Operations Officer, Financial Institutions Group

**Operations Officer, Financial Institutions Group (FIG)**

**Job #**:

- req33770

**Organization**:

- IFC

**Sector**:

- Operations

**Grade**:

- GG

**Term Duration**:

- 3 years 0 months

**Recruitment Type**:

- International Recruitment

**Location**:

- Ho Chi Minh City,Viet Nam

**Required Language(s)**:

- English

**Preferred Language(s)**:
**Closing Date**:

- 7/30/2025 (MM/DD/YYYY) at 11:59pm UTC

**Description**

IFC — a member of the World Bank Group — is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in developing countries.

IFC has embarked on an ambitious new growth strategy to stimulate more investment activity, especially in Low Income Countries (LICs) and Fragile and Conflict affected Situations (FCS). This strategy calls for generating our own opportunities by proactively working “Upstream” to create, deepen, and expand markets and to imagine, design and implement investment projects. It requires taking a systematic approach to understanding the sector bottlenecks that prevent the flow of private capital into productive investment in our member countries and addressing these bottlenecks through World Bank Group engagement on policy reforms and programmatic interventions at the country and sector level. It also requires capacity to leverage WBG programs and projects to develop our own proactive sector interventions and to imagine and design projects even in the absence of reforms.

The Financial Institutions Group (FIG) is one of the major industry groups at IFC, responsible for managing roughly 40% of IFC’s overall business in terms of volume and capital at risk. FIG engages in a wide range of sub-sectors including Climate, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Gender, Capital Markets, Housing, Distressed Assets, and other areas, with both investment and advisory services delivered to IFC’s clients through IFC’s global network.

The MSME business is one of the strategic priorities of the WBG. IFC has set itself a very ambitious action plan and target for the creation of jobs which includes the ability to link MSMEs to markets and provide technology-enabled solutions. To contribute to those targets, FIG is already considering a pipeline of investments over the next years, working with FIs to scale up their financing of MSME friendly projects. The focus is to support IFC’s client banks and non-bank financial institutions to build viable and scalable MSME finance operations, leveraging capital markets as well as their client base, and by fostering partnerships with real market and government players to promote these solutions.

The FIG EAP Upstream (US) and Advisory (AS) Unit seeks to create opportunities for new private sector led investments in the region by developing a pipeline of investment-ready opportunities made possible using distinct tools and interventions, including investment structuring, and advisory. The objective of the unit will be to enhance the next generation of FIG investments across priority sectors, with an emphasis on MSME financing solutions.

IFC is seeking a US and AS Operations Officer - MSME for its Financial Institutions Group in Viet Nam, responsible for supporting the delivery of integrated investment, upstream and advisory solutions in MSME finance. This will be done in close collaboration with the Industry Managers for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, to ensure high-impact upstream and advisory services projects that can catalyze new investment opportunities in MSME finance; with a particular focus on defining new capital markets structures and asset classes. This specifically involves but is not limited to 1) preparing potential clients for IFC MSME related investments through advisory services engagements; and 2) working on the implementation and execution of MSME USAS projects.

**ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES**

The US/AS Operations Officer - MSME will have a range of evolving responsibilities in line with MSME related strategic priorities of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Anticipated scope of duties and responsibilities during the assignment include the following:

- Lead the design and implementation of FIG USAS projects and develop a strong pipeline of quality investment opportunities for IFC by employing knowledge and experience of financial markets, MSME market trends and industry standards including digital finance.
- Assist in the design and implementation of a new FIG USAS high-quality project pipeline, in collaboration with the FIG investment team to ensure strong alignment with FIG investment strategies, WBG and IFC regional and country strategies.
- Identify game-changing regulatory reforms, business models and trends that can present opportunities for new MSME related capital market structures and asset classes; including business models leveraging innovation related to for example a