Acumen West Africa is looking for an Associate Director for Investing to join its Lagos-based team; we are seeking candidates with at least 10-15 years of experience in impact investing to help build and manage an investment portfolio of impact-driven early-stage companies across West Africa.
About Acumen
We are investors. A different kind of investor. We invest in people and companies working to solve problems for people living in poverty... essential products and services that bring more opportunities, more choices to millions. To date, Acumen has positively impacted 309 million lives by investing $137M in 139 innovative, early-stage companies in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States. But investment is not only about capital, we have been investing in innovators for years, connecting with emerging leaders around the world and engaging them in collective dialogue, moral inquiry, and skill building.
About Acumen West Africa
Since 2012, Acumen West Africa has invested in 12 companies reaching over 23M lives in the region. We are committed to the principles of inclusive capital and to growing a portfolio of locally founded businesses. The team is responsible for managing investments and finding, vetting, and structuring new investments in companies that serve low-income West Africans in our two sectors of focus: Energy and Agriculture.
The West Africa Fellows Program was launched in 2019 as an intensive, one-year leadership development program offered through Acumen Academy. Currently, the Fellowship Program is offered in 9 regions: Bangladesh, Colombia, East Africa, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Spain, the United Kingdom, and West Africa. Every year, each program selects 20 emerging leaders to participate in a blend of immersive seminars and online content that equips them with the knowledge, skills and community they need to be more effective agents of change. Once graduated, our fellows join a global community of remarkable individuals sharing their lifelong journey to master the principles and practices of moral leadership while putting those principles and practices into action.
Together, the portfolio companies and Fellows are impact-first leadership in the region.
About the Role
The Associate Director will evaluate new investment opportunities, conduct due diligence on high potential opportunities as they arise, and structure deal terms as well as manage our existing portfolio and actively drive and deliver exits from investments that have served their purpose. The role will model the principles of investing as detailed by Acumen.
Responsibilities include:
Identifying investment opportunities and due diligence
- Identify, cultivate, and review a pipeline of companies working to solve an important problem for low-income learners. Evaluate their model and market opportunity.
- Conducting due diligence and investment analysis, including financial modeling, valuation review, and structuring.
- Prepare and present investment documentation for Acumen West Africa’s Investment Committee
- Lead the closing of transactions including negotiations of investment conditions (i.e., price, shareholders rights) along with the investees and Acumen legal team
- Actively work to simplify terms while holding principles.
Post Investment and Metric Evaluation
- Assessing portfolio company needs related to post investment support and establishing disciplined reporting procedures with investee companies to monitor post investment, business performance.
- Build a network of potential impact funders/investors for the technical assistance or other funding requirements of investees to scale their businesses.
- Actively support and lead the scheduled exit roadmap for a few portfolio companies.
- Represent Acumen on the board of Acumen’s legacy portfolio company.
- Actively support select companies on governance, finance asset management and leadership
Knowledge Management and Thought Leadership:
- Lead the insights generation work on existing portfolio and also document it in a well formatted and succinct manner for future reference.
- Lead the Acumen West Africa team to analyze and document data-driven explanations for portfolio decisions; to extract and document investment-specific and general insights; to analyze metrics data to identify patterns; and to channel that data to outputs for marketing and fundraising efforts.
- Produce discrete knowledge and research materials based on lessons from Acumen’s portfolio
- Represent Acumen West Africa’s Portfolio work at all global portfolio forums.
- Participate in development and implementation of other Acumen initiatives and projects.
Team Leadership
- Manage 2-4 team members, coach and support them in developing investing skills related to financial modeling, relationship management, deal negotiation and post-investment support
- Work in close partnership with the West Africa Director and across the global investment teams to support sector-specific initiatives and share learning.
This role will report to the West Africa Regional Director.
Qualifications and Experience
- Bachelor's Degree is required, Master’s degree preferable
- 10-15 years of experience in venture capital, with preferred 5-6 years of investment experience with private equity, investment banking, or investment management, including experience with financial and operational due diligence of early-stage businesses
- Experience with financial and operational due diligence of early-stage businesses.
- Superior financial, modeling and business analysis skills; demonstrated by prior experience.
- Solid operational skills including problem solving and project management skills, including ability to work and deliver projects independently, proactively and under pressure.
- Significant commitment or experience with the social enterprise sector in West Africa, demonstrated commitment to tackling challenges of poverty.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills; ability to present arguments and analysis in a clear and succinct manner to Acumen management, partners and investees
- Strong ability to take initiative with research and analysis and produce valuable results in conditions of uncertainty
- Self-reflective and aligned with Acumen values
- Must be permanently authorized to work in Nigeria
Deadline to apply:
Apply as soon as possible as applications will be reviewed and interviews scheduled on a rolling basis.
