner.
- Driving the offering for BOLD-eligible businesses/fund managers within BII’s upcoming G&D Technical Assistance programme. Working in collaboration with origination/investment focused members of the BOLD Implementation Group to conceptualise, test, roll-out and refine TA offerings to support more BOLD-eligible businesses become ‘investment-ready’ and enter BII’s pipeline, and to drive increased BOLD leadership representation in existing investees.
- Develop and roll out BOLD training for different internal audiences (e.g. Investment Committee, ExCo, Board, Investment Officers, and Impact Group) in collaboration with the BOLD Implementation Group.
- Transaction oversight for BOLD. Responsibility for overseeing G&D Team assessments of BOLD eligibility.
- Ongoing BOLD research / portfolio / pipeline analysis undertaking ongoing analysis and research into BII’s portfolio and pipeline to track, report and use data to effect change within the organisation (e.g. to inform the potential setting of BOLD targets/other incentives).
- Develop and execute strategy to communicate and drive uptake of BOLD outside of BII through careful development of an external uptake strategy and targeted engagement of BII’s DFI and MDB peers.
Beyond the BOLD-focused responsibilities, the G&D Manager will also be expected to contribute to the wider objectives of the G&D Team, including line management, shared initiatives across gender and BOLD, and occasional deputization for the Head of G&D.
The candidate
Background, skills, aptitude
The ideal candidate will have all or a good selection of the following:
- Practical experience of driving Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I) within an investment organisation – ideally focused at transaction level and within developing markets. It will be important for the candidate to bring diversity finance expertise beyond that of gender.
- In-house experience in impact investing, development finance responsible investing, or private equity across investment products.
- Demonstrated track record of increasing transaction flows against a particular investment strategy.
- Direct transaction support, including pre-investment inputs (e.g. screening deals for impact, undertaking due-diligence, etc) and post-investment capacity building (e.g. value creation work with investees).
- Ability to engage with investees, colleagues and the wider market on sensitive topics including race and ethnicity, demonstrating high levels of emotional intelligence, respect, and sensitivity; with an ability to adapt approaches depending on a given context.
- Familiarity with different investment products, including Funds, Debt, Equity and alternative asset classes; as well as BII’s priority sectors.
- Strong people management and leadership skills with an inspiring and intrapreneurial spirit.
- Practical and results oriented with proven record of leading complex projects which deliver effective, high impact solutions and change on the ground.
- Excellent listening and facilitation skills and an ability to deliver impact across matrix-based organisations.
- Demonstrable experience of public speaking, stakeholder engagement, relationship management.
- Advanced degree or comparable experience in the domain of development impact/ /social science or business.
- Advanced MS office: Excel, PowerPoint, Word, SharePoint.
- Ideally MBA, CFA, ACA or similar.
- Fluency in French or other language is a plus.
Candidates should be strongly motivated by BII’s development mission and ideally demonstrate some commitment to development or social goals through previous executive or non-executive activity.
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
British International Investment 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, sexual orientation or educational background.
Please provide a cover letter with your application
Salary: Competitive
