Gender & Diversity Finance Executive, Gender & Diversity Finance Team, Impact Group

About BII

British International Investment is the UK’s development finance institution, owned by the UK Government. With a mission to solve the biggest global development challenges, we aim to create a virtuous circle of investment and impact. Your contribution will be essential. 

It won’t be easy: we do the hardest work in the most complex markets. Be prepared to test your skills, get creative and say your piece as you take on high-profile work as part of a diverse team of exceptionally smart, passionate people. 

In return, you can take your career to all-new places in a culture that rewards curiosity and collaboration, and balances high performance with wellbeing.

BII at a glance

Over 75 years supporting sustainable business growth in developing and emerging markets

More than £8.8 billion in net assests

1,400+ businesses invested in

950,000 workers in the businesses we support 

650+ people in our diverse global team

3 key development objectives: Productive | Sustainable | Inclusive

Team and role overview

As a development finance institution, BII has a dual mandate to create both investment and development impact. 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.

The Gender and Diversity Finance (G&DF) Team is a dedicated team within BII’s Impact Group responsible for driving gender- and diversity-lens investing. The team approaches Gender & Diversity by focusing on three pathways:

• Originatingwith 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.
• Mainstreamingintegrating 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 formally launched its BOLD initiative in 2022. The initiative evolved from ‘Umoja Works’, BII’s 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. 

The role

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 contribute to the wider goals of BII’s Gender & Diversity Finance Team, (s)he will also focus on advancing our BOLD ambitions.

Responsibilities

Core responsibilities of the G&DF Executive include (but are not limited to):

1. Contributing to the execution of BII’s G&D Finance Strategy: including working closely across teams to ensure that BII’s G&D offering is fully embedded across all systems, governance documents, operating procedures; ensure effective roll out of key products developed by the team including those related to training and capacity building.
2. 2X and BOLD Transaction execution: Conducting assessments of pipeline investments for gender and diversity finance using the 2X criteria and BOLD framework. Engaging with investees to understand and influence their approach to gender and diversity. Contributing findings into investment proposals and presenting the G&D case in investment committees. Specific responsibility for overseeing G&DF Team assessments of BOLD eligibility and support where required.
3. Internal mainstreaming to support execution of BII’s BOLD ambitions. This includes but is not limited to, producing quarterly updates for the internal Inclusion Steering Group; ensuring excellent coordination between the G&D team, the BOLD Implementation Group (comprising of Investment officers across BII’s sectorial teams), the Head of Africa and the Africa Coverage team (comprising of BII staff based in our Africa offices).
4. Strategy and origination development: Engaging with the BOLD Implementation Group, Head of G&DF, key Executive Committee BOLD champions (including the Head of Africa), and the Corporate Strategy Team to periodically reassess BOLD strategic direction and ambitions. Working collaboratively with Africa Coverage and investment teams, support an origination strategy within BII’s investment toolkit to enhance the number of BOLD deals entering BII's pipeline.
5. Refining BII’s BOLD framework and assessment tools, on an as-needed basis, to ensure our definitions, processes, and data structures respond to and help realise our ultimate BOLD ambitions in a sensitive and context-appropriate manner.
6. Driving the offering for BOLD-eligible businesses/fund managers within BII’s G&D Technical Assistance (TA) programme(s). Working with the programme managers, BII Plus, and other key stakeholders to conceptualise, test, roll-out and refine TA offerings – including supporting businesses to become ‘investment-ready’ and enter BII’s pipeline, drive increased black leadership representation, and market-shaping activities.
7. Developing and rolling out BOLD training for different internal audiences (e.g. Investment Committee, ExCo, Board, Investment Officers, and Impact Group).
8. Ongoing BOLD 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).
9. Developing and executing a 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 and other key external partners, leveraging senior BII members as required e.g. Head of G&DF, Head of Africa.

The candidate

Background

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.
• Experience of 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).
• Familiarity with different investment products, including Funds, Debt, Equity and alternative asset classes; as well as BII’s priority sectors.

Skills & Aptitude

• 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.
• 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.
• MBA, CFA, ACA or similar a plus.
• 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