National Expert on Inclusive Capital Market and Institutional Development Strategy (BIMx)

Background:

UN Women, grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security.

Women’s economic empowerment is a cornerstone of sustainable development, inclusive growth, and gender equality. Ensuring that women have access to financial resources, markets, and decision-making processes is critical to advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Women entrepreneurs play a vital role in job creation, innovation, and economic resilience. However, they continue to face systemic barriers in accessing finance, including limited collateral, gender bias in lending, lack of financial literacy, and restricted access to networks.

Globally, a significant financing gap persists for women-led businesses, with estimates ranging in the trillions of USD. Women are also underrepresented in capital markets both as investors and issuers. Addressing these gaps requires not only financial instruments but also sound, inclusive capital market development and institutional strategies that raise awareness, build confidence, and promote participation.

The Moldova International Stock Exchange (BIMx) is being developed as a modern platform for corporate financing and investment, contributing to the development of the capital market. As a new institution, BIMx must define a capital market and institutional development strategy that is inclusive and gender-mainstreamed, responsive to the needs of women entrepreneurs and investors.

As BIMx mission and vision is aligned to the national strategy of economic development, the national strategy of capital market development (National Capital Market Development Strategy 2025-2030, approved by Parliament Decision No. 123/2025), the National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2030 (SNIF 2030), the NBM Taxonomy Roadmap (which also incorporates financial inclusion objectives alongside sustainable finance criteria), and the EU acquis, including the gender equality directive and relevant sustainable finance/ESG disclosure requirements. It targets gender equality, financial inclusion, and environmental and social sustainability in accessing capital market tools. 

In this path, it requires, as a central element of the capital market, advice and support in developing its capital market and institutional development strategy, inclusive, gender-mainstreamed and sustainability-oriented, to achieve its objectives.

The consultant will be reporting to Programme Coordinator, and will be supported by Programme Associate, who will be the point of contact on the contract and payment issues.

Description of Responsibilities/ Scope of Work

The objective of the assignment is to provide advice and support to the Moldova International Stock Exchange (BIMx) in developing its business development strategy, ensuring that the strategy is also inclusive, gender-mainstreamed, and sustainability-oriented. BIMx developed its Business Plan first, ahead of a fully articulated institutional strategy - reversing the usual sequencing in which strategy precedes the business plan. The strategy is therefore expected to consolidate and extend the existing Business Plan: to embed the systematic gender-mainstreaming, financial inclusion, and sustainability dimensions the Business Plan currently addresses only partially and aligns it explicitly with national and EU frameworks. BIMx has already articulated its vision, mission, and institutional values; these are not to be re-created but incorporated into and consistently reflected throughout the strategy. 

The consultant will be responsible for delivering the following four interrelated tasks: 

Task 1: Diagnostic review 

• Review BIMx’s Business Plan, its institutional context, governance, and alignment with national strategies, and assess entry points for gender mainstreaming, inclusion, and sustainability
• Produce an alignment matrix mapping the BIMx Business Plan and draft business development strategy 
• Use the UN Women Moldova needs assessment "Women Entrepreneurs' Access to Finance in Moldova" (survey of 253 women entrepreneurs and focus groups with 175 women across four regions), extending its evidence base and recommendations to the capital market context
• Extend consultation process BIMx's internal governance structures (National Commission for Financial Markets; National Bank of Moldova; Ministry of Economic Development and Digitalization; Ministry of Finance; Organization for Entrepreneurship Development (ODA); commercial banks; investment funds; women business associations)

Task 2: Advisory support to strategy development 

• Advise and support BIMx in drafting a gender sensitive business development strategy, including strategic objectives, priority actions, institutional arrangements, and a preliminary resourcing/budget outline that can feed directly into the BIMx Business Plan for 2027-2030
• Ensure that gender equality, inclusion and environmental/social sustainability are mainstreamed throughout the strategy, including gender-responsive and sustainability-responsive measures, and develop a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) framework with gender-disaggregated and sustainability-related performance indicators, aligned with BIMx's own KPI cycle 
• Consolidate the role of women on capital markets by increasing awareness among women-owned SMEs about equity financing and listing opportunities; establishing partnerships with women's business associations, chambers of commerce and entrepreneurship support organizations; promoting gender responsive corporate governance and WEPs 
• Develop a preliminary concept for a future BIMx stock market index (indicative eligibility criteria, weighting principles, and a launch timeline linked to growth in the number of listed issuers), to be refined once BIMx has a sufficient base of listed companies; this is a forward-looking concept note, not a complete, ready-to-operate index methodology

Task 3: Validation and recommendations 

• Support the validation of the draft strategy with BIMx management, shareholders, board, and relevant stakeholders, finalize the document based on feedback received
• Develop recommendations for the implementation and monitoring of the strategy, and on further support to BIMx for inclusive, gender-mainstreamed and sustainable capital market development
• Support BIMx management in presenting and supporting the final strategy at the BIMx Board meeting

Task 4: Practical support to BIMx management and Business Plan execution 

• Develop a gender sensitive market attraction/engagement plan and a promotional package (value proposition materials, a simplified pitch/prospectus-style presentation, and outreach collateral) to present and sell BIMx's listing and investment services to prospective issuers (including women-led and women-owned SMEs) and investors (including women's business and investment networks), directly supporting BIMx's target of at least four listed issuers by 31 December 2026
• Provide periodic advisory/coaching touchpoints (approximately monthly, format and frequency to be agreed with BIMx management) to the BIMx President (CEO) on strategic and institutional development matters arising during the assignment, including facilitating connections with peer leadership at partner or regional exchanges where relevant
• Develop a simple, practical KPI tracking tool for BIMx management to monitor progress against the key indicators.

