About Us
Root Capital is a non-profit whose mission is to grow rural prosperity and build the resilience of farming families around the world. We support the growth of agricultural enterprises so they can transform rural communities. These businesses purchase crops such as coffee, cocoa, or grains from smallholder farmers. With growth, they become engines of impact that can raise incomes, create jobs for the next generation of leaders, level the playing field for women, and take urgent action against climate change.
We supply these businesses with vital credit and capacity building to foster their growth and resilience. We work in hard-to-serve communities where others don’t. To date, we’ve distributed $1.8 billion to improve the lives of over 10 million people in farming families.
Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Root Capital currently has associated offices in Costa Rica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Ghana, and Kenya.
Position Overview
The Risk Officer has the primary responsibility of working with the regional lending team to provide guidance around underwriting, performance monitoring, and general compliance with lending policy, as well as to manage regional collections and workout efforts in support of the Regional Risk Manager and the Collections and Workout Officer. S/he will have direct contact with clients, whose loans are in arrears, as well as with legal advisors to develop and implement recovery strategies, both judicial and extra-judicial. S/he should be able to work independently, proactively, and collaboratively.
Responsibilities
Monitoring and Management of the Performing Loan Portfolio (50%)
- Verify that borrowers' risk ratings are updated in a correct and timely manner and in compliance with the lending policy and procedures.
- Support in the supervision of the monitoring of the performance of the borrowers of the current loan portfolio.
- Monitoring the implementation and fulfilment of action plans, to mitigate the deterioration of the portfolio on watch list.
- Build reports requested by the Regional Risk Manager in support of the Risk Officer - Africa and the Collections and Workout Officer - Africa, to supervise the monitoring of the loan portfolio.
- Build a database of lessons learned as a result of the risk monitoring and control process and tracking best practices and issues that arise to develop lessons learnt for the risk monitoring and control process.
- Communicate portfolio trends in the region.
- Support in the field visits to the borrowers assigned by the Regional Risk Manager.
Monitoring and Management of the Non-Performing Loan Portfolio (30%)
- Work closely with the credit team to ensure borrower compliance with performance monitoring that ensures timely identification of potential problems and accurate risk ratings.
- Follow-up on the implementation and fulfilment of proposed action plans for loans at risk.
- Actively participate in ongoing reviews of the problem loan portfolio and submit periodic reports on high-risk accounts and notification of defaults in close coordination with the credit teams.
- Analyse and communicate risk trends in the portfolio; develop and provide portfolio analysis as required.
- Support the Risk Officer – Africa in coordination of the monthly Risk Review meetings in liaison with the Regional Risk Manager and follow up on action items.
- Finalize the monthly risk review spreadsheet and send to relevant stakeholders in the organization.
- Perform visits to borrowers assigned by the Regional Risk Manager.
Collection and workout (15%)
- Under the supervision of the Regional Collections and Workout Officer, manage the collection of an assigned written-off portfolio, evaluating solutions and coordinating directly with debtors and / or legal advisors / external agencies to negotiate payment plans and / or take legal action.
- Prepare and present credit proposals for negotiation agreements/ settlement agreements and loan restructures for the non-performing portfolio to the credit committee.
- Follow-up to the closing process and compliance with the negotiated agreements on the assigned written off portfolio.
- Make regular updates to the high-risk review reports together with the respective action plans for the assigned written off portfolio.
- Periodically report on the budget of legal expenses and estimate of recovery of the assigned written-off portfolio.
Data Analysis, Collection Tools, and Other Risk Management Support (5%)
- Generate, process, and analyse data from various sources for risk management and collection and workout reporting.
- Support the development or updating of monitoring tools and risk rating methodologies.
- Perform other relevant duties as assigned.
Required Skills and Experience
- An undergraduate bachelor’s degree in Economics, Statistics, or Business Administration or related field. A master’s degree a plus.
- Minimum 4 years of experience in financial analysis, risk management, credit, and collections, preferably in a commercial bank setup or a social lender.
- Previous work with small and medium-sized (rural) SME’s is desirable.
- Ability to plan and monitor the maintenance of a system of registration appropriate to accounts of loans and the information of credit, carry an own analysis of the portfolio in collection.
- Strong interpersonal skills to establish and maintain effective working relationships with a team as well as internal and external clients.
- Excellent verbal and written communication
- Excellent financial analysis skills
- Excellent Negotiation Skills
- Excellent Analytical and Problem-solving ability
- Availability to travel to areas rural, inside and outside the country (10% of the time).
- Fluency in English, French and Bahasa Indonesia knowledge an added advantage.
- Fully conversant in Microsoft Office package is essential. Additional knowledge of financial software and/or database management is an advantage.
- Share Root Capital’s commitment to the alleviation of poverty in the world and the conservation of the environment.
- Commitment to Root Capital’s mission.
- Authorized to work in East Africa.
Working environment and physical demands
Limited travel to rural and urban regions of West Africa and East Africa countries, often with limited medical, transport, communications, and lodging facilities. Essential functions are typically performed in an office setting with a low level of noise. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
Root Capital provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, active military or veteran status, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, pregnancy (which includes pregnancy, childbirth, medical conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth, and breastfeeding and expressing breast milk), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information or any other characteristic protected by law. Root Capital is committed to creating a dynamic work environment that upholds our leadership principles of accountability, empowerment, equity, integrity, service, and transparency.