Business Integrity Associate/Executive at British International Investment

Our mission and objectives

• British International Investment is the UK’s development finance institution, owned by the UK Government. We invest with the aim of solving the biggest global development challenges by investing patient, flexible capital to support private sector growth and innovation.
• We have 75 years of experience successfully supporting the sustainable, long-term growth of businesses in Africa and Asia, and have recently expanded to invest in the Indo-Pacific and Caribbean.
• We invest to achieve impact and a financial return which is then reinvested for more impact. Over the past five years, we have committed £7 billion of new investments, with our net assets growing in value to approximately £8.1 billion. We are now invested in 1,400 businesses which directly employ over 950,000 workers and support many more. Over the next five years, we plan to grow further, and aim to commit around £9 billion of new investments over the period.
• Read more about our mission here - https://bit.ly/4aarf2W

Team and role overview

• BII’s Business Integrity and Corporate Governance (BI & CG) team plays an important role in reinforcing BII’s reputation as a responsible investor and ensuring BII meets its regulatory commitments with respect to the FCA, as well as supporting our investees to meet the standards and requirements set out in BII’s Policy on Responsible Investing.
• We do this by identifying and managing integrity risks in BII’s investment pipeline and portfolio and working to enhance private sector corporate governance and integrity risk management standards in our target geographies. Business Integrity issues can include financial crime matters including money laundering, terrorist financing, bribery & corruption, fraud, breaches of international sanctions, tax evasion alongside other integrity matters e.g. data protection and privacy, customer protection and modern slavery/human trafficking. We believe that BI & CG risk management that is aligned with best practice can have a developmental effect by enhancing a company’s reputation, improving internal controls, and ultimately helping it seek commercial backing. Robust business integrity practices help mitigate reputational, operational and compliance risks, and protect companies from the large fines and other penalties that can result from unethical behaviour. Our work is critical to safeguarding BII's reputation, meeting the BII Board's low risk appetite for integrity issues and meeting our shareholder's expectations.
• The candidate will have a direct reporting line to a Business Integrity Manager and a dotted reporting line to the Coverage Director for the region, who will provide input to performance review and evaluation.

Purpose

• Based in our Lagos office, the Associate will support BII’s integrity risk management by identifying, assessing and mitigating integrity risks and corporate governance deficiencies in the pipeline and portfolio stages of BII’s investments as well as meeting BII’s financial crime regulatory obligations. The Associate will also proactively monitor BII’s portfolio investments, engaging with investees to strengthen their capacity to mitigate operational integrity risks and improve their corporate governance.

Responsibilities

• Lead on integrity due diligence for individual investments particularly in our Industries, Technology and Services (ITS) pillar, providing written and oral analysis of the business integrity risks and corporate governance gaps to investment teams and senior management;
• Undertake business integrity related research and due diligence for pipeline investments and engage with external consultants where required;
• Monitor for integrity issues in specific parts of our investment portfolio, managing relationships with portfolio companies or funds;
• Provide integrity-focused capacity building to investees, such as advice and support;
• Ensure that identified risks are reported, monitored and where necessary escalated to the BI Manager and/or BI Director or Compliance
• Foster strong and effective relationships with BII’s investment teams, as well as other operational teams;
• Support in the development of anti-corruption, anti-money laundering and/or counter terrorism-financing, sanctions compliance and anti-fraud controls to help improve business integrity outcomes at investees;
• Work with investees to strengthen corporate governance, including board and oversight structures, risk governance frameworks and reporting channels

Operations

• Identify, communicate and promote best practices in dealing with Business Integrity and Corporate Governance issues, both internally and externally, such as through training and awareness sessions, particularly to build awareness around region-specific BI issues.
• Support the BI & CG team with information management, reporting and record-keeping as per internal procedural requirements
• Further develop country-, product- and sector-specific expertise on relevant integrity risks to the investment portfolio to support BII’s risk management approach

Africa Coverage

• Manage key investee relationships in the region from a business integrity and corporate governance perspective
• Work closely with the London team to share and coordinate market intelligence and activity that supports the wider team’s business plan
• Support the Business Integrity and Africa Coverage teams’ involvement in external engagements in Lagos/West Africa as required.
• Build and maintain a network of external contacts/stakeholders in Nigeria and West Africa more broadly relevant to enhancing the BI team’s knowledge, effectiveness and impact
• Support local team planning and organisation of senior internal and external stakeholder visits, events, engagements and marketing as required by the Africa Coverage team
• Support internal engagement activities between London and other regional offices as required by the Africa Coverage team

The candidate

Background, skills, aptitude

Essential skills

• Significant experience in identifying, assessing and addressing financial crime and integrity risks, preferably within private equity or investment banking, and involving clients in Africa across a wide range of sectors e.g. manufacturing, technology, consumer services.
• Experience in conducting financial crime focused research / due diligence, both remotely and onsite;
• Knowledge of, and experience with, aspects of the UK regulatory requirements on anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing (AML/CFT), and/or anti-bribery and corruption;
• Experience in the development and delivery of financial crime prevention solutions and controls in a wide range of scenarios;
• Experience of developing and managing client relationships;
• Experience in developing and evaluating financial crime compliance programmes and risk assessment frameworks;
• University degree and preferably a postgraduate qualification in a relevant discipline;
• Experience developing and/or delivering BI-focused training sessions and related materials;
• Excellent written and oral communications skills, including in distilling complex or sensitive topics for strategic audiences.

Desirable/Technical Skills

• Knowledge of controls and techniques in one or more of anti-money laundering, anti-corruption, counter terrorism financing, sanctions, and/or fraud prevention;
• Experience in at least one or more of the following:
• developing anti-corruption solutions and/or applying adequate procedures in line with the UK Bribery Act;
• identifying appropriate governance and internal controls to manage fraud and third-party risks
• business integrity risk management in intermediated structures (e.g. private equity or venture capital funds)
• Detailed knowledge of and experience with international legislation or standards to address money laundering, terrorist financing, and/or corruption;
• Detailed knowledge of legal and regulatory regimes relevant to financial crime compliance in BII’s target geographies;
• Knowledge of internal controls/internal audit and/or corporate governance best practice at corporates.
• Competency in one or more languages relevant to BII’s target geographies would also be an advantage.

Personal and Professional Competencies:

The successful candidate is likely to have several of the following attributes:

• Systematic approach to work with a keen attention to detail;
• Proactive and clear ability to look and plan ahead;
• Demonstrated ability to independently manage and prioritise a busy and diverse workload with a range of deliverables for a variety of stakeholders;
• Confident and articulate, with excellent written and verbal communication skills;
• Strong team player who enjoys working as part of a close team and willing to collaborate and support the team on a variety of different initiatives and tasks;
• Candidates should be strongly motivated by BII’s development mission and ideally demonstrate some commitment to development or social goals through previous executive or non-executive activity.

Our cultural values

We look for team members who aspire, as we do, to work at our best and to be:

• Impact-led, commercially rigorous
• Tenacious in the face of challenges
• Collaborative and caring