Enterprise Financing Manager At Near East Foundation

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Near East Foundation (NEF)

Title: Enterprise Financing Manager

Reports to: Chief Program and Impact Officer

Location: London, (UK)

Type: Full time

Travel: Up to 30%

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 Specialist to 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 build-and-scale role for someone comfortable moving from structuring into execution: translating proven models into operating platforms, strengthening how they work in practice, and helping deploy them repeatedly across markets through local partner networks.

NEF is seeking candidates from an enterprise financing background, with the role sitting at the intersection of platform execution, product and fund structuring, channel design, fundraising, investor engagement, and delivery discipline. The postholder will help turn proven approaches into repeatable structures, investor-ready propositions, scalable partner arrangements, and workable distribution models 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 is based in NEF’s London headquarters office. This position is supported by a credit and risk officer, 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

1. Strategy Execution and Program Integration

  • Translate NEF strategy into an operational global Enterprise Finance Platform model, workplan, and implementation approach.
  • Ensure Enterprise Finance Platform delivery is aligned with NEF’s institutional priorities, country strategies, and program objectives.
  • Embed Enterprise Finance Platform into NEF programs and operating structures rather than creating stand-alone or competing delivery models in collaboration with country leadership and relevant HQ teams.
  • Ensure Enterprise Finance Platform supports and strengthens country programs, including by aligning financing approaches with programmatic outcomes and local implementation realities.
  • Monitor whether the platform is delivering practical value to NEF programs and contributing to financial sustainability, impact, and scale.

2. Platform Execution and Operating Model

  • Lead execution of the Enterprise Finance Platform across countries and sub-funds or vehicles, including coordination of central and country-level functions.
  • Oversee implementation of the platform operating model, including servicing, repayments, enterprise support, reporting flows, and execution standards.
  • Drive practical rollout of platform processes, tools, and ways of working, ensuring they are fit for purpose and scalable.
  • Promote consolidation, shared delivery, and economies of scale across countries and functions to maximize value for money.
  • Identify and resolve operational bottlenecks, delivery risks, and implementation gaps.
  • Oversee operational rollout and continuous improvement of digital systems and last-mile digital payment solutions that support underwriting workflows, servicing, repayments, restructuring, and decentralized partner delivery across the platform.

3. Structuring and Innovative Finance Execution

  • Lead execution of platform structuring operationalization and product adaptation in line with approved direction and delegated authority.
  • Operationalize innovative and non-traditional financing solutions, including revolving finance, debt, investment, guarantees, first-loss and other de-risking tools, insurance-linked solutions, and arrangements with regulated bodies.
  • Ensure proposed financing solutions are operationally practical, programmatically relevant, and adapted to country, partner, and market realities.
  • Oversee platform financial modelling for execution and planning, including assumptions related to cash flow, investments, repayments, delinquencies, and scenario analysis.
  • Work closely with finance, credit, risk, compliance, and HQ and country teams to ensure structuring choices can be implemented and monitored effectively.

4. Decentralized Delivery and Partner Relationship Structuring

  • Oversee the structuring and operationalization of localized and decentralized delivery relationships through partner networks (e.g., last mile delivery partners such as civil society organizations and cooperatives, financial institutions, digital payment providers).
  • Continue to optimize how Enterprise Finance Platform should work through small last-mile actors, financial institutions, and other intermediaries, while maintaining common standards and oversight.
  • Ensure local partner channels are selected, structured, supported, monitored, and scaled in ways that are financially sensible, mission-aligned, and operationally manageable.
  • Support country teams in shaping country-specific partnership and channel arrangements while maintaining consistency with HQ standards.
  • Ensure decentralized delivery models preserve concessionally, inclusion, fairness, and program alignment.

5. Business Development and Fundraising Execution

  • Work with the Business Development and Program teams to deliver a coordinated fundraising, donor and investor engagement, and strategic partnership development for Enterprise Finance Platform.
  • Support the development of funding proposals, concept notes, due diligence processes, and related materials for innovative finance opportunities.
  • Build and manage relationships with funders, investors, guarantors, insurers, financial institutions, and other strategic partners relevant to the platform.
  • Help expand Enterprise Finance Platform into new countries, channels, and financing arrangements in line with approved priorities.
  • Ensure business development efforts are integrated with NEF programming and do not create fragmentation or competition with other NEF initiatives.

6. Enterprise Support, Inclusion, and Performance

  • Provide technical advice for Enterprise Finance programs on the integration of non-financial enterprise support and market building services like enterprise support and advisory models (technical assistance) including enterprise coaching, business planning, financing modelling, market access, and partner-based support.
  • Offer technical advice for Enterprise Finance programs in areas related to delivering support to underserved groups and markets in ways that are aligned with NEF’s mission and development goals.
  • Maintain designed concessionally, deep reach and inclusion, and responsible financing and fairness as operating principles in platform design, partner arrangements, and financing delivery.
  • Track delivery performance and help ensure that financing and enterprise support contribute to stronger borrower outcomes, repayment performance, and program impact.

7. Management and Internal Coordination

  • Provide day-to-day management and coordination for the Enterprise Finance Platform function and related workstreams.
  • Act as the principal management interface among the CPO, HQ and country teams, support functions, and any relevant fund or SPV structures.
  • Coordinate effectively with colleagues responsible for credit, risk, compliance, finance, reporting, and legal matters.
  • Escalate material operational, structural, funding, or performance issues through the agreed governance and oversight arrangements.
  • 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, development finance, economics, business, international development, or a related field. Advanced training in blended finance, impact investing, or related areas is an advantage.
  • At least 7 years of relevant professional experience supporting SME finance, private sector development, or enterprise growth, preferably in low- and middle-income or conflict-affected settings.
  • At least 3 years of relevant professional experience in structuring, delivering, or managing enterprise finance, innovative finance, blended finance, impact investing, or related platforms.
  • Strong experience executing financing solutions and partnerships, preferably in development or fragile-context settings.
  • 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 in fundraising, donor or investor engagement, proposal development, and due diligence processes.
  • 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 capability.
  • Strong relationship management and communication skills, with the ability to work effectively with internal teams, country colleagues, and external partners.
  • 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, 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 using participatory or co-creation approaches in program, product, or proposal development.
  • Familiarity with Salesforce, Excel, Word, Teams, and other tools used for coordination, reporting, and pipeline management.

How to apply

Eligibility Criteria

Candidates must already have the legal right to work in the United Kingdom, as visa sponsorship is not available for this position.

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 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.