Operations Officer, Upstream and Advisory Services

IFC — a member of the World Bank Group — is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities. Our mission is to leverage the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity on a livable planet. For more information, visit www.ifc.org.

The Financial Institutions Group (FIG), one of IFC’s largest industry departments, is responsible for a significant portion of IFC’s business volume, profitability, and development reach. FIG has three main objectives: 1) financial inclusion 2) servicing the real economy and 3) mobilizing third-party resources. To achieve these objectives, FIG invests in numerous financial subsectors and strengthens financial institutions across the region through Upstream and Advisory Services (US/AS). The FIG US/AS program Africa is closely coordinated with investment operations and Upstream and helps banks across the region to build or improve their operations across several focus areas: Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (including Supply Chain Finance, Gender Finance and Non-Financial Services); Digital Financial Services; Risk Management; Microfinance; Agri-finance; and Climate Finance. 

FIG Upstream and Advisory Services program in Africa is seeking to recruit a highly motivated Operations Officer with technical experience, demonstrated program management skills, and a deep interest in development finance to support its financial service engagements in the region. The position will be based in Accra, Ghana and report to the Manager, FIG Upstream and Advisory, North, West and Central Africa.

Duties/Responsibilities

The Operations Officer will be responsible for the origination and implementation of FIG advisory engagements in the North, West and Central Africa regions, with a focus on Banking Advisory Services and sector level access to finance engagements. He/she should be capable of delivering substantial and measurable results related to increasing access to financial services for MSMEs. He/she will also support the knowledge and learning agenda for the financial sector in partnership with other practices such as Risk Management and Digital Financial Services.

The Operations Officer should have extensive experience in Commercial Banking, Digital financial Services or related consulting services, and a demonstrated track record in successfully designing, implementing, and managing banking advisory programs in emerging markets. He/ She should have deep experience working with a broad range of stakeholders in the financial sector, and in managing client relationships.

The Operations Officer will play an instrumental role in helping FIG AS deliver its targets, especially those related to signing new projects, client cash fees committed, effective project delivery and management, and contributing to the AS team’s knowledge management initiatives. 

The Operations Officer will support FIG Advisory and Upstream to manage advisory engagements with FIG clients and to develop new client engagements in the region. He/she should be capable of managing and contributing to the delivery of substantial and measurable results in Africa including in enabling Investments.

Specific roles and responsibilities include:

Business Development – Support business development efforts with financial institutions in Africa that generate high value/ high impact advisory/upstream engagements, and which enable Investments. Maintain an understanding of overall financial sector trends, actors, and opportunities in Africa. Develop client discussion documents and proposals. Participate in discussions between IFC and prospective clients’ senior management teams to identify and develop advisory services opportunities. Where relevant, manage client relations through open and regular communications to assess satisfaction and anticipate and respond to client needs.

Engagement Management – Lead project teams in successfully delivering a broad range of strategic advisory engagements in the areas mentioned above. Tasks include resource and activity planning, budgeting, team management, quality assurance, timeliness of delivery, KPI monitoring and reporting, as well as development of internal documentation such as drafting project concept notes, agreements, donor reports and updating of the internal systems. Monitor and review project implementation, scope of work and resources deployed, to ensure project qualitative and quantitative milestones are achieved, and corrective actions taken when necessary. Manage client relationships, meeting on a regular basis to assess project progress; continually anticipate and respond to client needs to ensure client satisfaction.

Knowledge management – Actively contribute to knowledge management of IFC’s Advisory activities, including capture, development and dissemination of information and knowledge, best practices, solutions, and project delivery tools in area of expertise.

Thought leadership – Support thought leadership through contribution to research, articles, assisting in conducting conferences and other knowledge management events, including speaking engagements, training activities that demonstrate FIG’s thought leadership in area of expertise, and exchange with other regions.

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