Your role

As a Corporate Governance Officer, you need to convince Boards, founders, and entrepreneurs to embrace Corporate Governance improvements. From startups to established corporates, you will work with our clients/investees across our sectors and markets. You will contribute to improving the governance of our clients/investees in line with their strategy, ambition, and local context. Improving Corporate Governance is at the heart of our FMO value-creation mandate. As a Corporate Governance Officer, you are part of the front office and work directly with investment teams.

In this role, you would be expected to:

Assess high risk and complex transactions against the FMO’s Sustainability Policy in financial institutions (banks, MFIs and NBFIs), joint ventures and especially corporates (listed, unlisted, and family-owned), where FMO is either a lender or investor.
Support and engage with investment teams in positioning FMO and its mandate towards potential customers/partners and determining potential alignment of interests.
Provide advisory services to FMO clients and investees on all matters pertaining to Corporate Governance (e.g. CG review, facilitate a Board evaluation, trusted advisor)
Offer Corporate Governance knowledge sessions within FMO as well as for relevant partners, the DFI community and staff and Board members of investee companies
Deliberately seek connections between Corporate Governance, Climate, and Environmental & Social areas to increase impact at client level.
Help resolve transaction, portfolio, and policy-level dilemmas, escalating issues to the Manager, as appropriate.
Serve as a trusted advisor to other members of the deal team and departmental Management Teams.
Build and maintain strong relationships with finance partners and other relevant stakeholders, keeps track of evolving standards, knowledge, and expectations.
Promote the continuous improvement of FMO policies, processes and standards.

Our offer

Gross yearly salary of between EUR 70K – 95K (including holiday allowance and 13th month salary), depending on seniority, years of experience and background.
Premium free pension.
31 holidays.
Working remotely abroad for 60 days in a rolling period of 12 months.
Hybrid way of working (50/50).

For more information, please visit our website Secondary Benefits - FMO.

Your team

The FMO Corporate Governance Unit is a small, boutique team ready to offer customized solutions to selected FMO clients and investees. Adequate Corporate Governance (‘CG’) structures and practices allow our clients and investees to better manage risks, make adequate strategic decision in ever changing business environments and attract reputable lenders and investors as we believe that this is instrumental for building sustainable businesses. Services range from client work to the production and delivery of internal and external knowledge products and creating innovative products and solutions to stay up to speed with market developments.

For this team we are looking for a (Senior) Corporate Governance Specialist who will join an FMO-wide international community of over 50 Impact, Environmental, Social & Governance (ESG) experts. This individual will report to the Manager of Corporate Governance and E&S for Financial Institutions within the ESG+ Department.

Your background

Academic-level, MBA or similar, Law, organizational studies, or other relevant master’s degree.
Strong knowledge on generally accepted corporate governance principles.
Experience operating in an advisory or consulting capacity.
Knowledge of strategic and/or change management methodologies.
Knowledge of climate governance / governance of sustainability.
At least 7 years of relevant working experience, out of which at least 5 years in fields connected to advisory on topics related to corporate governance working with a wide variety of clients including both financial institutions, (family-owned) corporates, private equity funds and early-stage companies.
Knowledge and experience with family-owned companies and debt transactions preferred.
Exposure to equity transactions, including funds and venture capital, preferred.

Personal Skills

Ability to proactively build and leverage relationships with clients and strategic partners and to establish credibility, persuade, and influence a wide range of people.
Ability to identify efficiency gains in internal processes and procedures.
Ability to accurately read and navigate sensitive situations.
Strong service and client orientation.
Ability to take decisions quickly.
Ability to effectively strike the balance between facilitating transactions and upholding CG best practices.
Strong skills in planning, organizing, and prioritizing when working on several assignments at the same time/under pressure.
Excellent English communication skills, both written and verbal.
Fluency in French and/or Arabic preferred.
Culturally sensitive and able to work in multi-disciplinary teams.
Team player and able to coordinate, inspire and motivate other colleagues.
Ability and willingness to travel between 4 - 6 times a year to our clients/investees in the various markets.

Are you excited about FMO's mission, and do you meet the criteria? We ‘d love to hear from you and learn more about you. So please apply today! #PioneerDevelopScale.

Please note, if we make you an offer to join FMO, you will need to work through the screening process with our screening partner. The process is designed to check your integrity and reliability.