Joining OCA as a Transaction Leader Desired start: rolling in 2020
Location: Nairobi
Who we are
Open Capital Advisors is a management consulting and financial advisory firm that drives growth, enables investment, and builds markets across Africa. We help high-impact businesses achieve scale, support investors to deploy capital, and enable the public sector to drive market-based solutions.
Since we founded Open Capital in 2010, we have completed more than 600 engagements across industries spanning 20 countries across Africa. We have helped our clients to raise more than $600M and achieve sustainable growth and social impact. Our Africa-based team of over 120 full time staff offers experience from the world's top consultancies, private equity firms, investment banks, and development organizations including The Boston Consulting Group, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, IFC and The World Bank. We currently have offices in Nairobi, Kenya; Kampala, Uganda; and Lusaka, Zambia.
The Transaction Leader role
We manage dozens of transactions and capital structuring projects and seek an exceptional individual to jointly manage this portfolio. You will sit across all of OCA’s project teams, serving as an expert on financial structuring and capital raising, working with equity, debt, quasi equity, and blended capital structures. In your role, you will interact regularly with OCA’s network of over 250 investors globally, including impact investors, VCs/PEs, UHNWIs and DFIs, introducing and negotiating transactions.
The Transaction Leader will report directly to our senior management team and will manage teams of Analysts, Associates, and Project Leaders. This role is a 2+ year career-track role, with promotion potential to OCA’s senior management and potential future election to Partner.
As a Transaction Leader, you will be in a unique position to help structure some of the most innovative deals in Africa in sectors including off-grid energy, water, agribusiness, forestry, healthcare, and others. Examples of our past work have included raising equity for venture capital-stage companies, structuring new debt vehicles for off-grid energy companies and creating social impact bonds, among others.
You will join Open Capital at an exciting time – we are seeking to achieve broad, ambitious growth goals, and leverage our strong international brand in the impact investing and frontier market space. As we look to deepen our reach in the broader African market, there will continue to be many opportunities to engage in project work regionally. The right candidate should be excited and genuinely motivated by the challenging strategic and financial questions we answer for our clients.
Your skills and experience
We are looking for exceptional professionals who share our motivation and drive to achieve impact. You should be comfortable assuming high levels of responsibility for our clients and teams, performing excellent work with high attention to detail, contributing fresh ideas, and taking pleasure in the impact we try to achieve with every client. Our team is energetic and driven and we are quick to reward performance and initiative.
We seek candidates with the following experience:
- 7-10+ years of experience at a top investment bank, private investment firm, or in a lead finance role within a corporate with significant experience in structuring transactions in equity, debt, or across financial products;
- Significant experience building and managing financial models in Excel;
- Strong communication skills and analytical abilities and insightful, structured way of presenting investment cases;
- Ability to effectively work with clients at all levels and backgrounds;
- Interest in guiding teams and mentoring our analysts & junior team members;
- Desire to work and live in Nairobi for at least 2-years and broader interest in the region;
- Demonstrated experience and interest working in emerging markets;
- Multiple languages and previous Africa experience useful but not required
How to apply
Please visit us here: https://opencapitaladvisors.applytojob.com/apply
Several recent clients
We highlight several recent client engagements below:
Strategy and finance for water utilities (Kenya, Senegal, South Africa)
Engagedin a Pan-Africa project supporting large water utilities to design strategies, increase efficiencies, and access additional commercial finance.
Goal:improve and extend water delivery to growing urban areas across Africa, contributing to solve the world’s coming drought problem; link commercial finance to sustainable expansion.
Strategy, roll-out, and financing for early-stage LPG business (Kenya)
Supportedan early-stage company developing innovative cooking fuel distribution for low-income populations in Africa. Conducted analysis to define distribution hubs and fleet configuration; built detailed financial model; supported capital raise through completion.
Goal:enable company to disrupt the cooking fuels market, providing affordable option to the mass market.
Due diligence in Ethiopia for family-owned conglomerate (Ethiopia)
Conducteddue diligence on potential investment in Ethiopia for large Kenyan FMCG conglomerate. Involved full commercial due diligence of assets in Ethiopia, including proposed strategies for acquisition and approaches to negotiation.
Goal:expand FMCG access to burgeoning Ethiopian population through strategic partnership between Kenya & Ethiopia.
Fund structuring & design for conflict country (East Africa)
Designednew investment fund for large European DFI, focused on a post-conflict country in East Africa. Proposed fund process, created fund financing strategy, evaluated initial pipeline, and designed PPM for launch of fundraising.
Goal:provide source of capital for high-growth businesses in challenging, post-conflict country.
