Investment Associate at Lidya Global

Lidya is the future of finance for small businesses in frontier and emerging markets. Our goal is to help great business owners access financing and build a credit score through an easy and inspiring lending process. Lidya currently operates in Nigeria where over 100,000 businesses have signed up for its service and is backed by Omidyar Network, Accion, Newid Capital, Bamboo Capital and Alitheia Capital. The Company has raised close to $10m USD in venture capital and has teams across Lagos (Nigeria), Porto (Portugal) and New York (USA).

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Investment Associate

Location: Lagos

Job Summary

• Lidya is expanding its activities. To support our development, we are looking for a strategic and experienced Investment Associate to join our team.
• Your work will help to grow our loan book and inform smarter, faster credit decisioning and superior portfolio management.
• You will be a driving force in helping Lidya quickly scale to millions of loans with minimal losses and exceptional returns.
• This is a perfect opportunity to participate in an entrepreneurial adventure that will revolutionize business in Africa, Europe and beyond.

Job Description

• The Investment Associate position is responsible for acquiring & managing clients, assessment of the creditworthiness of potential customers towards the goal of optimizing the mix of company sales and bad debt losses.
• The successful candidate will be a highly effective sales leader and be fully capable of managing own deals by navigating the customer through all facets of the sales process. You will be a manager responsible for providing guidance to the investment analysts and ensuring all due diligence is completed and portfolio growth is achieved.

Company Culture:

• Ambitious & Metrics Driven: You want to solve the $5 trillion USD small business credit gap across fast- growing economies. You are committed to relentlessly finding the right customer, building trust and converting those relationships into sustainable, win-win partnerships. You understand that you will be judged on your numbers and building a high growth, profitable loan book.
• Has no complacency and is high energy. You understand your role is critical to the company. You apply high energy every day to grow your customer base and revenue. You want to grow every day, month, quarter, year. You are persistent, clear and driven to get deals done – properly and quickly.
• Resourceful, High Integrity, High Impact. You find a way. You do business with trust and transparency and dig into the details with the aim to help customers get the credit they need to grow their business.
• Collaborative. You understand you need a team to succeed. You carry along internal stakeholders to ensure they are aligned to support and drive sales and conversion.

Key Duties and Responsibilities

• Team Management: Manage the investment analysts in launching, qualifying, and acquiring relationships with clients across relevant sectors including but not limited to companies in the eCommerce, consumer goods, healthcare and financial services industries.
• Loan Portfolio Growth. Support the evaluation, authorization and approval of loans given to customers including authentication of documentation presented for all credit applications and ensuring they meet KYC, loan assessment and any other documentation as required by the Lidya and by the regulators. Execute process for recollection of disbursed loans including recovery of items pledged as security on delinquent loans.
• Client Engagement: Managing existing client engagements, appraisal of customer loan applications, and approval or rejection of applications within agreed timelines and loan limits.
• Debt Settlements: Support the Collections team in managing non-performing loans by conducting analysis, and develop and recommend plans to eliminate client debt. Manage past due accounts and determine the appropriate collection action to be taken for clients and reports on status of delinquent accounts.

Desired Qualifications and Skillset

• 4 to 7 years+ of experience (preferably commercial) working with an Investment Bank, Commercial Bank, Commercial Bank, Management Consulting Firm or in a Business Development Role (with experience in the financial services sector a plus).
• Working knowledge of the entire underwriting process from loan application to funds disbursement and collections.
• Bachelor's Degree in Finance, Accounting, Statistics, Mathematics, Engineering, Investments or a related Business discipline.
• Demonstrated experience with managing day to day aspects of client relationships and projects including considerable experience meeting commercial milestones (i.e. achieving revenue or profit targets).
• Ability to work in a goal oriented environment where you will be evaluated on your KPIs.
• Ability to manage a team of 2 to 3 colleagues to meet commercial targets consistently and sustainably
• Outstanding communication skills and a passion for creating an extraordinary customer experience regardless of the final credit decision.
• High attention to detail and strong analytical skills including the ability to properly identify the key credit risks, and reach a prompt and well thought out credit decision.

Our Offer!

• Competitive salary, workplace benefits and eligibility for equity in Lidya.
• Become part of a highly professional and dynamic team.
• An unparalleled personal and professional growth as our longer-term objective is to train the next generation of leaders for country-changing ventures.

Application Closing Date
On going.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online