Technical Specialist: Property at Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA)

Job Description

• The Technical Specialist: Property is responsible for ensuring that infrastructure investments in the property sector are technically sound, environmentally sustainable, socially responsible, and financially viable. This role blends sector expertise with financial acumen to support loan origination, due diligence, and portfolio management. In addition, provide expert technical guidance and sector-specific insights to support the development, appraisal, and monitoring of property projects financed and/or delivered by the DBSA. The aim is to enhance the quality, sustainability, and impact of investments in the sector, ensuring alignment with the institution’s development mandate.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Advisory and Expertise
• Provide expert technical support and apply advanced sector knowledge to develop innovative, practical solutions analysis and implementation support for projects and initiatives
• Stay current on emerging technologies, policy developments, and global best practices to ensure cutting-edge insights and continuous improvement in project delivery.
• Diagnose complex sector challenges and identify opportunities, designing context-appropriate, sustainable, and cost-effective solutions to support project preparation and implementation.
• Promote institutional learning by leading or contributing to training sessions, technical consultations, and knowledge-sharing initiatives with internal teams and external stakeholders.
• Drive technical excellence and innovation in the sector, reinforcing the Bank’s position as a leader in sustainable and resilient infrastructure development.
• Collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary teams and stakeholders to gather insights, build consensus, and ensure technical alignment across project stages.
• Investments and Programmes
• Conduct rigorous technical due diligence on infrastructure transactions applying strategic thinking and innovative approaches to deliver value to both the client and the DBSA.
• Enhance the bankability of transactions by identifying and mitigating technical and sector specific risks, working collaboratively with Credit Risk, Country Risk Officers, and other relevant units across the Bank.
• Support the preparation of potential investments by delivering innovative and sustainable infrastructure solutions that inform project scoping, feasibility studies, and business planning.
• Conceptualise and contribute to the design of new products and services aligned with DBSA mandate and proactively identifying and guiding the DBSA toward emerging sector opportunities.
• Assess the sector impact of proposed DBSA investment transactions across South Africa the African region, including:
• Appraising the macro macro and sector-specific market environment.
• Assessing the impact of sectoral policy, legislation, strategy, and tariff regimes
• Analysing sector risks and developing appropriate mitigation measures
• Demonstrating the economic rationale of projects through demand/supply analysis and cost-benefit assessments.
• Validating the technical feasibility / assumptions and projections including design assumptions, technology options, operations, and maintenance plans
• Providing structuring recommendations to support investment approvals by internal decision-making committees.
• Developing sector-specific conditions to be embedded with investment structures.
• Monitor and evaluate the sectoral outcomes and impact of DBSA’s property investment portfolio.
• Track compliance within agreed sector conditionalities and mitigation measures, recommending timely corrective actions in cases of deviation or underperformance.
• Sector Governance
• Present sector research findings on business and product development, sector targets, and investment strategies to the Investment Committee and Board of Directors.
• Develop, implement, and review sector strategies, guidelines, and technical frameworks to embed Generally Accepted Industry Practice (GIIP) in DBSA investment decision making.
• Clients, Governments and Finance Partnerships
• Provide credible sectoral advice to the DBSA, its clients and sector role players including private and public sector investors, businesses, and client-country governments
• Influence relevant sectoral investment decision making structures including DBSA, national government, SOCs, sector fora, Regional Economic Communities (e.g. SADC, IIPSA) to enhance sectoral infrastructure investments
• Interface with finance partners locally, regionally, and internationally to catalyse sustainable financing, align and incorporate GIIP, the Sustainable Development Goals and global, regional, and local sector policy frameworks into DBSA operations and investment decision making.
• Build strong relationships with key stakeholders to align expectations and gather insights and ensure successful engagements.
• Innovation and Continuous Improvement
• Champion innovation and fostering a culture of continuous improvement within their area of expertise.
• Identify opportunities to enhance processes, products, or services, leveraging technical knowledge, creativity, and industry insights.
• Explore and implement cutting-edge technologies or methodologies to drive efficiency, quality, and value for the organisation.
• Facilitate idea generation promoting a collaborative environment where innovative solutions can flourish.
• Develop the organisation’s competitive edge and adapt to evolving market demands within the sector.
• Reporting and Analytics
• Prepare and present high-quality, data-driven technical reports, assessments, and recommendations to support decision-making, anticipate risks, and enhance project outcomes.
• Analyse complex data and deliver accurate, stakeholder-focused reports with clear, actionable insights and visualisations.
• Identify trends, anomalies, and key insights that influence strategic planning and operational adjustments.
• Key Measurement of Output
• Number of innovative and sustainable property financing opportunities identified and brought into the business pipeline.
• Number and quality of technically sound, bankable projects and innovative financing solutions developed for investment approval.
• Number of due diligence assignments and investment-ready projects concluded with full technical compliance.
• Percentage of the loan book aligned with priority geographies/sectors and annual investment metrics (disbursements, commitments, approvals).
• Number and quality of projects monitored and evaluated, ensuring application of Good International Industry Practice (GIIP) and lessons learned.
• Number of sector strategies, technical frameworks, knowledge products, and partnerships developed to inform investment decisions and strengthen sector impact.

