Turkey: Senior Upstream Officer – Infrastructure (Central and Eastern Europe)

Mar 7, 2020 | International Finance Commission
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The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. Working with more than 2,000 businesses worldwide, we use our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities where they are needed most. Visit www.ifc.org

IFC has embarked on an ambitious new growth strategy (IFC 3.0) to stimulate more investment activity, especially in Low Income Countries (LICs) and Fragile and Conflict affected Situations (FCS). This strategy calls for generating our own opportunities by proactively working “upstream” to create, deepen, and expand markets and to imagine, design and implement investment projects. It requires taking a systematic approach to understanding the regulatory and sector bottlenecks that prevent the flow of private capital into productive investment in our member countries and addressing these bottlenecks through World Bank Group engagement on policy reforms and programmatic interventions at the country and sector level. It also requires capacity to leverage WBG programs and projects to develop our own proactive sector interventions and to imagine and design projects even in the absence of reforms.

The Europe and Central Asia Infrastructure unit is an open and dynamic team, which develops, advises, structures and makes infrastructure project investments across a number of sectors including power, transportation, telecom, technology, subnational infrastructure and natural resources. We are in the process of hiring a number of professionals to expand our geographic footprint and grow our “upstream” business.

We are seeking a Senior Investment Officer or Senior Operations Officer to join our team. The selected candidate will be based in Istanbul and will execute our “upstream” strategy and develop a high-quality “upstream” pipeline across the Europe and Central Asia region under the supervision of the Regional Industry Upstream Lead. S/he will also support policy work and other interventions across the World Bank Group to prioritize various initiatives and to maximize the impact of IFC’s “upstream” efforts.

Role & Responsibilities

The role and responsibilities of the position will include but not be limited to:

  • Identify and assess “upstream” opportunities based on country and sector strategies and market creation potential.
  • Lead “upstream” initiatives, which includes the development of feasibility studies and implementation plans for “upstream” projects that lead to IFC investments, including identifying and addressing bankability issues related to regulatory frameworks, contractual/legal context, financial strength of contractual counterparties, etc.
  • Design and implement scalable solutions and platforms similar to “Scaling Solar” that can be replicated across markets.
  • Spot game-changing trends, technologies and business models that can bring solutions to emerging markets.
  • Supervise the production of regular reports on the assigned “upstream” portfolio including monitoring progress against project milestones and KPIs.
  • Conduct sector-specific data analysis and stress-testing of various operating models to help generate ideas for new projects, new products and platform businesses.
  • Work with the World Bank to identify and help implement sector and regulatory reforms that are needed to unlock opportunities for private investment.
  • Collaborate with stakeholders and form partnerships with staff across IFC and the World Bank Group, sponsors, clients and other external parties to enable delivery of Upstream projects.
  • Facilitate knowledge flow across IFC and the World Bank Group and promote adoption of new approaches and best practices.
  • Help build external recognition of IFC’s distinctive capabilities in working Upstream to catalyze greater flow of investment opportunities in the sector.
  • Mentor more junior team members.

Selection Criteria

  • Master's degree or equivalent professional qualification in Business, Finance, Economics, International Relations, Law, Science, Engineering, or other relevant field.
  • At least 10 years of relevant experience in infrastructure project and/or program development, producing feasibility studies, hands-on advisory and/or consulting, and/or banking/financial functions, and/or experience working with a law firm in infrastructure in emerging markets.
  • Prior experience in IFC/World Bank operational countries in the Europe and Central Asia region a plus.
  • Ability to interact directly and independently with the senior management of potential clients, financial and technical partners as well as senior government officials.
  • Prior experience of working with IBRD and MIGA will be a plus.
  • Genuine commitment to development and to the World Bank Group and IFC's mission, strategy and values.
  • Understanding of IFC’s strategic priorities and changing business model against the backdrop of IFC’s 3.0 strategy.
  • Capacity to innovate and challenge the status quo. Proven track record in new idea generation, business development, and creating projects/programs from scratch.
  • Strong understanding of infrastructure sectors such as power, transportation, utilities, natural resources, telecoms, technology.
  • Ability to link policy reforms, advisory interventions, investment, and mobilization to deliver solutions at a country level via the Cascade approach.
  • Experience engaging with private sector clients, local and national governments and other stakeholders to encourage pioneering business and market development.
  • Regional knowledge of countries and understanding of infrastructure challenges faced by countries within the region will be a plus.
  • Experience in project/program management, including executing against implementation plans with defined business development milestones.
  • Experience in monitoring and reporting on a portfolio of projects/programs/initiatives.
  • Outstanding analytical and critical thinking skills; demonstrated ability to synthetize complex information and make concrete strategic and tactical recommendations.
  • Excellent people skills, openness to feedback, new ideas, and ability to guide, and motivate others.
  • Strong inter-personal skills, ability to interact effectively with clients and colleagues from various cultural backgrounds.
  • Strong written and verbal communications skills in English. Turkish, Russian and other languages from the region highly desirable.