Lidya Careers

Capital Markets Officer at Lidya

At Lidya, our vision is a future where every great business owner has fair and fast funding to build and grow high impact businesses. To achieve this, we use data-driven finance and technology to help great business owners build high-impact businesses in the fastest growing economies in the world. Lidya currently operates in Nigeria, Poland, and Czech Republic where close to 200,000 businesses have signed up for our service. Lidya is backed by Flourish Ventures, Accion, Bamboo Capital, Alitheia Capital and Newid Capital. Lidya has raised close to $15m USD in venture capital and has teams across Lagos (Nigeria), Prague (Czech Republic), Warsaw (Poland), Porto (Portugal) and New York (USA).

Lidya is run by Tunde Kehinde, the Co-Founder, and former Managing Director of Jumia Nigeria, the largest eCommerce platform in Africa. Jumia is publicly listed company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Tunde also co-founded Africa Courier Express, the largest direct-to-consumer delivery provider in Nigeria. Tunde attended Harvard Business School for his MBA and graduated with honors with a bachelor’s in business administration from Howard University.

Lidya is expanding its activities. To support our development, we are looking for a strategic and experienced Capital Markets Officer that believes in our vision and shares our values. We believe that brilliant people operating in a great culture will produce the best outcome. We operate, hire, develop, and promote people based on the values below.

• Customer Focus + Integrity: Our customers are the foundation of everything we do. That is why we deliver impact with ethics and integrity. Customers are our mission and our inspiration – they give us new ideas and keep us nimble.
• High Standards + Compassion: As a team, we support each other and hold each other accountable. We are constantly analyzing how we can improve. At Lidya, we do our homework, test rigorously, and the best ideas win.
• Pride + Ownership: We give our best to provide next-level service to our customers. Lidya is a commitment. Each of us takes responsibility and pride in doing exceptional work every day, because we are excited to build powerful solutions.
• Data + Human Intuition: Financial innovation demands agility, creativity, and dedication. Lidya is data-driven at the core, but we never lose sight of the human relationships we have with our customers.
• Growth + Resilience: Belief in our mission makes us ambitious to grow our global footprint. We also know that growth must be sustainable. As we take on new challenges, we will always remain rooted in our local communities.
• Team + Perseverance: Lidya is a strong, multicultural team. We are respectful, open, honest, empowering, and joyful. We know we cannot overcome obstacles without the team – or without perseverance. Everybody listens and shows up for each other, so each achievement is a team victory.

Job Description

The Capital Markets Officer will be accountable for creating and presenting a consistently applied message to providers of capital. The Officer will source, analyze, structure, and negotiate lines of credit or other funding structures for the Company, and present to management, options for raising new lines of debt or other instruments to enable growth of the Company’s lending business. .

The successful candidate will also be a highly effective leader and also fully capable of managing deals by navigating capital providers through all facets of the capital raising process.

You will work closely with the Senior Management team and be fully responsible for:

1. Coordinating the debt transaction process with internal and external parties. Responsibilities include document preparation and review, preparing for the rating agency process, helping with due diligence, working with internal teams and external partners to finalize presentations, reviewing and modeling cash flows, and other activities that arise throughout the process.
2. Working closely with internal teams and external partners on all matters related to financing; including providing financial analysis and guidance on questions related to debt modeling, project feasibility, and capital structures. Ability to distill complex information and analyses into reports and presentations.
3. Investor and Partner Communication: You actively seek new ways to source and increase funding. You are responsible for the maintenance of capital provider data, and for providing company updates to existing and potential capital providers.
4. Developing, monitoring and managing performance metrics for the capital markets function including dashboards to monitor loan portfolio performance, company financial performance, competitive landscape and macro-economic indicators.
5. Community Relations: The Capital Markets Officer will develop and maintain professional relationships with key contacts in private, public and regulatory entities. You are expected to utilize these relationships to promote Lidya’s initiatives and accomplishments throughout our key markets.

Desired Qualifications

1. 7+ years of debt capital markets/structured finance experience at a Credit Fund, Investment Bank or other consumer/commercial lenders. Advanced knowledge of financial concepts, accounting principles and financial reporting.
2. Advanced skill and experience in applying financial and business analysis techniques and in developing sophisticated financial models.
3. Bachelor's degree in finance, accounting, statistics, mathematics, engineering, investments or a related business discipline (MBA, CPA, or CFA is a plus).
4. Extremely strong communication (oral and written) skills, as well as the ability to source, develop and maintain business relationships. Strong understanding of financial reports, analytic methods, and financial data tools are often required.
5. Proven ability to handle a high-paced work environment, to prioritize a heavy workload, to manage multiple assignments and to meet deadlines.
6. Motivated self-starter, with an entrepreneurial spirit and a proven adherent of a team-driven philosophy. Willingness to travel is key.