Internal capability programme
Chartered Financial Analyst Development Programme
Three years. Real transactions. Professional investment discipline.
Zambezi Trade Capital combines structured CFA study with hands-on export trade finance. The objective is not simply to pass examinations, but to develop the judgement required to assess, structure and monitor real investment opportunities.
- Year one Foundation Analyst foundation · CFA Level I
- Year two Analysis Investment analysis · CFA Level II
- Year three Investment judgement Advanced practice · CFA Level III
Study it.Model it.Apply it.Defend it.
A target progression, not a schedule. Registration, examination timing and progression through the CFA Program are determined by CFA Institute, and each level depends on eligibility and successful completion of the examination.
01 / Programme philosophy
Learn finance by doing finance.
The candidate works inside Zambezi Trade Capital while studying. Every area of the curriculum is applied immediately — to a live transaction where one is available, and to a simulated one where it is not. Study that is never applied is forgotten; experience that is never studied does not generalise.
- Financial Statement Analysis Analyse an exporter's accounts — what the balance sheet conceals and where the cash actually goes.
- Quantitative Methods Model probability of default, loss given default and expected loss on a real transaction.
- Economics Read FX, inflation, interest rates and export-market conditions as they bear on repayment.
- Fixed Income Analyse the economics of debt securities, pricing and repayment structures.
- Corporate Issuers Assess a producer's capital structure, working capital and cash generation.
- Portfolio Management Understand concentration, correlation and portfolio risk across a book of transactions.
- Ethics Manage conflicts between investors, issuers, Zambezi Trade Capital and related parties.
- Derivatives Understand how FX and commodity-price exposure can be hedged, and at what cost.
- Alternative Investments Evaluate non-public credit opportunities on their own terms rather than by analogy to listed markets.
02 / Year one · Foundation
Build the Investment Analyst
Develop strong fundamentals in accounting, economics, quantitative methods, valuation, financial markets and ethics, while beginning supervised analysis of Zambezi Trade Capital opportunities.
Formal study
- CFA Level I curriculum
- Ethics and Professional Standards
- Quantitative Methods
- Economics
- Financial Statement Analysis
- Corporate Issuers
- Equity Investments
- Fixed Income
- Derivatives
- Alternative Investments
- Portfolio Management
- Financial modelling
- Advanced Excel
- Introductory Python and SQL for financial analysis
Practical work at Zambezi Trade Capital
- Shadow trade-finance transactions from origination to settlement.
- Review purchase orders and the supporting trade documents.
- Build transaction cash-flow models.
- Analyse exporter financial statements.
- Map the transaction parties and the flow of money between them.
- Calculate gross margin, financing cost and repayment coverage.
- Document the key risks on every transaction reviewed.
- Attend internal transaction reviews.
- Maintain a transaction-learning journal.
- Produce supervised investment memoranda.
Year one targets
Programme targets set at the start of the year, and reviewed against what was actually produced. They describe intended workload, not a promised result.
- 20Company and transaction analyses
- 12Complete financial models
- 12Investment memoranda
- 4Post-transaction reviews
- 1Research paper on Zimbabwean and African export trade finance
- CFA Level I examination attempt when eligible and ready, subject to CFA Institute registration and scheduling
03 / Year two · Investment analysis
Learn to Underwrite
Move from understanding transactions to independently analysing whether Zambezi Trade Capital should finance them. Formal study centres on the CFA Level II curriculum and on applied valuation and credit analysis.
Formal study
- CFA Level II curriculum
- Advanced financial statement analysis
- Credit analysis
- Cash-flow forecasting
- Business quality
- Counterparty analysis
- Offtaker analysis
- Scenario analysis
- Probability of default
- Loss given default
- Expected loss
- Debt-service capacity
- Collateral and security
- Country risk
- FX risk
- Commodity risk
- Concentration risk
- Fraud indicators
- Due diligence
- Python and data analysis where it earns its place
Practical work at Zambezi Trade Capital
- Originate, or participate in the origination of, opportunities.
- Interview exporters.
- Verify the economics of the purchase order.
- Assess foreign buyers and offtakers.
- Construct transaction cash-flow waterfalls.
- Analyse the source of repayment.
- Assess the downside cases, not only the base case.
- Assess the settlement route.
- Identify the security and control mechanisms available.
- Propose pricing.
- Recommend approve, decline or restructure.
- Defend the recommendation before an internal credit and investment review.
Year two targets
Programme targets. Volume is a means to repetition and comparison, not an end in itself — a declined opportunity analysed properly counts.
- 30Analysed opportunities
- 20Full investment memoranda
- 15Detailed financial models
- 10Independent credit recommendations
- 6Completed transaction reviews
- 2Research papers
- CFA Level II examination attempt when eligible and ready, subject to CFA Institute registration and scheduling
04 / Year three · Investment judgement
Become an Investment Decision-Maker
Develop portfolio-level judgement, advanced risk assessment, and the ability to make and defend capital-allocation decisions. Study draws on the CFA Level III curriculum and, where it fits the candidate's chosen pathway, private-markets and portfolio-management content.
Formal study
- CFA Level III curriculum
- Portfolio construction
- Portfolio risk
- Concentration limits
- Liquidity
- Fixed-income portfolio concepts
- Private credit
- Private markets
- Due diligence
- Investment governance
- Behavioural finance
- Risk budgeting
- Scenario and stress testing
- Workout and recovery analysis
- Restructuring
- Investment committee discipline
- Ethics and fiduciary responsibility
Practical work at Zambezi Trade Capital
- Lead transaction underwriting.
- Chair or present at investment and credit reviews.
- Supervise junior analysis.
- Build portfolio-risk reports.
- Monitor exposures across the book.
- Identify deteriorating credits early.
