Export-Credit Finance Board Adviser

The mandate

A strategically important buyer requests long-tenor financing supported by multiple export-credit agencies, commercial lenders and sovereign undertakings. Headline cover appears strong, but disbursement follows delivery milestones, local-content obligations affect eligibility and the exporter retains completion, performance and guarantee exposure. The board’s standing question is whether the package secures a profitable sale or converts buyer and programme risk into long-lived contingent claims against the manufacturer.

The adviser will review monthly structure and programme evidence, meet finance and delivery owners before committees, attend three Brussels sessions and observe one agency workshop. The cadence will challenge eligible content, buyer and sovereign credit, cover conditions, draw mechanics, milestone certification, guarantees, recourse, currency, sanctions, insurance gaps and termination. Advice will compare sale value with retained exposure through the full programme and financing life.

The appointment runs for eight months through agency indication and board approval. Renewal requires a distinct committee resolution after management has produced an integrated structure and contingent-exposure view. The advisory role should finish before binding documentation unless separately authorised; it is not arranging, broking, agency representation or continuing transaction execution.

The adviser has no line authority and assumes no executive responsibility for customer negotiation, export-agency submission, credit decision, pricing, programme delivery, compliance, guarantees, accounting or document signing. Company officers and appointed advisers retain those duties. The adviser may challenge completeness and record dissent but cannot speak for an agency, lender, buyer or government.

Conflicts must disclose relationships with the buyer, sovereign, agencies, banks, insurers, aerospace suppliers, advisers and competitors. Transaction-specific recusal applies to material ties. The adviser accepts no placement, commission, success or introduction fee and cannot join the financing syndicate or sell follow-on execution services arising from the review.

Why the board wants this voice

Commercial teams value order intake, finance teams value insured receivables and programme teams focus on delivery; contingent guarantees and eligibility conditions sit between them. Agency and bank participants also promote structures they can support. Directors want an independent export-finance operator who can connect delivery evidence to funding and retained recourse without earning from the transaction proceeding. The board particularly needs challenge before bid validity and production-slot commitments become irreversible.

What you will own

• Challenge buyer, sovereign, agency, lender, insurer and exporter exposures through programme and financing life, including delayed acceptance and political disruption.
• Examine eligible content, local-content tests, procurement, milestone, disbursement and documentary conditions using approved advice.
• Test cover, recourse, guarantees, performance obligations, termination and recovery under buyer and programme downside.
• Review currency, interest, collateral, reserve, sanctions and cash timing across manufacture, delivery, warranty support and repayment.
• Compare sale margin and cash with contingent exposure, capital use, retained risk and operational burden.
• Give directors proceed, restructure, condition, defer or decline choices with dependency, residual exposure and fallback explicit.
• Leave a board transaction map connecting milestone, evidence, funding, guarantee, exposure and accountable authority.

Candidate qualifications

• Has structured or challenged export-credit financing for aerospace, defence-support or complex capital equipment through agency approval and first disbursement.
• Understands agency cover, eligible content, sovereign and buyer risk, milestone draw, guarantees, recourse and claim-preservation duties.
• Can connect manufacturing and delivery obligations to financing availability and retained contingent exposure.
• Has advised boards independently of arranging, underwriting, insurance and success-fee incentives.
• Has identified documentary, performance or policy conditions that made nominal export-credit cover unavailable at the point of claim or draw.
• Preserves commercial, compliance, legal, credit and programme authority while communicating a clear integrated risk view.

Non-negotiables

• Can attend all Brussels transaction sessions and the export-agency evidence workshop during eight months.
• Will disclose buyer, sovereign, agency, bank, insurer, supplier, competitor and adviser relationships.
• Brings complex export-credit transaction governance; ordinary trade finance or receivables insurance alone is insufficient.
• Will not arrange, broker, underwrite, represent agencies or accept transaction-linked compensation.

1. 49 words maximum. Which export-credit condition most often converts apparent cover into retained exporter exposure?
2. 49 words maximum. How would you link a delivery milestone to financing evidence without certifying performance?
3. 49 words maximum. What transaction relationship would require your recusal?