Job Description

The Principal Investment Officer is responsible for formulating and executing the strategic objectives of the business in
collaboration with the Transacting Head whilst generating deal flow and building a robust pipeline of prospective projects
for development financing bankability.

Key Responsibilities

1. Transaction Assessments

• Evaluate the feasibility of investment opportunities and project transactions to ensure they are commercially viable and align with the DBSA’s strategic objectives and mandate.
• Enhance the bankability of transactions by identifying and mitigating key risks, collaborating closely with the Chief Investment Office and Financing Operations Team, including Sector Specialists, Country Risk Specialists, and Financial Analysts.
• Provide technical expertise on transactions for the benefit of clients and the organisation through innovative approaches and strategic thinking.
• Develop and prepare early-stage review proposals and related documentation in the specified format.

2. Transaction Execution and Credit Approval

• Collaborate with the Head of Transacting to structure and negotiate detailed deal terms with Treasury, Legal, and Loan Administration teams, ensuring transaction approval.
• Secure internal approvals and lead or participate actively in closing transactions through successful negotiations.
• Actively manage the transaction unit to drive the credit approval process in its entirety from early review to the relevant approval committees.
• Manage the credit approval process from early review to final decision by the relevant committees.
• Review proposals submitted to approval committees to ensure they are well-structured and documented for informed decision-making.
• Manage the preparation of complex multi-jurisdictional documentation and ensure compliance with procedures, laws, and regulations for transaction implementation.
• Resolve potential constraints in the lending value chain in collaboration with the Head of Transactions.
• Implement risk management procedures across continent-wide financing functions, ensuring investment risks are appropriately structured and mitigated during operations.
• Manage financial capital responsibly, ensuring efficient utilisation and stewardship of capital under management.
• Capture and apply learning opportunities post-transaction to drive continuous improvement and successful deal delivery.

3. Lead Transaction Execution Functions

• Lead transaction teams in conducting assessments, executing deals, and driving the credit approval process.
• Act as a key advisor to Senior and Investment Officers, guiding them toward achieving transaction bankability.
• Coach and mentor Senior and Investment Officers to enhance their skills and performance.
• Monitor client performance and record country/industry/client performance i.e. revenues

4. Business Development

• Undertake business development in Africa and position DBSA as the preferred lender/investor/partner.
• Initiate and develop new business strategies and opportunities to create a pipeline of development impact projects.
• Identify opportunities to initiate viable projects, and project origination through the facilitation of project preparation, scoping, feasibility studies, and business plans to close investment deals.
• Develop strategies to attract concessional funding for projects and reconstruction efforts to improve Africa’s infrastructure.
• Increase client base in allocated countries and secure revenue streams that provide the impetus for sustainable profit growth, increased client contact, and building of sustainable long-term relationships on multiple levels.
• Devise structured and targeted marketing strategies for the DBSA service offering, where growth opportunities have been identified.
• Offer a broad range of advisory and consulting services to private and public sector investors, businesses, and client-country governments. These services amongst others include:

o Broadening access to finance.
o Provide investment promotion intermediaries in Africa to receive technical assistance to build institutional capacity in areas such as strategic planning, investor marketing, and sector targeting to improve responsiveness to investor needs through information services.
o Assist clients in developing and implementing targeted investor outreach campaigns on a country and/or
regional basis.
o Undertake continuous research and provide recommendations on significant developments, emerging opportunities and challenges in areas of responsibility.
o Provide information to potential clients and document the same to provide information on customer requirements/ areas of interest.
5. Relationship Management and Stakeholder Relations

• Build and maintain strong relationships with clients, global and regional private businesses, banking and multilateral partners and government officials to further develop specific investment opportunities.
• Manage relationships at various levels with the relevant project stakeholders, partners, and lead promoters, following the project’s development objectives.
• Maintain communication with clients and manage client relations; ensure that they submit all the Bank’s requirements to facilitate the appraisal process; Provide feedback on the status of their application timeously and advise them on the bank’s processes and procedures, and in liaison with Finance, resolve payment and / repayment related issues.
• Ensure continuous communication with clients/ projects that the DBSA has funded to adequately support the division’s monitoring function.
• Identify clients’ pain points together with the front-line divisions and coordinate DBSA’s solution offerings to address them.
• Network and maintain relationships with key internal and external stakeholders to develop specific investment opportunities further.
• Provide value to the Division for the benefit of and/or the client through knowledge of the subject, innovation, and lateral thinking.

