Investment Director - Property

The opportunity

This is a unique opportunity to join a dynamic team seeking to increase the supply of good quality social and affordable housing in the UK with impact finance. Your work will help to solve some of the UK’s most entrenched social issues, so we are looking for someone who shares our passion to improve people’s lives in collaboration with the wider organisation and our external partners, and who is enthusiastic about designing and developing creative solutions.

We are deeply committed to learning and development, offering a unique environment to accelerate your growth through on-the-job experience, tailored in-house and external training, and observing our Investment Committee.

If you’re passionate about improving lives through the power of investment and thrive on designing creative, practical solutions to complex challenges, we’d love to hear from you.

What you will do

Lead the development of new property investment opportunities and pipeline building including:

• Applying experience, knowledge and networks to identify social issues or market needs where social impact investment can help support a solution, particularly in social and affordable housing
• Identifying a strong pipeline of investment opportunities that align with our strategy and impact goals
• Utilise BSC’s systems change tools to co-create investment solutions that can lead to scalable social property impact investments in the future

Manage property investments through our investment process:

• Helping to build a balanced portfolio of investments with potential to take increasing responsibility for property investment strategy
• Either directly or via leading deal teams:

1. Detailed investment proposal analysis which includes market analysis, the prospective investee(s), and the financial, social impact and systems change cases.
2. Structuring prospective investments.
3. Preparing and presenting investment recommendations to our Investment Committee, and take a lead on investment decision making.
4. Negotiating legal documents and closing transactions.
5. Demonstrating and championing excellence in investment delivery through the investment process.

Own the management of our existing portfolio of property investments, including through supervising junior team members:

• Having accountability for performance of portions of our property investment portfolio drawing on market insights and intelligence to evaluate that performance
• Lead the analysis of market trends, economic indicators, and investment performance to generate actionable insights for the portfolio and investment decisions
• Where appropriate, be the strategic relationship lead for key fund managers in the portfolio
• Collaborating with the BSC finance and Investment Management teams to manage fund manager reporting and assess the contribution of investments to our systems change, impact and financial goals across the portfolio

Systems change Leadership:

• Being, or becoming over time, an internal and external expert in social investment in pursuit of BSCs systems change goals or in the investment process, with potential to lead significant areas. This will include:

1. Developing strategies for achieving BSC’s goals in property, including identifying and leading strategic projects.
2. Building and managing key strategic relationships that can help us achieve our goals, including with fund managers, investors, the Housing Association sector and the wider property market.
3. Influencing the behaviour of key system actors, through thought leadership and partnerships, working with our Engagement and Communications teams.

Team management:

• Working with other Investment Directors to help build a world class social impact investment team and approach at Better Society Capital, including supervising and line managing Investment Managers and/or Associates
• Leading on discrete areas of our investment and impact management approach to help deliver our overall strategic objectives.
• Contributing to organisation-wide initiatives that help us deliver our mission such as working groups to improve the way we work or how we engage with certain stakeholders.

What you will bring

Qualifications & Experience

Essential:

• A passion and demonstrable commitment to improving lives in the UK
• Experience of detailed analysis, communication and decision making, in relation to         complex issues
• Experience developing solutions to complex problems
• Experience in and specialist knowledge of property/real estate and principally social and affordable housing
• A demonstrable experience of real estate finance (e.g. performance, valuation) and its application in decision making and/or solving complex challenges
• Proven relationship building and influencing skills
• Experience of managing people, leading teams and forming collaborative partnerships

Desirable:

• Social impact investment background
• Strong investment experience including new deal origination and portfolio management
• Deal execution skills including comfort negotiating legal documents
• Proven project management skills
• Experience in the financial, charitable or public sectors
• Experience working alongside and presenting recommendations to an executive or board within organisations
• Experience using technology including AI to enable effective delivery of investment processes and practices.

Skills, Abilities and Attributes

• Structured thinker – able to deal with complexity and uncertainty
• Innovative, creative and strategic approach to problem solving
• Solves problems with multiple stakeholders in an open and empathetic way
• Collegial team player – flexible and willing to work with and contribute to a team
• Self-starter – able to work under own initiative and source new opportunities
• Relationship management – excellent interpersonal skills and able to build relationships at all levels
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Hunger for continued learning and development, including developing others

Embody Better Society Capital core values

Ø  Purposeful –We are passionate and energetic in our work to bring about our long-term vision of a thriving social investment market that enables positive social impact.

Ø  Pioneering Spirit - We give our team the autonomy and flexibility to be entrepreneurial and creative. We have the courage to push boundaries and a restless drive for change

Ø  Openness - We listen, learn, experiment and collaborate.  And we are adaptive and flexible in responding to what we learn.

Ø  Rigorous - We take a rigorous approach in all we do.  We expect the highest standards and continually strive for excellence

Ø  Respectful - We are genuine in both our approach and aspiration.  We value each member of our team and our partners for what they bring.

Don’t meet every requirement? Studies have shown that women and people from racialised communities are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Other terms

Location: We are a UK-based business with an office in the Old Street area of London, accessible via a number of public transport links. Colleagues typically spend 40% - 60% of their working hours in the office, and the remainder from home. However, the exact requirements for this role can be discussed at interview. We hope that this working pattern encourages Better Society Capital employees to achieve a healthy balance between work and personal life, as we adapt to the needs of our diverse workforce.

Right to work: We will consider employment sponsorship for this role for successful candidates

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Better Society Capital is committed to being a diverse organisation that is truly representative of the communities we serve. We therefore welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds, particularly those under-represented in the social impact investment sector (e.g. people from LGBTQIA+, racialised, disabled, or under-served communities).

We are an equal opportunities employer with an inclusive environment where all employees can contribute to their fullest potential. We want every colleague to be able to deliver their work with dignity, equality, comfort and independence. Our office is fully accessible with step-free access and an open-plan set up. We are open to accommodation requests regarding assistive technologies, accessibility tools, flexible working or any other reasonable adjustments that will make working or visiting here more accessible for you. If you have a disability or other access needs and require any support to assist you through the recruitment process, please get in touch with Krystle De Guzman (Talent Acquisition & Development Officer) on kdeguzman@bettersocietycapital.com