Expertise & Technical Competencies

Qualification

• Bachelor’s degree in Property Development, Real Estate, Architecture, Quantity Surveying, Civil Engineering,
• Construction Management, Urban Planning, or a closely related field.
• Experience
• Minimum of 10 years’ property sector experience in structuring and preparing investment-ready infrastructure projects, ideally within development finance, commercial banking, or infrastructure advisory environment.
• Proven track record in infrastructure finance and investment, including work on public-private partnerships (PPPs) and transaction advisory services for large-scale property related projects.
• Strong professional network and extensive relationships with senior stakeholders in the property sector across South Africa and the wider African continent.
• Sound understanding of critical development challenges and opportunities across the property investment value chain, including service delivery models, regulatory frameworks, and climate resilience.
• In-depth knowledge of sustainable development principles, particularly as they relate to infrastructure financing, climate adaptation, and inclusive service delivery.
• Experience in designing technical and financial solutions to enable deal closure and mobilise private or blended finance.

Desirable

• Postgraduate qualification in a relevant field such as Engineering, Finance, Economics, Development Studies, Sustainable Development, Infrastructure Planning, or an MBA.
• Professional registration with a recognized engineering or sectoral professional body (e.g., ECSA).

TECHNICAL COMPETENCIES

Sector Expertise

• Demonstrates global thought leadership, including speaking at international conferences, sharing work via knowledge management, documenting business cases, white papers, and articles.
• Understands dynamics of other sectors and uses that knowledge to draw comparisons and insights about the given sector.
• Foresees trends in the given sector industry at a global level and actively communicates/publishes opinions and insights.
• Understands sector industry dynamics, trends and key players at the global level and uses that knowledge to position DBSA as an economic policies authority of repute within the global market.

Business Acumen

• Takes actions to fit business strategy.
• Assesses and links short-term tasks in the context of long-term business strategies or perspectives.
• Reviews own actions against the organisation's strategic plan; includes the big picture when considering possible opportunities or projects or thinks about long-term applications of current activities.
• Anticipates possible responses to different initiatives.
• Understands the projected direction of the industry and how changes might impact the organisation.

Project Management

• Seasoned ability to plan, initiate, execute, control and close projects aligned to DBSA sustainable infrastructure investment mandate.
• Translates business objectives into practical, prioritised and organised action plans; ensures plans are safely and successfully implemented.
• Makes effective use of resources when executing; ensures processes are in place to achieve outcomes aligned to operational excellence standards.
• Risk Identification & Assessment skills
• Advises on applicable aspects of risk identification and assessments
• Assesses and links short-term tasks in the context of long-term business strategies or perspectives

Financial Acumen

• Makes sound financial decisions after having analysed their impacts on the organisation, partner agencies, and community.
• Knows the internal and external factors that impact on resource and asset availability.
• Is able to interpret management account reports in an operational/commercial context and take action as appropriate to maximise sustainable development outcomes, revenues, and control costs.

Business Development

• Takes overall lead for pro-active business development at national and regional level.
• Initiates, reviews, and interprets competitor environment reviews and take actions accordingly.
• Formulates and modify market approaches on the basis of competitor analyses.
• Leads the formulation, development, and implementation of the business development strategy to generate new business opportunities in public and private sector delivery of infrastructure.
• Identifies and develop new markets, products, and clients.
• Positions the DBSA as the preferred development partner, lender, and advisor.
• Leads the participation and presentation of the DBSA at investment conferences and roundtable
• discussions.
• Coordinates business activities to ensure that investment initiatives are in support of government BEE strategies, broader national and regional economic development strategies.
• Promote compliance and alignment with the strategic imperatives of both individual clients and the DBSA of investment and development interventions.
• Builds capacity to coordinate, control and manage the activities and efforts required for the implementation of the plan.
• Builds capacity to conduct project origination exercises.

Analytical Ability

• Ability to propose solutions to support investment through analysis and solutioning.
• Thorough and in-depth understanding of the business environment, reviews outputs of analysis to identify anomalies and draw conclusions, and able to relate these to operational circumstances.
• High level of skill in the use of advanced/complex analytical techniques and able to use judgement to decide upon the most appropriate analytical techniques to solution according to the situation.
• Proven ability to apply relevant estimating techniques, tools and models covering all potential business circumstances (such as cost benefit analysis) and highlight potential risks/opportunities.
• Able to translate findings into reports and present findings to key stakeholders.
• *The KPA’s, competencies and relationships listed in this document, is not exhaustive and the incumbent will be expected to undertake additional duties within their capacity to meet the needs of business and/or the business unit.

Required Personal Attributes

BEHAVIOURAL COMPETENCIES

• Customer Service Orientation
• Tries to understand the underlying needs of customers and matches these needs to available or customised products and services.
• Adapts processes and procedures to meet on-going customer needs.
• Utilises the feedback received by customers, in order to develop new and/or improve existing services / products that relate to their on-going needs.
• Thinks of new ways to align DBSA’s offerings with future customer needs.
• Strategic and Innovative Thinking
• Experiments with new approaches, tests scenarios, questions assumptions and challenges conventional thinking.
• Creates new concepts that are not obvious to others, leveraging internal and external sources of information, to build incremental revenue and growth opportunities.
• Driving Delivery of Results
• Sets challenging goals that will have a significant impact on the business or support the organisational strategy.
• Commits significant resources and/or time to ensure that challenging goals are achieved, while also taking action to mitigate risk.

Organisational Awareness

• Recognises unspoken organisational limitations, what is and is not possible at certain times or in certain positions.
• Recognises and/or uses the corporate culture (language, etc.) that will produce the best response.
• Recognises and/or uses ongoing power and political relationships within the organisation (alliances, rivalries) with a clear sense of organisational impact.

Impact and Influence

• Adapts a presentation or discussion to appeal to the interest and level of others.
• Anticipates and prepares for others’ reactions.

Teamwork and Cooperation

• Acts to promote a friendly climate and good morale and resolves conflicts.
• Creates opportunities for cross-functional working.
• Encourages others to network outside of their own team/department and learn from their experience.

Closing date: Novemeber 21, 2025