View Vacancy - SRJ - International Export Finance Executive D6(L)

The British Consulate General Jeddah has a vacancy for an International Export Finance Executive under UK Export Finance (UKEF) for a fixed-term contract for one (1) year.

The job holder will be responsible for leading the engagement with local buyers, project sponsors,   and associated stakeholder networks to develop export growth through the provision of trade finance and credit insurance available from UKEF.

This includes identifying opportunities to develop the procurement of high value goods and services from the UK whilst developing understanding and creating impact around UKEF’s financial products and services.

Duties and responsibilities:

As UKEF’s sole representative in Saudi and Egypt, the jobholder will be responsible for developing strategic relationships and partnerships with businesses, government, and other key stakeholders in order to promote export growth in Saudi and Egypt and to support UKEF and the Department for International Trade (DIT) in providing specialist market advice to potential exporters.

The jobholder will collaborate with the DIT management team and the UKEF Business Group management to deliver the aims of the International Business Development (IBD) Team, UK Export Finance, and DIT as a whole. The jobholder will act as the eyes and ears of the UKEF Business Group supporting the objectives of the IBD team to grow UKEF supported export wins by focussing on five (5) key areas of activity:

1. Build awareness of UKEF support capabilities

• Lead local campaigns to raise the profile of UKEF internationally through engagement with the business community, government bodies, and other stakeholder organisations.
• Deliver UKEF marketing plans, ensuring that messages are appropriate to the audience.  Remove complexity and build understanding. Develop a localised message where possible.
• Develop and implement PR activities that educate the business community on UKEF products.
• Develop UKEF knowledge base within local DIT team.

2. Build and share market knowledge

• Develop detailed knowledge and insight of public and private sector organisations, including their strategic business planning and development objectives. Implement findings into UKEF strategic plans.
• Understand and interpret host government trade policy, priority sectors, and projects.
• Ensure timely export intelligence and insight for IBD, enabling opportunities for UKEF.
• Act as the lead source of UKEF advice to local DIT teams, including integration of UKEF objectives into high value campaigns (HVCs).
• Take the lead in leveraging expertise, knowledge, and networks of local staff, business chambers, and other local channels in their capacity as multipliers.
• Identify the competitive framework (Export Credit Agencies and Supply Chain), articulate the difference of the UKEF offer. Seek collaboration where appropriate.
• Exploit local knowledge, experience, and networks to gather intelligence of local commercial banking sectorial focus and appetite for risk.

3. Establish and maintain stakeholder relationships - UKEF primary stakeholders are buyers, UK exporters, project sponsors, host government departments, etc. This role will be required to:

• Identify key buyers and sponsors in the target markets.
• Exploit knowledge and experience to build robust business networks and develop calling plans to enhance the profile of UKEF.
• Oversee the development of mechanisms to record and coordinate business outreach activities.
• Maintain and develop regular contacts with local senior sponsors, banks, public sector organisations, government bodies, and UK businesses to identify export opportunities that could benefit from UKEF support.

4. Create and deliver strategic plans

• Support DIT Managers in country strategic planning aligned to UKEF organisational objectives, supporting HVCs where ‘leading with finance’ could be an important driver.
• Embed UKEF offer into DIT HVC execution plans.

5. Progress business development opportunities

• Lead the local coordination of UKEF local campaign activities.
• Engage the UK Export Finance Manager (EFM) Network to ensure seamless coordination between the UK supply chain and local sponsor.
• Lead UKEF local relationships with providers of trade finance and risk mitigation products (e.g., banks, credit insurers, brokers, and others) and to introduce customers/ sponsors who require their services.
• Lead UKEF collaboration with the local DIT team to develop innovative export solutions for UK companies.
• Coordinate and support visits from UKEF Business Group management.

This list is not exhaustive; the International Export Finance Executive may be required to carry out additional duties according to business needs.

Key competencies required:

• Seeing the Big Picture - Having an in-depth understanding and knowledge of how your role fits with and supports organisational objectives and the wider public needs. Focusing your contribution on the activities which will meet the organisation's goals and deliver the greatest value. Scanning the political context and taking account of wider impacts to develop long term implementation strategies that maximise opportunities to add value to the citizen and support economic, sustainable growth.
• Making Effective Decisions - Being objective; using sound judgement, evidence and knowledge to provide accurate, expert and professional advice. Showing clarity of thought, setting priorities, analysing and using evidence to evaluate options before arriving at well-reasoned, justifiable decisions. Creating evidence-based strategies, evaluating options, impacts, risks and solutions; maximising return while minimising risk and balancing social, political, financial, economic and environmental considerations to provide sustainable outcomes.
• Leading and Communicating - Leading from the front and communicating with clarity, conviction, and enthusiasm, and managing and engaging with people with honesty and integrity. Establishing a strong direction and a persuasive future vision; managing and engaging with people with honesty and integrity, and upholding the reputation of the organisation.
• Collaborating and Partnering - Creating and maintaining positive, professional and trusting working relationships with a wide range of people within and outside the organisation to help get business done. Working collaboratively, sharing information and building supportive, responsive relationships with colleagues and stakeholders, whilst having the confidence to challenge assumptions. Delivering business objectives through creating an inclusive environment, encouraging collaboration, and building effective partnerships including relationships with Ministers.
• Achieving Commercial Outcomes - Having a commercial, financial and sustainable mind-set to ensure all activities and services are delivering added value. Identifying economic, market, and customer issues and using these to promote innovative business models, commercial partnerships and agreements to deliver greatest value; and ensuring tight commercial controls of finances, resources and contracts to meet strategic priorities.
• Managing a Quality Service - Being organised to deliver service objectives and striving to improve the quality of service, taking account of diverse customer needs and requirements. Effectively planning, organising, and managing time and activities to deliver a high quality and efficient service, applying programme and project management approaches to support service delivery. Creating an environment to deliver operational excellence and creating the most appropriate and cost-effective delivery models for public services.

This role would suit a self-starter who has experience of working in a financial services background and/ or in credit finance. Trade background in a similar or business development role and knowledge of Export Credit Agency instruments and experience of trade finance are essential.

Understanding of local capital markets and experience of navigating emerging/ growth markets with the ability to support complex financial service projects are also required for this role.

The jobholder should also be fluent in English, both written and spoken. Arabic language skills are also required for this role.

The jobholder should also have good working knowledge of Microsoft Office programmes especially Outlook, Word, and Excel.