Overview

We are looking for brilliant candidates with direct investment experience - be that in social investment, venture capital or banking.  You will share our passion for improving people’s lives, will be enthusiastic, proactive and enjoy working collaboratively with a growing team.  You will be as comfortable meeting with senior teams at mainstream banks as you are at rolling up your sleeves to deliver on the day-to-day mechanics of investments.

Role purpose

As we continue our exciting growth plans in 2023 to deliver on our ambitious goals and refreshed strategy, we’re looking for an exceptional Investment Associate to join our team.

As the successful candidate you will work directly with organisations addressing financial exclusion, in a wider social investment context.  This investment associate role involves conducting due diligence on new investment proposals, monitoring a small portfolio of existing grants and social investments and supporting our impact reporting.

You will have strong analytical skills, be a confident communicator and bring enthusiasm for developing our impact and portfolio reporting.  We strongly encourage candidates with experience of community finance to apply. 

At Fair4All Finance we are making direct investments (£32m+ to date) into community finance providers and social fintechs to support their growth and future sustainability, as a key part of our strategy to scale up the provision of affordable credit.  

Over the next couple of years, the investment team will be:

• deploying significant new funding to community finance organisations

• actively managing current social investments into a diverse portfolio of community financial providers to scale up their provision of affordable credit – examples include Great Western credit union and Salad Money

• Working collaboratively across the wider Fair4All Finance team to support new initiatives (such as our innovative No Interest Loans Pilot)

Some key responsibilities

• Support the management of a small portfolio of existing equity, debt and grant investments, whilst establishing and maintaining excellent, trusting client relationships

• Responsible for the regular monitoring of financial and social impact performance, ensuring data is well understood and trends are integrated into our internal systems and communicated clearly to our wider team

• Support due diligence on potential equity, debt and grant investments primarily into affordable credit providers, some social fintechs and other investment opportunities as may arise – including establishing and maintaining excellent client relationships

• Support clear and evidenced recommendations to the investment committee 8-10 times per year

• Support the execution of investments, ensuring social purpose is clearly represented in the negotiation of legal documents 

• Lead on strategically important investment-related projects and support other aspects of our wider work as needed 

To be successful, your experience and capability will Include:

• Strong analytical skills with good commercial acumen.  Experience of due diligence is a plus but not essential.   This experience may be from the private, social or public sector   

• Being able to process and analyse reporting data, track progress of investments and/or projects against plan

• Evidence of strong oral and written communication skills

• Being great at building relationships at all levels with investees as well as other strategic external partners

• Self-assurance working alongside senior stakeholders  

• Being able to deal with complexity and uncertainty and work under your own initiative    

Desirable experience and capabilities

It would be great if you also bring: 

• Experience with credit unions, Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) or other social-purpose lenders; alternatively, experience of personal-lending

• Experience of leading the provision of technical assistance working with external consultants and expertise organisations

• A good understanding of the interventions and investments that are appropriate to support the scaling up of small lenders   

• Financial modelling and/or experience of making impact investments into social enterprises   

• Deal execution capability including evidence of negotiating legal documents

Why work at Fair4All Finance

Fair4All Finance is a not for profit organisation founded in 2019 to improve the financial wellbeing of people in vulnerable circumstances by increasing access to fair, affordable and appropriate financial products and services. 

There are at least 17.5m people in the UK in vulnerable financial circumstances, who are poorly served or unfairly excluded from mainstream financial services. That’s nearly a third of all adults in the UK.

We are funded from the Dormant Assets Scheme. The scheme is led by the financial industry and backed by the UK government. This makes it possible for money in dormant bank and building society accounts to be used to help good causes.

Our vision is of a society where the long term financial wellbeing of all people is supported by a fair and accessible financial sector. 

You can find more information on us and our work at www.fair4allfinance.org.uk.

Our Benefits include:

Financial Security:

• Pension, group life assurance, critical illness, and income protection, family leave

Wellbeing:

• 27 days holiday plus bank holidays, agile working, health cash plan, health & wellbeing resource hub (including an Employee Assistance Programme)

Fair4All Finance is committed to being a diverse organisation that is truly representative of the people and communities we serve. We are an equal opportunities employer with an inclusive environment where different experiences, expertise and perspectives are valued, where everyone is encouraged to grow and develop, and all team members can contribute to their fullest potential.

Applications are welcome from people of any age, sex, gender identity, disability, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race, sexual orientation, transgender status or social economic background. We are determined to ensure that all team members and applicants receive fair and equitable treatment or are not disadvantaged by any inappropriate conditions or requirements being placed on them.

When we are recruiting, we actively seek to reach a diverse pool of candidates. We are happy to consider any reasonable adjustments that potential team member may need to be successful. We recognise the importance of a good balance between work and home life, so we do everything we reasonably can to accommodate flexible working.

Applications

• Please apply through Applied by 4pm on 29 August 2023

• Interviews will be held in early September

• If you would like to have an informal chat about the role before applying, please email jobs@fair4allfinance.org.uk

After the job advert closes, your answers will go through a sift process, randomising and anonymising answers to take out individual information that could add biases into hiring decisions. This enables application reviewers to review each answer objectively. People scoring the applications will not have seen your CV at this stage of the process so please try your best to answer questions with specific examples and without simply rephrasing your CV, which they will review later in the recruitment process.