Enterprise Financing Credit & Risk Officer at Near East… · City of…

Near East Foundation (NEF)-Job Description

Title: Enterprise Financing Credit & Risk Officer

Reports to: Enterprise Financing Manager

Location: London, (UK), or Brussels, (Belgium)

Type: Full time

Travel: Up to 40%

About Near East Foundation

Since 1915, Near East Foundation (NEF) has worked across the Middle East, Africa, and the Caucasus to expand economic opportunity, strengthen resilience, and support recovery in underserved and crisis-affected markets. Working through local teams, country offices, and partners, NEF combines deep field presence with practical, broad network of long-term partners, scalable approaches that support enterprise growth, livelihoods, and locally led development.

For candidates coming from enterprise finance or investment backgrounds, NEF offers the opportunity to apply structuring, partnership, and financing skills in markets where well-designed capital can have outsized impact and where innovative models can influence how enterprise finance works in some of the world’s most challenging and dynamic environments.

About the Position

NEF is seeking an Enterprise Financing Credit & Risk Lead to help execute and scale a global, decentralized enterprise financing platform built on proven models in blended finance, outcome-based instruments, revolving and evergreen funds, guarantees, first-loss structures, insurance-linked mechanisms, and partnerships with regulated financial institutions. This is a hands-on execution role for someone comfortable moving from credit architecture into deployment: turning proven approaches into disciplined underwriting, approval, monitoring, restructuring, and partner-risk systems that can work repeatedly across markets.

NEF is seeking candidates from credit, underwriting, portfolio risk, or private credit background, with the role sitting at the intersection of product and fund structuring, credit policy, partner risk oversight, portfolio monitoring, and operational execution. The postholder will help turn proven approaches into repeatable credit frameworks, approval processes, partner risk models, recovery pathways, and risk analytics that are workable in complex and underserved markets, while maintaining strong financial logic and alignment with NEF’s design principles: deep reach and inclusion, designed concessionally, responsible financing, last-mile objectives, and work through decentralized and localized partner relationships.

This position may be based within one of NEF's headquarters offices in London or Brussels. This position is supported by HQ’s finance, program and operation teams and decentralized country credit and servicing teams. It also involves travel to the countries of operation.

About the Enterprise Financing Platform

NEF’s global Enterprise Financing Platform pioneers and champions financing that reaches the last mile in fragile, crisis-affected, displacement-impacted as well as stable emerging but underserved markets. It shifts power and decision-making closer to entrepreneurs, communities and local institutions and enables capital to be reused, recirculated and governed over time rather than being spent once and depleted. This builds on NEF’s proven and emerging models including blended finance for SME growth in Syria, a development impact bond in Jordan, decentralized climate finance in Mali, decentralized cooperative financing funds in Sudan and South Sudan, enterprise climate incubation and financing in Morocco, social enterprise financing in Armenia and other facilities under implementation, fundraising or adaptation in markets like Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and others.

NEF’s global Enterprise Financing Platform is designed to support NEF’s programs rather than operate as a parallel structure. It should deliver value for money through consolidation, shared capacity, and economies of scale, while enabling country-specific investments and localized execution through partner networks, including small last-mile actors and financial institutions of different forms and sizes. The platform is intended to build on approaches already tested by NEF and take them to greater scale, replicability, and operational maturity across countries and partners.

The Platform supports a highly diverse enterprise base across complex markets from missing-middle women entrepreneurs in Iraq, farmers in Sudan, displaced entrepreneurs in Syria, social enterprises in Armenia, youth-led start-ups in Morocco, climate-smart agribusinesses in Mali, and refugee entrepreneurs in Jordan with ticket sizes reaching up to USD 50,000. In Syria alone, over the past five years, NEF has supported more than 6,000 enterprises through technical and ecosystem support alongside accessible revolving finance totaling around USD 9 million.

Key Responsibilities

Credit Strategy Execution and Platform Integration

• Translate NEF strategy and Enterprise Financing Platform approach into effective and practical credit policy, risk appetite, approval authorities, and implementation standards.
• Ensure credit and risk delivery is aligned with NEF’s institutional priorities, country strategies, and program objectives.
• Embed sound underwriting, monitoring, and control discipline into NEF’s enterprise financing platform and program-linked delivery models.
• Help ensure the platform balances inclusion, designed concessionally, and responsible financing with appropriate credit discipline and portfolio protection.
• Monitor whether the credit and risk framework is supporting sustainability, scale, impact, and operational practicality across markets.

Underwriting and Approval Discipline

• Lead development and continuous refinement of underwriting methodologies, due diligence tools, approval processes, and exception management across products and markets.
• Review and challenge underwriting proposals, partner arrangements, and transaction structures to ensure sound risk logic and consistency with approved standards.
• Establish and maintain delegated authorities, escalation pathways, and documentation requirements for credit decisions and material exceptions.
• Support the Enterprise Financing Lead and country teams on complex transactions requiring structured credit analysis, risk-sharing logic, or tailored approval conditions.
• Ensure financing structures, channels, and counterparties are creditworthy, operationally workable, and properly documented for approval and monitoring.

Portfolio Risk, Monitoring, Restructuring, and Recovery

• Oversee portfolio quality across countries, products, and vehicles, including delinquency trends, concentration risks, watchlists, and early warning indicators.
• Lead stress testing, scenario analysis, and periodic portfolio reviews to identify vulnerabilities and support decision-making.
• Oversee restructuring principles, recovery approaches, and problem-asset management, working with country teams and partners on practical resolution pathways.
• Ensure repayment performance, delinquency metrics, restructurings, and recoveries are tracked consistently and reported clearly across the platform.
• Escalate material deterioration, concentration risks, or portfolio control weaknesses through the agreed governance and oversight arrangements.