- Participate in workouts and restructurings.
- Evaluate realised outcomes against what was anticipated at underwriting.
- Track predicted against actual defaults.
- Improve internal underwriting standards.
- Refine the investment memorandum and the risk models behind it.
Year three targets
Programme targets. By this point the work is judged on quality of judgement and on how well the record stands up after the outcome is known.
- 40Analysed opportunities
- 25Senior-level investment memoranda
- 20Investment recommendations
- 3Deep-dive investment research papers
- A portfolio risk dashboard, maintained rather than built once
- An annual credit performance report
- Documented improvements to underwriting policy
- CFA Level III examination attempt when eligible and ready, and preparation of a charter application if every CFA Institute requirement has been satisfied
05 / The three-year scorecard
What the three years are meant to add up to.
These are programme targets, not promises and not results. They exist so that effort can be measured against an intention that was written down in advance, and so that a shortfall is visible rather than quietly forgotten.
- 90+ Opportunities analysed
- 50+ Investment memoranda
- 40+ Financial models
- 30+ Formal investment recommendations
- 20+ Post-transaction reviews
- 6+ Internal research papers
- I · II · III Progress through the CFA Program levels, subject to CFA Institute eligibility, scheduling and successful completion of each examination
06 / The analysis framework
The Zambezi Trade Capital investment memorandum
One document, twenty-six headings, written the same way every time. Learning the framework is most of the training: it forces the analyst to say what the transaction is, where the money comes back from, what could go wrong, and what they recommend — in that order, and in writing.
The transaction
- Transaction summary
- Borrower / exporter
- Product / commodity
- Purchase order
- Offtaker
- Transaction value
- Financing requirement
- Margin
- Cash-conversion cycle
- Source of repayment
- Repayment route
The counterparty
- Financial analysis
- Management quality
- Security / collateral
The risk view
- FX risk
- Commodity risk
- Operational risk
- Country / regulatory risk
- Probability of default
- Loss given default
- Expected loss
- Stress scenarios
The decision, and what followed
- Proposed pricing
- Key conditions precedent
- Recommendation
- Post-transaction outcome
07 / The feedback loop
A judgement that is never checked is not a judgement.
Every investment recommendation is timestamped and filed before the outcome is known. When the transaction closes, the record is reopened and compared against what actually happened.
- Analyse
- Recommend
- Invest
- Observe
- Compare
- Learn
…and back to the next analysis, better informed than the last.
What gets compared
| Recorded before the outcome | Compared against |
|---|---|
| Expected margin | Realised margin |
| Expected repayment date | Actual repayment date |
| Predicted risk | Realised risk |
| Expected loss | Actual loss |
| Predicted FX exposure | Actual FX exposure |
| Recommended decision | What the decision produced |
Repeated across dozens of transactions, this builds a growing internal evidence base for the quality of the underwriting — including, and especially, the transactions that went badly.
08 / The weekly operating model
A week that can be sustained for three years.
A suggested structure for someone in full-time work at Zambezi Trade Capital. It is deliberately moderate: the programme is a three-year effort, and a schedule that cannot be kept in month four is worse than a lighter one that can.
-
Monday to Thursday
- Normal Zambezi Trade Capital responsibilities
- 90–120 minutes of CFA study per day
-
Friday
- Deal review
- Financial modelling
- Investment memorandum writing
-
Saturday
- Four to six hours of CFA study
- Practice questions and mock work
-
Sunday
- Two to three hours of review
- Research reading
- Rest and recovery for the remainder
09 / Research programme
Write about the market you are working in.
African trade finance is under-researched, and the analyst working inside a transaction sees things the literature does not record. Research output is part of the programme: written up properly, circulated internally, and defended.
10 / Professional ethics
Ethics is the first subject, not the last chapter.
The technical material can be relearned. A reputation for selective disclosure cannot be. These principles apply to the candidate's work from the first week, independently of examination progress.
- Investor interests come first.
- Conflicts are disclosed, not managed quietly.
- No misleading claims about what a transaction will produce.
- No selective presentation of the transactions that went well.
- Credit judgement is formed independently, before it is discussed.
- Decisions are documented, with the reasoning that produced them.
- Risk is communicated in plain language, including to non-specialists.
- Related-party transactions are handled with particular care and disclosed.
- Promotional material and investment analysis are kept strictly separate.
- Confidentiality and data security are treated as obligations, not preferences.
11 / Career progression
Where the programme can lead inside the business.
A possible progression, shown so that the work has a visible destination. Advancement depends on demonstrated competence, judgement and the needs of the business — not on the completion of a calendar year, and not on examination progress alone.
- Year one Investment Analyst Supervised analysis, modelling and memorandum writing.
- Year two Senior Investment Analyst / Trade Finance Analyst Independent underwriting and credit recommendations.
- Year three Investment Manager / Credit Manager Decision-making, portfolio oversight and supervision of others.
- Longer term Head of Investments / Chief Investment Officer Capital allocation, investment governance and underwriting standards across the business.
12 / CFA Institute requirements
What this programme does not decide.
CFA Institute determines eligibility for registration, progression through the programme and award of the CFA charter. Zambezi Trade Capital participants are responsible for meeting current CFA Institute requirements. Professional work completed before and during employment at Zambezi Trade Capital may be relevant to CFA requirements depending on its nature and CFA Institute's assessment.
Nothing in this programme confers eligibility for, or the award of, the CFA charter, and completing it does not determine the outcome of any examination. Requirements change: they should be verified against the current rules published by CFA Institute rather than against this page.
This is an internal professional-development roadmap for Zambezi Trade Capital. CFA®, Chartered Financial Analyst®, and related marks are trademarks of CFA Institute. Zambezi Trade Capital is not affiliated with or endorsed by CFA Institute.