Undertake other tasks as assigned by the line manager, from time to time.

Key Measurements of Outputs

1. Revenue performance in terms of Interest Income and Fees generated.
2. Delivery on the agreed Operations Mandate; these include:
3. Growth rate in assets of loan book:
o Annual disbursements, commitments and approvals
o Quality of loan book
o % of loan book in priority geographies and sectors
o Number of new clients
o Number of potential deals/ pipeline
4. Management of client relationships and key stakeholders.
Key Internal Liaison Relationships
1. GE: Transacting and Unit Heads
2. DBSA Committees, e.g., Deal screen, Investment
Committees, Asset/Liability Committee
3. Client Coverage, Transacting, IDD, Project Preparation,
Risk, Treasury, Finance, Financing Operations
Key External Liaison Relationships
1. Government: National, Provincial, Local
Government, Sovereigns
2. Knowledge partners – Universities, think tanks,
local/international organisations
3. Private Companies
4. SMME’s
5. Service providers

Expertise & Technical Competencies

Minimum Requirements
1. A Post-Graduate Qualification/ Honours Degree in Finance, Business, Accounting, Engineering or Economics.
2. A minimum of 10-12 years’ experience of relevant work experience in appraising, negotiating and closing project finance, corporate finance, or structured finance transactions in a financial institution.
3. Experience in leading, initiating and developing new business strategies and opportunities to create a pipeline of development impact projects ensuring deal flow and bankability.
4. Experience in securing infrastructure investment deals in relevant sectors/geographies in SA and/or Africa and doing business across Africa.
5. Comprehensive knowledge of the complex financial and regulatory environments across Africa.
6. Proven experience in working with senior stakeholders in highly political environments in South Africa and the rest of Africa.
7. Successful track record in leading project teams with high-level stakeholders and qualified professionals.
8. Strong credit, financial, analytical, and modelling skills.
9. Experience in financial analysis and/or financial modelling.
10. Strong networks and relations with clients, global and regional private investors and banks to identify and source viable projects/investments.
11. In-depth knowledge and understanding of the infrastructure market, financial markets and the macro landscape.
12. Demonstrable experience in identifying client challenges and playing an active part in finding innovative solutions.
13. The role requires flexibility to be deployed to other business units within the Coverage division if required
14. Ability to mentor junior members of the team
Desired requirements
15. A postgraduate qualification or equivalent in Business or Finance (CA or CFA), or Engineering, or Economics.
TECHNICAL
a) Project Management

• Defines, plans, and manages large and/or strategic projects, including those with a high degree of technical complexity, with impacts across the organisation and/or with national implications.
• Assembles and leads diverse and multi-disciplinary teams, ensuring maximum effective resource utilisation.
• Successfully manages substantial project budgets and reports directly to senior managers on the progress and results of projects.
• Identifies complex issues that need escalation and proposes appropriate corrective actions.

b) Deal Structuring

• Uses credit enhancement techniques to structure deals and optimise pricing in terms of Basel principles.
• Has an in-depth and practical understanding of how to optimise the Capital Structure, collateral package, and debt repayment profile.
• Interrogates financial models, including those with a high degree of complexity, to develop an optimal structure.
• Identifies complex structural issues that need escalation and proposes appropriate bankable structures.
• Demonstrates knowledge of advanced structuring including the use of derivatives, syndicated loans, synthetic loans, securitisations, Inflation-linked debt, credit default swaps and subordinated debt.
• Prepares specialised or tailored reports relating to new innovative instruments, gathers information from a variety of sources, analyse and include in a report to new products approval committees.
• Compiles comprehensive specialist reports as required for inclusion into credit committee submissions.

c) Solution Focus

• Identifies broad, highly complex problems based on a multitude of factors, many of which are complex and sweeping in nature, difficult to define and often contradictory.
• Creates procedures to articulate the nature of problems and to identify and weigh alternate solutions.
• Evaluates the effectiveness of solutions using approaches tailored to the situation.

d) Financial Analysis

• Serves as subject matter expert.
• Evaluates and determines fiscal, operational, and service impacts; analyses and evaluates legislation; and implements and evaluates statistical models in their subject areas.
• Demonstrates in-depth technical and administrative knowledge of the rules and regulations in the subject area and to defend analyses, testimony, and recommendations relating to a variety of issues before management and commissions.

