[Hiring] Senior Consultant – Sustainable Finance @AGORA

Role Description

UNICEF’s Innovative Finance (IF) Hub, based in Helsinki, aims to catalyze global capital in support of children to fill the SDG gap and radically accelerate progress towards the SDGs. It sits at a unique vantage point where an organization working on global issues meets the startup thinking, new ideas, and partners to turn this energy into scalable solutions.

We aim to understand and solve a pressing challenge: why is finance not working for children? On one hand, the funding gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) continues to grow (currently at over 4 trillion USD!), where children are particularly vulnerable to the educational, health, protection and climate challenges the SDGs try to address. On the other hand, children are seldom considered in the investment practices of investors, even the most responsible and socially conscious.

One of the IF Hub’s flagship initiatives is Child-Lens Investing, a strategy to strengthen awareness, action and investment on children rights and outcomes in the financial sector. External positioning, engagement and visibility of CLI are core pillars of the Innovative Finance Hub work, and instrumental pathways to advance the agenda across the financial ecosystem.

Within this context, the IF Hub is seeking a sustainable finance senior consultant to support the development and ensure effective implementation of the IF Hub strategy. This consultancy is for a period of 15 months, with monthly deliverable of reports. Based on satisfactory performance, the consultancy may be extended as per UNICEF's policy.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree in International development, finance, economics, public or business administration, or another relevant field. Without an advanced degree, three additional years of relevant experience are required.
• Minimum 10 years relevant national and international experience in international development, innovative finance, ESG/impact investing, project management, consulting or related fields.
• Sustainable-finance experience across private equity/debt, listed equity and/or debt instruments.
• Ability to synthesize diverse sources into practical implementation tools.
• Fluency in English and strong writing and analytical skills.

Requirements

• Impact-investment lenses including gender, climate, WASH and nutrition.
• Technical understanding of social issues in impact investing.
• Ability to work across cultures and geographies.

Desirables

• Partnerships and stakeholder engagement with investors, DFIs, standard setters and social-impact experts.
• Rights-based programming for children.
• UNICEF, UN, international organization or corporate experience.
• Another official UN language.

Benefits

• UNICEF promotes and advocates for the protection of the rights of every child, everywhere, in everything it does.
• UNICEF encourages applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of gender, nationality, religious or ethnic backgrounds, and from people with disabilities, including neurodivergence.
• Reasonable accommodation for persons with disabilities throughout the recruitment process.