Investment Director (Risk Capital)

Job Description

POSITION SUMMARY

GIF seeks to hire an Investment Director to help lead the Fund’s gender-lens investments across its entire portfolio. The Director will be involved in finding, evaluating, executing and managing funding opportunities that align with GIF’s goal of ensuring that all of its investments disproportionately benefit women and girls in the developing world.

The Investment Director will be an integral part of the investment team and will report to a Senior Investment Partner who will oversee his or her work.

The Director’s responsibilities will include:

• Actively sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities to make significant improvements in the lives and opportunities of millions of women and girls living in the developing world.
• Lead the Fund’s implementation of its gender-lens investment policy.
  • Bring valuable experience to sourcing and developing opportunities to pilot, test or scale promising social innovations, including from social enterprises, large companies, start-ups, local governments, NGOs and individuals
  • Critically screening investment opportunities through a gender and impact lens, including conducting due diligence on the proposed innovation’s evidence base, social impact, management quality, and ability to scale.
  • Lead on investments; undertake detailed due diligence, research and apply rigorous social impact analysis, and making funding recommendations to the Senior Partners.
  • Champion GIF’s investments by raising awareness about them to external stakeholders as well as support investees attain critical financial and non-financial support post investment.
  • Working with the Senior Partners to negotiate investment terms and preparing investment memoranda for review at the Internal Investment Committee meetings.
  • Providing or helping source strategic support for GIF’s portfolio
  • Identifying opportunities for follow-on funding for GIF’s most successful innovators, including with impact investors, commercial venture capitalists and philanthropic donors
  • Monitor, evaluate and manage the financial and social impact performance of investments on an ongoing basis

GIF is a dynamic and rapidly growing start-up entity; the Director will be expected to adapt quickly to the needs of the organization and could have a range of other duties as assigned.

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS EXPECTATIONS

• Experience investing and/or making grants with a gender-lens is strongly preferred.

• Professional experience investing in the developing world (Southeast and South Asia or Sub-Saharan Africa) a must;
• Experience working within a startup or establish company within the developing world a strong plus
• Experience of working in the developing world with knowledge of the political, social and economic context of the region of work and the development issues and challenges it faces.
• Proven capacity of sourcing, supporting and scaling commercially viable institutions and / or social enterprises.

Experience working within government systems or an international organisation and/or experience influencing the policies of government agencies, private sector organisations or donor organisations a plus

• Working knowledge of rigorous impact measurement, programme monitoring and evaluation, and cost-effectiveness analysis
• Demonstrable soft skills and experience working with different cultures
• Commitment to evidence-based decision-making and social impact evaluation
• Advanced degree in policy or public administration, economics, international development, business, finance or similarly relevant field
• Strong network of people and organizations with whom GIF can partner to achieve transformative change
• Top tier analytic, strategic thinking and project management skills
• Confident in dealing with ambiguity and proven experience thriving in uncharted waters is necessary.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills and an aptitude for relationship building
• High energy and an entrepreneurial mindset; self-motivated and excited by high growth environments
• Passion, humility, integrity, team player, proven self-direction and a spirited sense of humour
• A strong commitment to international development and social innovation
• Ability to interact effectively and harmoniously with others
• Ongoing commitment and passion to learn and develop
• Reliance, grit and determination to succeed

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

This role will be based from our London office. The salary being offered for this role will be between £70,000 and £85,000 per annum.

HOW TO APPLY

Email https://globalinnovationfund.bamboohr.co.uk/jobs/view.php?id=5 with the position you are applying for in the subject title, short covering note and CV attached. The opening date for applications will be 9^th Novemebr 2017 and closing dates for applications will be 6^th December 2017.

Global Innovation Fund is committed to promoting equal opportunities in employment.

About the Organization

The Global Innovation Fund (www.globalinnovation.fund) (GIF) is a non-profit, social-first investment vehicle established as a ‘VC for fragile places’ to find, fund, and scale-up cost-effective, evidence-based innovations that have the potential to measurably improve the lives of millions of people living on $5 a day or less. GIF was founded to invest in innovations that will inspire fresh thinking and create better solutions in developing countries.

GIF is focused on doing more with less to turn ideas into impact. To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, the development community needs to draw on the resources of the private sector. GIF’s commitment to being part of the bridge between entrepreneurs and development finance challenges us to be creative and to seek the partnerships that drive creativity, dynamism, and collaboration. GIF’s unique hybrid model, as both a UK registered charity/US 501(c)3 and an investor, reflects our dual mission: to invest in innovations that improve the lives of the poor, and to demonstrate how bringing evidence and the power of the private sector to bear can create new solutions to persistent development problems.

GIF offers grants, loans (including convertible debt), and equity investments ranging from $50,000 to $15 million to support a range of innovations with strong potential for social impact at a large scale. We support innovators at different phases of development, ranging from early start-up and pilot-testing to rigorous experiments and larger scale implementation. The innovations GIF supports can be located in any developing country and may focus on any sector relevant to international development (see a list at www.globalinnovation.fund/sectors).