Principal Operations Officer

At the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group (WBG) , you’ll join a diverse, global community working across cultures, disciplines, and borders to address the world’s most pressing development challenges. With 1.2 billion young people reaching working age in the decade ahead, the challenge of job creation has never been greater.

Through partnerships across 145 countries and more than 182 offices worldwide, we work with governments, private sector, development partners and other stakeholders to invest in people, strengthen markets, and deliver scalable, data-driven solutions that generate more and better jobs and improve lives. In fiscal year 2026, IFC committed a record $105.

6 billion to private companies and financial institutions in developing countries. For more information, visit www.ifc.org . As part of a broader alignment in IFC, IFC Upstream and Advisory Services is shifting to a more strategic approach, systematically linking our advisory programs to the greatest needs identified in World Bank Group country and sector strategies.

We will focus on developing high-impact projects that can help our clients attract the financing they need — particularly in the poorest and most conflict-affected areas of the world. At the firm level, we help companies to attract private investors and partners, enter new markets, and increase their impact. We provide tailored market insights as well as advice on how to improve companies’ operational performance and sustainability.

We also support the adoption of good practices and standards to increase competitiveness and productivity. At the government level, we help national and sub-national administrations implement reforms that encourage private investment and structure public-private partnerships to improve people’s access to high-quality infrastructure and basic services.

The Upstream and Advisory Secretariat Central Unit (PPPUA) was originally created in 2023 to support IFC's Upstream and Advisory operations and now to effectively contribute to IFC's 2030 strategy. The unit's staff are based across multiple regions and provide operational support for all industries and functions.

Responsibilities include

Project portfolio coverage of 1,000+ projects; providing corporate oversight, developing policies, procedures, and systems, and knowledge management learning for Upstream and Advisory units; developing financial planning and analysis of the Upstream and Advisory apparatus, including advocating on budgeting and financial sustainability; and representing Upstream and Advisory at Corporate fora and the IFC Board.

IFC is looking to recruit a Principal Operations Officer, based in Nairobi, Kenya for the Upstream Advisory Secretariat to serve as Regional Focal Point for AFR, leading on portfolio management and team supervision, and serve as Regional Management team liaison for the Secretariat in AFR. Given the increased focus on IDA and FCS markets and scaled up targets for Africa in particular, the PPPUA Focal Point for Africa will have a significant workload relative to other regions.

Duties and accountabilities:

• Engage with AFR regional management, operational managers, as well as, project teams to ensure advisory and upstream support is adequately provided in the following areas:
• Portfolio Management: (i) Apply critical thinking to provide tailored advice on program structuring, design and course correction; governance application and compliance and portfolio and pipeline monitoring including fit with strategy (ii) Support the semi-annual/periodic portfolio reviews including preparing analysis and materials that reflect relevant strategic goals (iii) Provide input to the Partnerships and Budget team on transparent and strategic allocation of internal and Development Partner funding (iv) Provide efficient, timely and effective advisory and upstream inputs contributing to regional and country strategy development, IORs, business plans, Country Driven Budget and other strategic initiatives
• Project quality and Advisory/Upstream governance: (i) Apply expertise to support project design and quality improvement initiatives; (iii) Share expertise and provide on-going support to the portfolio management unit teams in resolving complex project governance-related issues (iii) Collaborate with Results Measurement to provide input into PCR guidelines, split DE rating, etc.(iv) Solicit feedback from stakeholders and recommend making revisions and updates to the Advisory/Upstream project governance to improve accountability and project management based on feedback from operations
• Training: (i) Contribute substantively to the design of training modules and associated materials/tools on new and on-going advisory developments, e.g., project documents, governance, system enhancements (ii) Deliver select training on advisory governance, procedures, systems and best practices (iii) support onboarding of new managers/directors/vice-presidents around advisory/upstream governance
• Lead PPPUA engagement with the Regional Management Team for Africa including Bank collaboration on UA policies and procedures within the region: Translate business needs into specific strategic actions; provide an expert opinion on the level of effort required to deliver relevant changes in the program to meet 2030 Corporate goals for Upstream and Advisory in the region, help to identify system bottlenecks, process improvements/enhancements, deliver briefings to Senior Regional Management on Upstream and Advisory performance and progress, provide strategic support to the wider Regional MT as needed. Enhance collaboration with other corporate support functions: (i) Serve as a focal point for other support functions as needed (ii) Engage with other corporate functions to ensure their procedures/guidelines are aligned with prevailing advisory/upstream governance.
• Team supervision: (i) Lead advisory/upstream secretariat support team in the region including primary supervision of staff, (ii) Mentor staff in the team and guide on goals, performance, metrics and support their professional development, (iii) contribute to staffing strategy and KPI development/matrix of responsibilities for the wider PPPUA team.
• Others: (i) Actively participate in Portfolio Management Network sharing lessons and best practices, escalating concerns, etc. (ii) Contribute to corporate initiatives to support dept and VPU as needed such as upstream operating model and Upstream and Advisory integration (iv) Execute additional ad hoc tasks as requested by the Manager of PPPUA.