Financial Arrangements 

Payments shall be made following certification by UN Women that the services related to each deliverable, as described above, have been satisfactorily completed and the deliverables have been achieved by or before the specified due dates. 

Performance evaluation. 

The consultant’s performance will be evaluated against performance criteria such as timeliness, responsibility, initiative, communication, accuracy, and quality of the products delivered.

Consultant’s Workplace and Official Travel

This is primarily a home-based consultancy. 

Short study/benchmarking visits to peer regional or European stock exchanges (e.g., Bucharest, Vienna, Warsaw, Stockholm, etc.) may be arranged during the assignment to inform the diagnostic review and strategy development, where these are assessed as necessary under Task 1 and 2. The specific destinations, timing, and number of visits are to be confirmed jointly by BIMx and UN Women, subject to relevance and available budget, and any such travel will be governed by standard UN Women travel policies and procedures.

Competencies :

Core Values:

• Integrity;
• Professionalism;
• Respect for Diversity.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Values and Competencies Framework: 

Functional Competencies:

• Strong knowledge of capital market instruments, regulation, and institutional development, with the ability to translate complex concepts into clear strategic directions and practical measures is required.
• Proven experience in providing advisory support to financial sector institutions, including exchanges, regulators, banks, or non-bank financial institutions, on strategy, governance, and market development is required.
• Ability to engage diverse stakeholders and foster consensus, including regulators, issuers, investors, development partners, and women’s business networks, encouraging knowledge sharing and practical application of concepts is required.
• Demonstrated capacity to assess institutional needs identify gaps, and customize strategic recommendations to align with institutional objectives, and the national capital market development agenda is required. 
• Strong facilitation and communication skills, including the ability to effectively moderate consultations and validation sessions, manage stakeholder dynamics, and respond to questions and challenges, would be a strong asset.
• Competence in integrating gender-responsive, inclusive, and sustainability/ESG-responsive approaches into strategies and institutional frameworks, ensuring consideration of the specific barriers faced by women, rural populations, youth, older persons, and other vulnerable groups is a strong asset.

Required Qualifications:

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in Economics, Finance, Business Administration, Law, Public Policy, or another discipline relevant to capital market and financial sector development is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree. 

Experience:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible professional experience in capital markets, financial sector development, banking, or institutional strategy development is required.
• Demonstrated experience in developing strategic documents, such as sector strategies, institutional development plans, roadmaps, or action plans is required. 
• Prior experience advising financial market institutions, regulators, or exchanges on institutional development and market strategy is required. 
• Experience engaging with government, financial institutions, business community in Moldova is required. 
• Track record of producing high-quality technical reports, assessment documents, strategic documents, or policy guidance in both Romanian and English, is required.
• Demonstrated experience in integrating gender equality, social inclusion, and environmental/social sustainability (ESG) into assessments, strategies, policies, or institutional frameworks is an advantage.
• Experience working with or for international organizations, development programmes, or EU-funded projects is an advantage.

Languages:

• Fluency in Romanian and working language in English is required.
• Knowledge of Russian language is an asset.

Please not that only shortlisted candidates will contacted.

Statements :

In July 2010, the United Nations General Assembly created UN Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. The creation of UN Women came about as part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact. It merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN system (DAW, OSAGI, INSTRAW and UNIFEM), which focused exclusively on gender equality and women's empowerment.

Diversity and inclusion:

At UN Women, we are committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment of mutual respect. UN Women recruits, employs, trains, compensates, and promotes regardless of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, ability, national origin, or any other basis covered by appropriate law. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, competence, integrity and organizational need.

If you need any reasonable accommodation to support your participation in the recruitment and selection process, please include this information in your application.

UN Women has a zero-tolerance policy on conduct that is incompatible with the aims and objectives of the United Nations and UN Women, including sexual exploitation and abuse, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and discrimination. All selected candidates will be expected to adhere to UN Women’s policies and procedures and the standards of conduct expected of UN Women personnel and will therefore undergo rigorous reference and background checks. (Background checks will include the verification of academic credential(s) and employment history. Selected candidates may be required to provide additional information to conduct a background check.)

Note: Applicants must ensure that all sections of the application form, including the sections on education and employment history, are completed. If all sections are not completed the application may be disqualified from the recruitment and selection process.