Associate, Risk | Corporate Credit

Position Overview

Position Overview:

Apollo’s Credit Risk team is seeking an Associate to play a critical role in the build-out of the Credit Risk function and act as the Credit Risk Manager for Investment Grade Credit, including High Grade Capital Solutions (“HGCS”). The Risk Manager will be a key member of the team responsible for the risk oversight of a large portfolio of public and private counterparties and transactions.

The successful candidate will work closely with the Origination, Research, Execution and Portfolio Monitoring teams and other risk leaders on the evaluation of credit risk in new and existing transactions, and their analysis and independent views will be heavily relied upon by the Apollo senior risk officers to gain comfort in signing off on counterparties and transactions. To ensure alignment between the business and the firm’s risk appetite, the incumbent will develop strong partnerships with deal teams while enhancing the stature of the credit risk team through a culture of review and challenge. 

The ideal candidate will have experience in a variety of corporate and financial institution asset classes as an investor, underwriter or risk manager.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Evaluate and provide sound judgment on research materials for public and private counterparties to establish buy, hold, and sell recommendations for the Portfolio Managers (“PMs”).
• For new underwritings, establish early engagement with deal teams on key risk issues through the underwriting process; conduct complete analysis on transactions, highlight risk concerns early and on an ongoing basis, and challenge deal teams appropriately
• Demonstrate an ability to form an independent view, raise concerns early and consistently, and succinctly document the analysis, leveraging others across the Apollo ecosystem to support on sector or asset-specific knowledge
• Actively engage in ongoing risk management, including reporting, analytics, and stress testing to ensure that existing investments and counterparities continue to be appropriately monitored and challenged in light of changes in the macro and local risk environments
• For troubled credits, play a lead role in driving the process to the best solution in partnership with the PMs
• Presenting diligence findings, making recommendations, and answering questions from investment committees, senior risk managers, and other senior leadership
• Utilize all available tools and work with the Technology team to develop new risk views (data, reporting, tools, etc.) if there are gaps in information needed to reach the correct analysis.

Qualifications & Experience

• Undergraduate degree with a record of academic achievement
• 7+ years of experience with responsibility for critical, high-impact decisions of significant financial impact and complex criteria across multiple asset classes
• Exposure to public and private Corporates and Financial institutions, including structured transactions, hybrid instruments, private placements, and cross-border solutions
• Experience underwriting high-yield Corporates, including Direct Lending preferred.
• Exposure to troubled assets, workouts, and distressed situations would be a benefit
• Strong foundation in risk, while also very solution-oriented with a thorough understanding of the commercial needs of a fast-growing business, balanced with maintaining risk discipline
• Strong analytical skills and an ability to build risk management tools to aid in governing the risk in the portfolio
• Extensive financial analysis and modelling skills, expertise in credit risk management, and strong understanding of risk metrics/models/systems
• Ability to incorporate and understand information from a variety of sources to stay ahead of market/economic trends and evaluate the impact on the portfolio
• Robust interpersonal skills to support communication with external counterparties and management of internal stakeholders, both within the Credit ecosystem and across the broader investment platform
• Excels in a rigorous and fast-paced team-oriented work environment; adept at managing competing priorities across multiple projects, transactions, and workstreams

ABOUT APOLLO

Apollo is a high-growth, global alternative asset manager. In our asset management business, we seek to provide our clients excess return at every point along the risk-reward spectrum from investment grade credit to private equity. For more than three decades, our investing expertise across our fully integrated platform has served the financial return needs of our clients and provided businesses with innovative capital solutions for growth. Through Athene, our retireme