Head of Investment Operations and Enterprise Sourcing at Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF)

About the role

• Investment Operations serves as the centre of excellence for AECF’s investment portfolio. The Head of Investment Operations is responsible for building and managing the platform – comprising frameworks, systems, and analytical capabilities – that supports and enables the construction and delivery of high-performing portfolios.
• The role applies strong investment discipline, financial analysis, and process rigour across the full deal lifecycle: from marketing and competition management through sourcing, due diligence, structuring, and Investment Committee decision-making.
• It is accountable for ensuring that investment decisions are made with quality, consistency, and speed. The role reports to the Director of Programs and works in close partnership with the Sector Leads (Agribusiness and Energy), who hold portfolio accountability within their respective sectors.

Key responsibilities

Sourcing and Competition Management

• Lead enterprise sourcing competitions end-to-end: design, marketing, applications, scoring, and shortlisting, assuring the integrity, quality, and efficiency of the process.
• Continuously improve competition design based on yield data, applicant quality, and conversion to investment – ensuring each competition cycle delivers a stronger, more decision-ready pipeline.
• Build and steward complementary sourcing channels through proactive outreach, ecosystem partnerships, and co-investor referrals, ensuring pipelines are not solely dependent on competition cycles.
• Manage the underlying sourcing infrastructure, including CRM, pipeline-tracking systems, marketing campaigns, and application management platforms.
• Ensure pipeline data is current, well organised, and usable by Portfolio Management teams to support decision-making.

Investment Analysis and Deal Team Support

• Provide financial modelling, structuring expertise, and analytical capacity for deal teams to draw on during due diligence and structuring.
• Act as a thought partner and constructive challenger to Sector Leads, bringing investment rigour to deal shaping without taking the pen on investment decisions.
• Build deep analytical capability within the investment operations team, shared across the energy and agri sectors.

Investment committee process and governance

• Serve as process owner for the Investment Committee: scheduling, agenda management, memo quality assurance, and tracking of conditions precedent.
• Ensure all submissions to IC meet the standards required for decision-readiness.
• Manage post-IC follow-through, including documentation and conditions tracking.

Portfolio analytics, systems, and Reporting

• Own portfolio analytics, performance dashboards, and the data infrastructure that makes portfolio performance visible, accurate, and comparable across sectors.
• Lead systems automation and digitisation initiatives that improve speed, transparency, and efficiency across the investment lifecycle.
• Look across the portfolio for patterns, trends, and lessons that sharpen how we invest and design initiatives.

Process discipline and continuous Improvement

• Monitor and continuously improve cycle times across the deal lifecycle (from origination to IC, from IC to disbursement, and from disbursement to the first milestone).
• Diagnose bottlenecks and lead operational improvements that increase the speed and efficiency of portfolio construction without compromising rigour.

Investment Framework and Standards

• Develop and maintain the standards that govern the deal lifecycle: due diligence templates, structuring playbooks, Investment Committee memorandum standards, valuation and financial analysis methodologies, and risk assessment tools.
• Ensure frameworks are applied consistently across sectors, and evolve them based on lessons learned from the portfolio.
• Lead on and continuously refine the catalytic capital framework that guides instrument selection – when to deploy grants, repayable grants, or concessional debt – and the catalytic logic underpinning each.

Capability Building and Team Leadership

• Lead and develop the Investment Operations team.
• Build investment skills across the broader organisation, including analysts and associates, through training, coaching, and structured capability development.
• Foster a performance-driven, collaborative, and investment-led culture across the portfolio delivery function.

Required qualifications, experience, and attributes:

• Master’s degree in Finance, Economics, Business Administration, or a related field.
• CFA, ACCA, or equivalent professional qualification.
• Eight years of investment experience across the full deal lifecycle – sourcing, due diligence, structuring, Investment Committee, and portfolio management ideally within impact investing, blended finance, or development finance.
• Deep expertise in management of catalytic capital instruments – grants, repayable grants, and concessional debt – and the design of frameworks governing their use.
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating investment platforms, processes, and systems, rather than primarily leading individual deals.
• Experience designing and managing structured sourcing programs – competitions or cohort-based pipelines – including evaluation methodology and applicant assessment at scale.
• Strong investment/financial analysis, structuring, and Investment Committee process experience.
• Track record of supporting and enabling deal teams, sector leads, or portfolio managers in a centre-of-excellence or platform capacity.
• Experience working with early-stage portfolios and complex multi-stakeholder environments, including donors and concessional capital providers.
• Strong people leader, clear communicator, and an exceptional team player.