Senior Finance and Transaction Leader Job

This is a senior-level finance assignment for a professional who knows how to move a business from financial planning to an actual transaction. The focus is not limited to preparing accounts or overseeing routine finance operations. The person taking on the role will be expected to help structure capital, engage potential investors and lenders, build financial systems that can withstand scrutiny, and leave behind processes that the internal finance team can continue using.

The operating environment is described as a fragile-state, frontier-market setting. That makes practical judgment particularly important. Financial structures need to work in real conditions, including foreign-exchange exposure, liquidity pressures, governance requirements and the expectations of development finance institutions and impact investors.

At the centre of the assignment is capital raising. The finance leader will take responsibility for creating a clear route from identifying potential sources of capital through investor engagement and ultimately toward a transaction.

From Capital Strategy to Deal Execution

One of the first major areas of work will be developing the capital-raising strategy.

This includes building and managing an investor pipeline, preparing an information memorandum and organising the information required by prospective lenders or investors. A properly managed data room will also be part of the process, ensuring that relevant financial and corporate information is available in an organised form during due diligence.

The finance leader will also manage the term-sheet or mandate process. This requires the ability to engage with different parties, understand their requirements and keep the transaction moving through its various stages.

The experience required here goes beyond theoretical knowledge of corporate finance. The ideal candidate should have demonstrated experience closing deals in frontier markets and should understand what is required to take a transaction from an initial financing discussion to a completed process.

Building a Financial Model That Lenders Can Use

A major technical deliverable will be an integrated financial model designed to meet lender requirements.

The model will need to bring together the company's financial position and the economics of individual assets. It will therefore include three-statement modelling alongside project-finance components.

Debt service coverage ratio, or DSCR, analysis will be particularly important. The model will also incorporate covenant analysis, liquidity considerations and foreign-exchange exposure.

Stress testing will allow different scenarios to be examined rather than relying on a single financial outlook. This is especially relevant in a frontier-market environment where assumptions around currency movements, cash availability and asset performance can materially affect financing decisions.

The finance leader must therefore be comfortable building or overseeing sophisticated financial models and explaining their outputs to lenders, investors and management.

Finance Governance That Can Stand Up to Scrutiny

Capital raising cannot be separated from the quality of a company's financial governance.

The person appointed will be expected to put lender-ready finance governance arrangements in place. This includes developing a treasury policy, establishing a cash waterfall and defining appropriate financial delegations.

A reporting calendar will also need to be implemented so that management, the board and financing partners receive information according to agreed timelines.

Board KPI packs will form part of this structure. These should give decision-makers a clear view of important financial and operational indicators.

The objective is to create a finance function that provides reliable information, maintains appropriate controls and gives investors or lenders confidence in how funds and financial risks are being managed.

Structuring the Company for Investment

Another substantial part of the assignment concerns corporate and asset-level structuring.

The finance leader will design HoldCo–AssetCo special purpose vehicle structures and work through the practical arrangements needed to implement them.

This work will involve supporting agreements and an implementation plan, with external legal counsel providing the necessary legal input.

The person in the role therefore needs to be comfortable working beyond the finance department. Structuring a transaction requires coordination between finance, management, investors, lenders and legal advisers.

The responsibility is not simply to propose a structure on paper. The finance leader will need to help translate the structure into an arrangement that can actually be implemented.

Experience With DFIs and Impact Investors

The required background points strongly toward professionals who have worked with development finance institutions and impact-focused investors.

Experience with blended-finance transactions is specifically required. This means the candidate should understand financing situations where different sources or forms of capital may be brought together to support an investment.

Engagement with DFIs and impact investors can involve detailed financial, governance and risk requirements. The finance leader must therefore be able to communicate effectively with sophisticated capital providers while also understanding the realities of operating a lean finance function.

Frontier-market experience is equally important. The candidate should have previously dealt with the governance, financial and capital-raising challenges associated with these markets rather than approaching them purely from a conventional developed-market perspective.

Working With Currency and Financial Risk

The financial environment will also require a strong understanding of risk management.

The technical requirements include experience with IFRS and risk management in USD-dominated frontier markets. Foreign-exchange exposure will therefore be one of the areas that needs to be considered when developing financial models, liquidity plans and transaction structures.

Treasury responsibilities will also matter. The finance leader will need to establish systems for managing cash and ensuring that available funds move through the business according to an appropriate cash waterfall.

This combination of modelling, treasury and risk management experience will help connect the company's day-to-day financial position with its longer-term financing requirements.

More Than an Advisory Exercise

Although the role has an autonomous advisory CFO character, it is not limited to providing recommendations.

The person appointed will be expected to build systems and processes and help implement them. This includes finance governance, transaction materials, modelling structures and corporate arrangements.

The assignment also has a knowledge-transfer component. The internal finance team will need to be trained, and the finance leader will be responsible for providing a documented handover package.

That means the work should leave the organisation with usable tools, documented processes and a team that understands how to maintain them after the assignment is completed.

The Seniority Expected

The ideal candidate should have at least ten years of relevant experience in senior finance leadership roles such as CFO, VP Finance or an equivalent position.

This level of experience is important because the role requires independent judgment across several areas at once. The candidate must be able to work with investors and lenders while also dealing directly with management and a lean internal finance team.

Deal-closure experience is particularly important. The assignment calls for someone who has been involved in actual capital-raising transactions rather than someone whose experience is limited to financial analysis or internal reporting.

A background combining finance leadership, transaction execution, frontier-market operations and investor engagement would align closely with the requirements.

Communication Across Different Stakeholders

The finance leader will operate between several groups with different priorities.

Investors and lenders will require reliable financial information and clear transaction documentation. Management will need practical financial guidance. The internal finance team will need direction, training and systems that can be maintained.

The ability to work comfortably across these groups is therefore essential.

Fluent English is required. Knowledge of Somali or Arabic would be an advantage, although it is not a mandatory requirement.

The role also calls for someone who is comfortable operating with significant autonomy. The successful professional will need to make sound decisions, manage competing demands and maintain progress without depending on a large support structure.

A Transaction-Focused Finance Leadership Role

This opportunity is built around a combination of senior finance leadership and transaction execution. Its responsibilities cover capital raising, investor and DFI engagement, lender-grade modelling, treasury, governance, SPV structuring and internal capability building.

The assignment will suit a finance professional who can move comfortably between detailed financial modelling and high-level discussions with capital providers. Just as importantly, the person needs to understand that a financing structure is only useful when the underlying systems, governance and people are capable of operating it effectively.

With a minimum of ten years of relevant senior finance experience, demonstrated transaction delivery and strong frontier-market expertise, the role calls for a professional capable of taking substantial responsibility for both the financing process and the financial infrastructure supporting it.

Application

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