Purpose of the Position

Governments, Development Partners, and Philanthropists are torn between providing financing to address the various humanitarian issues across the world, from famine, conflicts to providing aid for climate and poverty alleviation and other social issues afflicting humanity.  But increasingly, there are calls to not lose sight of the drive towards attaining the sustainable development goals and need to attract the right type of funding for critical development infrastructure.

The multilaterals and development partners have also come under pressure to scale up development finance. The Multilateral Development Bank (MDB) model is a powerful multiplier of shareholder capital in support of development. But much more is expected of MDBs in the 21st century given the magnitude and urgency of development challenges confronting the globe.

Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) on the other hand are repositioning themselves to support impact investing and are in desperate need to accelerate private sector in a sustainable investment. They are seeking solutions to be innovative and catalytic and in particular the opportunity to crowd in commercial capital is a high priority at the moment.

In addition, Philanthropies are also quickly changing and shifting away from the model of pure giving to wanting to see their grant funds, unlock projects, and deliver on impact.

All three categories are seeking solutions that KPMG can provide and which leverage our internal capabilities within Deal Advisory & Strategy Services.

Key roles and responsibilities

Delivery

• Take ultimate ownership of a portfolio of development finance mandates in the region, often taking the formal role of Team Lead and leading multi-disciplinary teams of KPMG professionals and sub-consultants, harnessing skills across commercial, financial, procurement, legal, regulatory, environmental, social, and technical/engineering backgrounds.
• Oversight of delivery teams that are developing strategy, policy, pipeline, and investment attraction programs.
• Developing a suite of solutions for Development Partners, DFIs and Philanthropies which will involve the transaction services offering of strategy development, fund design, due diligence, feasibility studies, debt and equity advisory and value for money assessments.
• Lead the capacity building of teams in region on development finance.
• Influence the achievement of strategic outcomes (deployment of DFI capital) for the benefit of our clients.

Business development:

• Work with partners and directors to develop all aspects of the Deal Advisory business.
• Lead on service line innovation and expansion for Development Partners, DFIs and Philanthropic clients.
• Lead an agreed portfolio of client service teams with specific revenue generation targets across the various Deal Advisory service offerings. Participating as a member of other Deal Advisory client service teams.
• Lead the development of a robust business development pipeline of opportunities including the development of detailed concept notes, ownership of the preparation of all elements of technical and financial proposals, leadership of (or participation in, as the case may be) of client pitches, etc.

Requirements

Academic/Professional qualifications and Experience:

• Relevant Masters Degree in Finance/Business/Law.
• Minimum of 10 years of experience working with Government agencies, DFIs and Philanthropies.

Technical skills and competencies:

• Deep strategy expertise, leading on Development Finance and impact investment strategies.
• Leading engagement with Senior Executives in DFI space working with multilaterals and development partners.
• Business development: develop strategies for clients, sectors, countries, or regions with the objective of building a robust project pipeline of opportunities across the Africa region. This includes anticipating market trends, sector/country knowledge, leveraging existing networks, building new networks and directly pursuing opportunities.
• Supervising, mentoring, coaching and managing staff: mentor and coach less-experienced colleagues to help build talent and grow their skills base. Support relevant manager(s) in staff recruitment and skills development.
• Knowledge of the various sectors financial services, healthcare, public sector, international development, Philanthropies.
• The ideal candidate will need to work with the KPMG Africa’s Lead for Elevate in the development and deployment of KPMG’s Elevate service offering across Africa.

Personal attributes:

• An expert-level grasp of blended finance and the issues impacting MBD reform, DFI strategies and Philanthropies.
• Relationships: owning primary relationships with clients at the highest level (chair/CEO/minister/ambassador or equivalent level).
• Priority account leadership: experience leading priority accounts and achieving stretch revenue targets.
• Team leadership: ownership of pursuit, conversion and delivery of multiple complex assignment simultaneously.
• Analytical skills: transaction structuring, financing strategy structuring.
• Influencing skills: positively influencing client decision making and ability to deal with a variety of stakeholders at the highest level of client interaction.
• Pragmatic problem-solving skills: ability to handle and resolve unstructured problems, flex and adapt in new environments to create order and stability and provide effective solutions.
• Goal driven and result oriented: enjoys being measured and being judged by performance results.
• Multicultural skills: must be able to operate and interact across multiple African jurisdictions and uphold cultural diversity.
• Resilience and tenacity: must be able to sustain motivation and commitment to goals and ability to deal with difficult client conversations.
• Willingness for significant travel.
• Highest standards of ethics and integrity.

We offer:

• An exciting opportunity to work with a leading firm on the cutting-edge of international development across Africa.
• Continuous learning and development.
• Exposure to multi-disciplinary client service teams.
• Unrivalled space to grow and be innovative.