Associate Consultant / Consultant at Control Risks

Category: Compliance, Forensics & Intelligence

Job Description

• We are looking for a dynamic, experienced individual to be part of Control Risks Africa focused business intelligence team based in Lagos, Nigeria.
• The successful candidate will be a critical thinker with good communication skills, with an interest in business transactions and operations.
• You will play a critical role in building our institutional capacity to conduct intelligence gathering and analysis for clients in the West Africa region.
• Through your open-source research skills and engagement with human sources in the region, you will deliver intelligence gathering tasks and research to our clients.
• These buyers will rely on your analysis to identify risks linked to entering new commercial relationships and transactions, as well as to assess the role, positioning and motivations of key stakeholders and competitors in new markets.
• You will be a prominent and visible advocate for the Africa business intelligence practice both within Control Risks and externally.

Responsibilities
The core deliverables you will be responsible for are:

• Building up our network of human sources in markets and in industries where our clients require unique, non-publicly available insights into market participants and transactions.
• Developing our capacity to access publicly available information through an in-depth understanding of the media landscape in the region, and ability to navigate the retrieval of information from public sources such as corporate registries, courts, private and public databases etc.
• Scoping persuasive, client centric proposals in response to a wide-variety of different client requests
• Managing complex intelligence and analysis assignments

Investigative Case Management:

• Manage and execute a range of business intelligence and compliance projects including due diligence, background checks, market entry studies, asset identification, litigation support, problem solving and power mapping
• Manage the entire project cycle, from initial client request to proposal drafting, acceptance, delivery and invoicing
• Conduct in-depth public record research using best-in-class open source intelligence gathering methodologies.
• Work together with other members of project teams, within the business intelligence practice and other departments, to seamlessly bring together disparate research and analysis streams to produce coherent and actionable deliverables for our clients.
• Liaise with our human source network to extract critical insights to address our clients’ information requirements.
• Expand our source network by cultivating contacts in critical markets and sectors across the region.
• Work closely with the Global Risk Analysis team, our political risk department, to ensure issues relating to country risk are considered and demonstrated in providing context to research and intelligence gathered.
• Liaise with clients to understand their requirements and ensure that our proposals deliver solutions tailored to those needs.

Business and Practice Development:

• Take an active role in developing Control Risks' client base, seeking to both maintain existing relationships and bring new ones
• Prepare and deliver focused briefings and case studies for client initiatives
• Seek opportunities to improve our current methodologies, including through the application of new technology and new online sources.

Requirements
Qualifications and Specialist Skills:

• Educated to Degree level
• Excellent standard of verbal and written communication in English
• Well-developed research and analysis skills
• Investigative and analytical skills and excellent attention to detail
• Strong project management skills
• Ability to summarise large amounts of information in a concise manner and communicate effectively
• Interest in business trends and political developments in the region.

Knowledge and Experience:

• Previous professional experience, ideally within the Business Intelligence industry (preferred but not essential), with at least 4 years working as a business analyst or researcher in a client-facing role
• Experience of managing complex projects and presenting findings to clients
• Experience operating within a commercial environment, preferably in a client-facing role
• Strong grasp of the political and regulatory environment in key markets in sub-Saharan Africa, especially Ghana or Nigeria
• Demonstrated understanding of business trends and challenges in sub-Saharan Africa.

The role priorities the following key qualities in a candidate:

• An ability to think critically in the investigation, evaluation and interpretation of both open source and human intelligence information in the context of intelligence led investigations.
• An ability to work closely with clients to understand the implications of issues identified in the course of research and provide constructive input towards their identification of solutions
• An ability to articulate the salience of identified risks occasioned by the nature of client transactions, commercial relationships, new markets and stakeholders and demonstrate a willingness and ability to inform strategic decision making and explore risk mitigation strategies
• The right candidate will be a proactive team player, able to maintain a positive attitude under pressure and collegiate relationships with other members of the team.

Benefits

• Control Risks offers a competitively positioned compensation and benefits package that is transparent and summarised in the full job offer.
• We operate a discretionary global bonus scheme that incentivises, and rewards individuals based on company and individual performance.
• Control Risks supports hybrid working arrangements, wherever possible, that emphasise the value of in-person time together - in the office and with our clients - while continuing to support flexible and remote working.