e) Risk Management

• Drives integration and standardisation of risk management processes across the organisation.
• Advises on the application of the organisation’s risk management policies, industry best practices and constructs organisation guidelines.
• Analyses trends in risk management and internal control, evaluates implications, defines, and implements organisation-wide response.

f) Attention to detail

• Quickly identifies relevant and irrelevant information to support accurate decision making.
• Maps out all the logistics and details of a situation to ensure smooth and flawless implementation.
• Consistently identifies all relevant details that are not obvious in complex situations.
• Requires the highest standards for accuracy and quality for their work.
• Establishes processes to ensure accuracy and quality of services delivered by the team.

g) Negotiation

• Has an appreciation of cultural sensitivities and differences.
• Effectively employs a variety of advanced behavioural/interpersonal competencies to control the negotiation situation.
• Can take the lead in a variety of sensitive negotiation situations requiring high levels of tact and diplomacy.
• Can place a discrete negotiation situation within the context of a broader long-term relationship and is not threatened by conceding ground to protect the longer-term interests of DBSA.

h) Commercial Awareness

• Deep understanding of commercial drivers and can take decisions based on an assessment of alternatives concerning complex business situations.
• Deep understanding of DBSA economic priorities and how they can be implemented to meet DBSA's strategic objectives.
• Deep understanding of DBSA's core sector role in achieving DBSA's strategic objectives.
• Deep understanding of the need to coordinate efforts with many government entities, private sector, community groups and individuals to ensure effective implementation of new policies and regulations.

i) Research

• Demonstrates expert skill levels in strategic and operational research techniques, including process analysis, modeling, and forecasting.
• Adapts, creates, and designs new research techniques to meet the organisation requirements.
• Provides specialist coaching and guidance to researchers and other the organisation employees.
• Promotes the professional reputation of the organisation by maintaining a respected profile with relevant external organisations and the research community in general.

j) Communication and Reporting

• Able to communicate complex problems or concepts, by making them simple and understandable for others.
• Adapts language to the level of the audience to ensure that the message has a positive impact and is interesting to the audience.
• Is articulate, demonstrates a wide range of vocabulary, and is confident when talking to large/high level audiences.
• Designs / customizes reports to meet user needs.
• Prepares complex or tailored reports, gathers information from a variety of sources, analyses and includes in a report.
• Keeps standard reports under review and proposes improvements to meet user needs.

k) Innovation

• Develops innovative business solutions that shape industry practices.

l) Presentation Skills

• Knows how to deliver arguments persuasively by employing a range of advanced presentation techniques (e.g., the appropriate use of body language, how to close a presentation so that the audience continues to think about the subject matter etc.).
• Has knowledge of various feedback mechanisms to check levels of audience understanding.

Required Personal Attributes

BEHAVIOURAL
a) Achievement Orientation

• Focuses on new or more effective ways of improving own work and meeting targets.
• Focuses on raising quality, customer satisfaction and revenues.
• Makes specific changes to systems and processes to improve efficiency and quality.
• Formulates own objectives and action plans to achieve a measurable improvement in the future.

b) Analytical Thinking

• Identifies multiple elements of a problem and breaks down each of those elements in detail, showing causal relationships between them.
• Uses several analytical techniques to identify several solutions and weighs the value of each.

c) Conceptual thinking

• Creates new concepts that are not obvious to others and not learned from previous education or experience to explain situations or resolve problems.
• Looks at things in a significantly novel way breakthrough thinking.

d) Strategic and Innovative thinking

• Recognizes opportunities or problems emerging in patterns and trends, and their impact on the business and profitability drivers.
• Applies learning from previous situations and experiences.
• Sees underlying causality in the current situation. Applies business acumen to make sound decisions.
• Recognizes opportunities or potential problems, before they become obvious, by seeing the connections in a range of sources of information, including insights from outside DBSA.
• Restates complex knowledge in a way that makes it easier for others to understand.

e) Commercial Business Acumen

• Understands business fundamentals.
• Analyses and comprehends organisational goals and strategies.
• Understands tactical business fundamentals in the public sector environment and incorporates them into decision-making.

f) Teamwork

• Acts to promote a friendly climate and good morale and resolves conflicts.
• Creates opportunities for cross-functional working.
• Encourages others to network outside of their own team/department and learn from their experience.