Innovative Finance Advisor for the Humanitarian Innovative Finance Hub (HIFhub), hosted by the Danish Red Cross At Danish Red Cross

Do you have a financial background and experience of humanitarian or development contexts and are you eager to apply your financial skills and literacy to make a positive impact? Can you translate innovative financing models to fit and sustain humanitarian and/or development contexts? Are you excited by working in a truly global organisation that helps millions of people and communities in the world living in vulnerable situations? And do you enjoy engaging with different stakeholders from many different cultures and contexts supporting idea generation and new approaches to humanitarian financing? If so, you might be our new Innovative Finance Advisor!

Background

Humanitarian needs are growing and outpacing the availability of traditional funding. New financing models are emerging, projected to unlock private capital, transfer risk and help leverage public or philanthropic funding to mobilise new sources of investment for humanitarian challenges.

Innovative finance has entered the humanitarian sector as a menu of financial mechanisms and instruments such as blended finance, results-based finance, crisis risk financing, funds and facilities, debt, equity, insurance, and impact investing. Here the innovative part is about applying proven financial mechanisms to well-known humanitarian and development problems, through new kinds of partnerships and ways of working for the humanitarian sector, and often while blending different – new and old – sources of funding and financing.

Organisational context

Over the past years, the Danish Red Cross has developed its capacity and experience with innovative finance piloting and learning from different initiatives in its programmes. Based on these experiences and learnings, and the ambition to support the wider aims and goals of the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement, in 2022, the Danish Red Cross initiated the establishment of the Humanitarian Innovative Finance Hub (HIFhub).

The Humanitarian Innovative Finance Hub (HIFhub)

The HIFhub is an independent entity hosted by Danish Red Cross, for the Red Cross Red Crescent (RCRC) Movement: The world’s largest humanitarian organization with member National Societies in 192 countries. The HIFhub works within the strategies and priorities of the Red Cross Red Crescent movement, always in close partnership with Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies. Our work is guided by seven fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality.

The HIFhub aims to act as an anchor point for innovative finance to the wider RCRC Movement; offering a repository of knowledge, technical advisory services, and sector learning. We have defined three key working tracks for the coming years:

• Develop literacy, knowledge, and capacity on innovative finance
• Facilitate the piloting and scale-up of innovative finance models and mechanisms
• Contribute to the evolution of an innovative finance enabling environment by communicating and advocating for IF

The position

You will be part of the core team of the HIFhub and work closely with other team members, who have expertise within finance, humanitarian programming, capacity development, partnerships, and communication. You will also work closely with key Red Cross Red Crescent Movement stakeholders and key external stakeholders, such as investors and other private sector partners.

Key priorities for this role include:

Facilitate the piloting and scale-up of innovative finance models and mechanisms

• Together with the HIFhub’s other innovative finance advisors, ensure that this priority working track evolves and progresses.
• Identify innovative finance trends and opportunities presenting ideas and approaches to internal and external stakeholders.
• Support Red Cross Red Crescent National Societies in generating ideas, matching humanitarian challenges with finance structures, and identifying and assessing innovative financing opportunities.
• Conduct analyses of risks, benefits, and potential impact.
• Support the design, development, and implementation of financing models, through the provision of technical advisory and strategic support.
• Ensure that new models are conceptualized, tested and peer reviewed before piloting and further scale-up.
• Facilitate the development of partnerships with key partners such as the financial sector, industry, and academia, bringing people together and unblocking challenges.
• Support resource mobilization through the identification of promising ideas and collaborations, and guiding colleagues to develop high quality proposals.

Develop literacy, knowledge, and capacity on innovative finance in the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement

• Contribute to the development of research pieces, lessons learnt, best practices, explainers, and guidelines.
• Contribute to the conduction of organizational readiness assessments.

Other

• Contribute to other team priorities and dynamic tasks from time to time.

Profile

The HIFhub is seeking a dynamic, ambitious, and adaptable professional who is excited by working on big global challenges and new approaches. We are looking for an energetic colleague, who will thrive as part of our small and international core team currently working from Denmark, the UK and Geneva. Being dedicated to establishing this new flagship initiative we have a lot of possibilities to influence the Hub’s development and success. The right candidate will be a proactive self-starter capable of working independently while being a committed and supportive team player that appreciates a not-for-profit environment.

• Minimum 7-10 years of relevant working experience in finance and areas such as insurance, impact investing, sustainable investment and risk analysis and modelling, debt swaps, debt and/or equity product loans or development of finance fields.
• A proven track record of designing and/or implementing finance solutions and developing innovative finance partnerships.
• Experience of humanitarian or development sectors or working with or in Not-for-Profit or NGOs.
• Ability to engage with a variety of stakeholders from many different contexts and supporting them in generating ideas and finding new approaches to financing humanitarian challenges.
• Analytical skills (financial and business modelling skills) and business acumen ideally gained in a financial environment such as insurance markets, capital markets, investing or in strategy consulting.
• Critical thinker with strategic vision, strong problem-solving skills and results oriented mindset.
• Ability to move things forward and work autonomously, as part of the team, with flexibility to adapt to a dynamic environment where things develop all the time.
• Some experience of working as an advisor or consultant, either in an internal or external role, is desirable.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English; The working language of the HIFhub is English (French/Arabic/Spanish skills are an advantage).

More information: If you have questions or are looking for more information, please contact Anne-Sofie Munk, Director, Humanitarian Innovative Finance Hub (HIFhub), anmun@rodekors.dk, +45 2674 40 48.

Please also have a look at our website: hifhub.org

Location: Copenhagen-based/flexible (the team working hours are generally CET working hours)

The position is a full-time position (37 hrs per week) hosted by the Danish Red Cross. The salary and employment conditions are comparable with sector and equivalent roles and based on the Danish Red Cross collective bargaining agreement, incl. pension scheme.

Desired start date: June 1, 2023

Deadline for application: March 26th, 23.00 hrs. CET (applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis).