Investment Analyst

Acumen West Africa seeks a committed and enthusiastic Investment Analyst to join its Lagos-based team; we are seeking candidates with 2 years of experience in impact investing to help build and manage an investment portfolio of impact-driven early-stage companies across West Africa.

About Acumen
Acumen is changing the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies, leaders and ideas. We invest patient capital in businesses whose products and services are enabling the poor to transform their lives. To date, Acumen has positively impacted over 500 million lives by investing $154M in 167 innovative, early-stage companies in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, and the United States. But investment isn't only about capital, we've been investing in innovators for years, connecting with emerging leaders around the world and engaging them in collective dialogue, moral inquiry, and skill building.

About Acumen West Africa
Acumen's commitment to West Africa began in 2011. Core to our success is the ability to identify, resource, and build a world-class portfolio of investments that demonstrates the power of patient capital to solve the problems of poverty in West Africa and the world more broadly. Equally important is to leverage our experience into insights that compel this ecosystem of funders, operators, and policy makers to catalyze a broader paradigm shift in the battle against poverty. Over the years, Acumen West Africa has made investments across several sectors, including agriculture, clean energy, financial inclusion, and healthcare. Our key focus now is Agriculture, Clean Energy and Workforce development. Acumen constantly evaluates the potential to expand into other sectors. We support entrepreneurs and businesses which are revolutionizing their sectors and pioneering new development paradigms that deliver impact to the poor on a sustainable basis. The office is staffed with a full-time team of professionals from diverse backgrounds.
In addition to its local focus on investing in companies, leaders and ideas, Acumen West Africa serves as a hub of global Acumen activity, a location where we often bring together partners, investees, team members and Fellows for a variety of events.

About the Role
The Investments Analyst will source and evaluate new investment opportunities, conduct due diligence on high potential opportunities, and assist with structuring deal terms and presenting to the Investment Committee. The Investments Analyst will use their analytical skills to evaluate the growth and return potential of companies from both a financial and social impact perspective.

The Investments Analyst will support data collection, analysis and reporting related to Acumen West Africa's investment portfolio and its performance, fundraising and strategic partnership initiatives, and management of portfolio operations. They will contribute to actively building and cultivating Acumen West Africa networks in the impact investing communities and will contribute to developing insight and communication pieces for external audiences.
The Investments Analyst will support the coordination of Acumen West Africa's impact assessments, liaising with portfolio companies, the Insights and Strategy team, and external impact vendors.

The role reports to a senior Portfolio Lead in West Africa.

Specific responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Source and identify exceptional investment opportunities providing critical services to the poor
• Deal sourcing and analysis. Conduct market research to identify potential opportunities, analyze trends and build relationships to cultivate deal flow.
• Qualitative and quantitative analysis on potential investment companies including financial modeling, valuation analysis and risk assessments.
• Evaluate and identify quality investment opportunities from a large deal pipeline utilizing your analytical and critical thinking skills to find unique business models. Articulate your understanding of the value proposition, risks, competition, industry, and impact to your peers in a collaborative investment evaluating culture.
• Prepare and present compelling investment memos for Acumen's Investment Committee.
• Perform thorough due diligence and structure transactions reflecting appropriate risk/return factors. Work closely with legal counsel to document and close investments.

Qualifications & Characteristics

• Bachelor's degree; finance, business, or related field preferred.
• Must have authorization to work in Nigeria on a permanent basis.
• 2 years of investing underwriting experience, including financial and operational due diligence of private companies. Understanding of early-stage businesses and entrepreneurs is a plus.
• Strong understanding of financial statements and an ability to analyze historical results and model future periods including running sensitivities of key input assumptions.
• Curious – always questioning, always probing, and never blindly accepting.
• Ability to thrive when there is ambiguity, remain cool-headed when there are curve balls, and withstand the tests of a rapidly changing environment with resilience and resolve.
• Solid professional skills including ability to work and deliver projects independently, proactively and under pressure.
• Strong communication skills and ability to be a "storyteller" of our work.
• Effectively collaborate with and across teams, seeks and provides constructive feedback.
• Ideally be familiar with the social enterprise sector with a significant commitment, desire, or experience serving the poor.
• Commitment to, and enthusiasm for, the organization's mission and business model, and respect for our core values: generosity, accountability, humility, audacity, listening, leadership, integrity, respect.
• Moral Imagination: The humility to see the world as it is, and the audacity to imagine the world as it could be. It also includes but is not limited to the following:
• Displaying high level of empathy in all relationships and encounters. Possessing deep self-awareness and ability to identify own strengths and weaknesses, "coachable".
• Actively listening and focusing on hearing what others are saying.
• Exceptional relationship and interpersonal skills: courtesy, tact, patience and strong team orientation.