Decentralized Delivery and Partner Risk Oversight

• Design and maintain risk standards for localized and decentralized delivery through partner networks, including small last-mile actors, financial institutions, and other intermediaries.
• Assess partner risk, governance, operational capacity, incentives, and portfolio management capability as part of channel design and deployment decisions.
• Define how underwriting, monitoring, repayment discipline, and control requirements should operate across direct and partner-led delivery models.
• Support country teams in adapting partner and channel arrangements to local realities while maintaining minimum standards, oversight, and comparability.
• Ensure decentralized delivery models preserve concessionally, inclusion, fairness, and program alignment without weakening credit discipline or accountability.
• Define and oversee the credit, risk, control, and compliance requirements embedded in digital systems and last-mile digital payment solutions, ensuring strong approval discipline, portfolio monitoring, transaction integrity, and risk visibility across the platform.

Compliance, Governance, and Control

• Maintain credit-related governance and control standards relevant to enterprise and innovative finance, including delegated authority, documentation, policy compliance, and proportionate KYC/AML and sanctions considerations.
• Work closely with legal, finance, reporting, and country teams to ensure credit processes and partner arrangements are compliant, auditable, and operationally sound.
• Support development of credit committee materials, portfolio reviews, governance notes, and risk inputs for internal oversight and external stakeholders where relevant.
• Identify, document, and escalate policy breaches, control gaps, or material exceptions, and support timely remediation.
• Help ensure that platform growth, innovation, and partner-led delivery remain grounded in prudent governance and risk management.

Risk Analytics, Modelling, and Reporting

• Oversee credit and risk assumptions used in platform financial modelling, including delinquency, default, loss, recovery, concentration, and stress scenarios.
• Develop portfolio analytics, risk dashboards, and decision-useful reporting to support management, governance, and investor or funder discussions.
• Support pricing, risk-sharing, credit enhancement, and first-loss design discussions by providing disciplined analysis of downside risk and portfolio behavior.
• Help ensure data used for underwriting, monitoring, partner oversight, and reporting is fit for purpose and sufficiently consistent across markets.

Internal Coordination and Capacity Support

• Provide day-to-day support for decentralized credit and risk teams across the Enterprise Financing Platform.
• Act as a principal interface among the Enterprise Financing Specialist, CPO, HQ and country teams, support functions, and any relevant fund or SPV structures on credit and risk matters.
• Build capacity of country teams, partners, and internal colleagues on underwriting, portfolio monitoring, restructuring, and risk management practices.
• Coordinate effectively with colleagues responsible for finance, compliance, reporting, legal, and enterprise financing execution.
• Uphold NEF’s values of localization, respect, inclusion, integrity, accountability, and learning.

Basic Requirements

• Commitment to NEF’s mission and a strong interest in locally led, impactful work in complex environments.
• Bachelor’s degree in finance, economics, accounting, business, international development, or a related field. Advanced training in credit analysis, risk management, financial modelling, banking, or impact investing is an advantage.
• At least 5 years of relevant professional experience in SME or enterprise finance, underwriting, credit analysis, portfolio risk, private credit, banking, financial institution risk, or related fields, preferably in low- and middle-income or conflict-affected settings.
• Relevant professional experience in structuring, delivering, or managing the credit and risk aspects of enterprise finance, innovative finance, blended finance, impact investing, or related platforms.
• Strong experience underwriting financing solutions, assessing counterparties or partner channels, and managing portfolio risk in practice.
• Experience with one or more of the following: debt facilities, revolving funds, guarantees, first-loss structures, outcomes-based finance, insurance-linked mechanisms, or partnerships with regulated financial institutions.
• Demonstrated experience with credit policy, delegated authorities, due diligence processes, approval workflows, portfolio monitoring, restructurings, or recoveries.
• Experience working across functions and geographies to operationalize complex initiatives and partner-based delivery models.
• Excellent analytical, structuring, and problem-solving skills, including strong financial modelling and portfolio analysis capability.
• Strong relationship management and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with internal teams, country colleagues, external partners, and governance bodies.
• Fluency in English required; additional languages, especially Arabic and/or French, are an advantage.
• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally as needed.
• Candidates must be legally authorized to live and work in the United Kingdom without company sponsorship now or in the future.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working through partner networks, last-mile delivery actors, cooperatives, civil society organizations, or financial institutions to channel financing in a decentralized manner.
• Experience integrating financing tools into program delivery rather than operating them as stand-alone initiatives.
• Knowledge of regulatory, compliance, and risk issues relevant to enterprise financing, innovative finance, and cross-border operations.
• Experience in restructurings, recoveries, workout situations, or distressed portfolio management is an advantage.
• Familiarity with Salesforce, Excel, Word, Teams, and other tools used for coordination, reporting, and pipeline or portfolio management.

Eligibility Criteria

Candidates must possess the legal right to work in the location for which they are applying. NEF is currently considering candidates based in London (UK), or Brussels (Belgium).

NEF will accept a rolling application until the position is filled. Review of application will begin on May 29, 2026. Interested candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible.

To apply:

Please apply by submitting the following documents to the Near East Foundation’s careers page at https://neareast.org/current-opportunities/:

1. Cover letter outlining all relevant experience, how you meet the essential criteria.
2. Curriculum Vitae.
3. List of three references (including one from current, or most recent, employer). You will be given further notice prior to us contacting references.

Please note only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Near East Foundation by visiting the NEF website at http://www.neareast.org

The Near East Foundation promotes Equal Employment Opportunities for all applicants seeking employment and NEF employees.

Pre-employment Checks

Any Employment with the Near East Foundation will be subject to the following checks prior to start date:

• A satisfactory Restricted Party Screening;
• Receipt of satisfactory references;
• Proof of eligibility to work in the national location for this role.