Group Director – Business Development

The African Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (AGF) is incorporated and licensed in Mauritius as a limited liability company and has its office of operation in Nairobi, Kenya. Its products and services provide financial institutions with the means which they can leverage in bringing their African SME financing interventions to the requ…

Group Director – Business Development

Position Summary

Reporting to the Group Chief Executive Officer and serving as a member of Senior Management, the Group Director of Business Development is responsible for driving the growth of AGF’s Guarantee and products across Africa. This role involves optimizing partnerships, identifying new market opportunities, designing new products and leading business development efforts to achieve revenue targets and enhance the AGF’s market position. Success requires sustainable revenue and impact growth without compromising portfolio quality, financial sustainability, governance, environmental and social standards, or customer experience

Major Duties and Responsibilities

Strategy, growth and market development

• Develop and execute the Group Business Development strategy, translating AGF’s mandate and corporate priorities into clear regional, product and PFI account plans, performance indicators and accountabilities.

• Lead disciplined market expansion and selective origination, prioritizing opportunities with clear additionality and appropriate risk-adjusted returns.

• Maintain a robust market-intelligence capability covering PFI needs, regulation, technology, sector trends and country dynamics, and convert insights into actionable commercial decisions.

• Provide evidence-based advice to the Group CEO and Senior Management on growth choices, market positioning, commercial risks and emerging opportunities, and contribute to Board reporting as required.

• Develop strong strategic partnerships with different stakeholders to catalyze more financing for the African SMEs.

Partner relationships and guarantee utilisation

• Establish a Group-wide customer relationship management framework based on partner segmentation, disciplined account planning, service standards, reliable data and clear ownership of every strategic relationship.

• Ensure a responsive end-to-end partner experience by coordinating onboarding, due diligence, structuring, documentation, implementation and post-signature support across Risk,

• Structured Finance, Legal, Finance, Operations and Capacity Development.

• Develop and implement strategy to source and acquire new business opportunities.

• Continuously carry out market and competitor analysis as part of gathering market intelligence to inform business decisions.

• Provide clear leadership in understanding the market, technology and financial institution’s needs and trends and how these translate into possible opportunities for AGF.

• Thought leadership on strategic marketing, communication and new products development.

• Build trusted relationships with banks, non-bank financial institutions, development finance institutions, guarantee institutions, regulators, central banks, industry bodies and other ecosystem partners to broaden the reach and acceptance of AGF’s solutions to catalyze more financing for the African SMEs.

Pipeline and portfolio management

• Own the consolidated Group business pipeline and commercial forecast, enforcing common stage definitions, qualification criteria, conversion discipline, data quality and transparent reporting across regions and products.

• Manage performance against approved utilisation, origination, income, margin, partner and

• impact objectives, escalating constraints promptly and initiating corrective action where delivery is off track.

• Balance growth with portfolio quality and capital efficiency by working closely with other departments on partner selection, pricing, terms, concentration, exposure and expected performance.

• Support partner accountability on reporting, claims and recoveries, collaborating with Risk and recovery teams to protect AGF’s capital and reinforce disciplined portfolio management.

• Oversee the development of the guarantee pipeline at Group level and ensure proper tracking of opportunities.

• Collaborate with regional business development teams to optimize lead generation, conversion strategies and guarantee portfolio optimization.

Product innovation, thematic finance and impact

• Identify, design and bring to market fit-for-purpose guarantee products, channels and

• partnership models that respond to evolving PFI and SME needs while remaining operationally scalable and financially sustainable.