The associate will assist the team in sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities, ultimately leading to investment in Virgin and non-Virgin branded companies. They will also support active portfolio management to maximize and deliver long-term value to the Branson family through the Group’s existing investment portfolio. These responsibilities will primarily entail:
- Working effectively with portfolio companies’ management teams and other co-investors to aid in value creation across a range of strategic projects and initiatives.
- Monitoring portfolio company performance and communicating updates back to the Group for shared learnings and internal reporting / planning purposes.
- Providing financial and analytical support to various internal and external teams to broadly inform and support the Group’s strategy.
Evaluating potential new investment opportunities via thorough quantitative and qualitative analyses, including as it relates to the Group’s sponsored Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (“SPACs”) and venture capital portfolio.
For more information about Virgin Management click here
Key Responsibilities
Financial Analysis & Industry Review
- Lead complex analyses and financial review (e.g. operating models, financial returns, sensitivity analyses, etc.) with limited guidance and oversight, and share findings with various internal and external stakeholders.
- Build knowledge and understanding of financial, commercial and industry dynamics pertaining to the companies and sectors allocated to the individual. Progressively increase industry expertise through multi-faceted research that utilizes a variety of sources (e.g. street analyst reports, industry publications, sector expert consultations, etc).
- Coordinate with various internal and external teams on transaction or project work. Provide Virgin representation at meetings and lead corresponding follow up workstreams, as required.
Portfolio Value Creation
- Portfolio Management: Fulfil investment support and/or key account manager role for assigned portfolio companies by leading associated strategic analyses and serving as a liaison between company management and Virgin. Monitor portfolio performance, anticipate challenges, and share learnings with investment team. Provide strong support for board oversight.
- Operational Excellence: Develop a complete understanding of the operational, management, funding, business planning, etc. dynamics of allocated companies. Contribute to business plan development and budget approval, and support ongoing performance tracking.
- Risk Management: Help analyze and manage intrinsic company risks (governance, commercial, legal, financing, etc.), as well as exogenous risks (macroeconomic, competitive landscape, etc.) in order to anticipate strategic challenges and position the company for long term profitable growth.
Investing
- Sector Review: Drive early diligence efforts (e.g. market sizing, competitive landscape analysis, regulatory review, etc.) to assess attractiveness of potential investments in the pipeline, especially as it relates to the Group’s sponsored SPACs and venture capital portfolio.
- Sourcing: Proactively provide sourcing recommendations on new investment opportunities based on independent, ongoing review of the Group’s target sectors.
- Financial Diligence: Support diligence of potential investment targets’ historical financials and projections. Design and develop robust financial models to inform valuation perspectives and provide recommendations on the overall investment opportunity.
- Business Diligence: Support fulsome diligence processes across full range of potential targets’ business areas (e.g. legal, regulatory, compliance, human resources, IT, etc.).
- Investment Materials: Lead preparation of investment documents (e.g. briefing materials, committee memos, financial analyses, etc.) to support Group’s internal review and decision making.
Leadership and Culture
- Support a relationship-based business with a reputation for high integrity, respect among stakeholders, modesty, excellence, efficiency, and thought leadership.
- Contribute to a culture of operating transparency and teamwork that makes VML a desirable and rewarding place to work.
Virgin Champion
- Consistently champion the Virgin brand values and People values, as well as the Virgin Unite and Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.
- Perpetuate Virgin’s vision by acting as a role model both within the Group and externally.
Transferable Skills
- Judgment: Ability to view decisions objectively, carefully and accurately to weigh conflicting data points and perspectives to achieve an optimal investment outcome.
- Financial: Raw analytical horsepower with full suite of functional, technical, financial, accounting and modelling skills.
- Analytical skills: Creative and resourceful problem-solving skills. Ability to identify and resolve information gaps, and conduct analytical work to support sound decision making.
- Communication skills: Excellent communication, influencing and interpersonal skills. Ability to work credibly with senior managers/ co-investors/advisors and to form strong personal relationships, both internally and externally. Fluent in English with fluency in other languages an advantage. Presents findings verbally and in writing in a logical, crisp and well thought out manner.
- Highly motivated self-starter: Desire to “roll up his/her sleeves” to get job done. Well-organized with good project management skills and strong attention to detail. Anticipates potential future issues and determines the steps required to mitigate any challenges, while seeking help when appropriate.
- Entrepreneurial spirit: Innovates and demonstrates an ability to think “outside the box” and generate creative approaches to develop attractive financial/ human/ brand returns.
- Intellectually curious: Strives to understand the essence of a situation, an industry or a business problem.
Experience
- Professional experience: 2-3 years of professional experience at a global investment bank, investment firm or consulting firm.
- Proficient in use of Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint.
- Experience with hands-on financial modelling and project management.
- Teamwork: History of personal commitment to and enjoyment from participating in team-based activities. Track record of being open, collaborative, dependable, and supportive in the long-term interests of the team. Personable and works well with others.
- International operations: Experience working with globally dispersed teams comprised of multiple cultures, languages, time-zones, and professional backgrounds.
- Marketing: Experience with marketing and/or branding concepts an advantage.
Personal Attributes
Our Culture Pact sets out the attributes we look for in our Virgin people:
- Purpose driven – You are values driven, striving to be human, brave and visionary in how you work. You are committed to doing the right thing and relish doing your bit to help us change business for good.
- Inclusive team player – You are a curious, perceptive collaborative and responsive team player. Keen to learn and understand, you recognise the strength in diversity and seek to behave inclusively always. You are thoughtful and supportive and consistently value the ideas and contribution of others.
- Flexible and future focused – You are flexible but remain focused, and always balance the needs of the company and team with your own priorities. You willingly adapt to the evolving needs of the business, are receptive to new ways of working and keen to play your part in driving positive change in our culture.
- Always accountable – You embrace responsibility and take pride in doing your best work, with full ownership for quality and results. You are solutions-orientated and work hard to get the job done – with passion, determination and resilience to succeed. You own your continuous development and are always seeking to improve and upskill.
- Pioneering – You are innovative, explore all possibilities and create new opportunities. You push boundaries and challenge the status quo, taking calculated risks where appropriate, acting always with integrity yet with a sense of fun and creativity.
Closing Date: January 30, 2022
Ready to join us?
Are you ready to join a company that is passionate about dreaming big and changing business for good?
Can you help drive change, take ownership, be ambitious and future and solution focused? Are you at home in a fun and dynamic business and enjoy working in a collaborative environment with a can-do attitude? Do you have a curious mind, with an appetite for learning and growing to achieve impact?
If you’re excited about joining us and think you have what we’re looking for, even if you don’t tick every box on the job description, we’d love to hear from you.
Please click ‘Apply for this Job’ and submit an online application and tell us why you think you’re just the right hire for us. It’s worth noting, if you move away from the application page you will lose any progress you’ve made with your application so far, so you do need to complete it in one sitting.
At Virgin Management, we are committed to ensure that all of our opportunities are accessible to everyone, so if you have any specific circumstances or adjustment requirements which may prevent you from completing an application online, or if you may need additional support through our recruitment process, please contact us on jointhefamily@virgin.comand we’ll be really happy to help.
Your privacy is important to us. As part of your application, you will be required to confirm that you have read and understood our Candidate Privacy Notice and agree to us processing your personal data in accordance with this notice.
For more information about the Virgin Group click here
If interested, please apply here.
