Forward Deployed Investor

Job description

About 9fin 9fin is the AI platform powering global debt markets — the world’s largest asset class at over $145 trillion. Debt markets are vast, global, and mission-critical, yet still run on fragmented data, PDFs, and manual workflows. 9fin replaces this broken infrastructure with a single platform that centralises proprietary credit data, deep analysis, and high-value workflows across global markets. Today, 9fin powers teams at 300+ blue-chip institutions worldwide, including global banks, asset managers, private equity firms, law firms, and advisors. The business is scaling at exceptional speed, with rapid expansion in the US and best-in-class retention driven by deep workflow adoption. We’re at a defining inflection point. With proven product-market fit and strong, global market pull, 9fin is accelerating toward becoming the category-defining platform for debt markets worldwide. THE ROLE 9fin's buy-side clients are the capital behind the credit markets. Credit funds, CLO managers, private credit platforms, and distressed investors run research, underwriting, portfolio monitoring, and relative value workflows that are deep and specialised. They are actively excited about what AI can unlock. Our job is to make that potential real inside their investment teams. The Forward Deployed Investor is the person who does it. You are a domain expert who has done the work yourself, and you can credibly sit across the table from a portfolio manager, a private credit underwriter, or a distressed analyst and say: "Here is how this changes the way you invest." You will work with 9fin's most strategic buy-side clients, drive deep adoption of our existing AI capabilities across the investment process, and become a critical voice in shaping what we build next. Every client engagement is a source of product intelligence. The insights you bring back from the front line will directly influence 9fin's AI product roadmap and sharpen how we win the next generation of buy-side accounts. WHAT YOU WILL DO - Map investment workflows and find the highest-value insertion points. Embed with client teams to document how sourcing, screening, underwriting, credit committee preparation, portfolio monitoring, and relative value work actually gets done end-to-end. Identify the three to five places where 9fin's AI can materially change the workflow. Co-author adoption success criteria with the client, tied to their investment outcomes. - Build 9fin's AI into those workflows. Take the identified insertion points and build them out using 9fin's toolkit: in-platform capabilities, MCP integrations, agents, and future capabilities as they ship. Weighted by workflow depth, not count. Iterate based on real usage behaviour, not intended usage. - Drive adoption at your served accounts. Onboard named users across investment, research, and risk. Run enablement sessions with power users, identify and support champions inside the client. Monitor active usage and address dormant seats before they become churn signals. Review adoption monthly with client champions and quarterly with the CIO, head of research, or equivalent sponsor. - Feed the field back into 9fin. Every deployment produces structured intelligence, fed to two consumers. First, product and engineering: prioritised requests tied to specific account and workflow context, patterns extracted across deployments. Second, the wider GTM cycle: case studies, demo assets, workflow evidence, and competitive intelligence that sharpen the next GTM cycle. - Spot expansion. Identify opportunities inside served accounts for new users, new use cases, new departments, or new products. Document with context and hand to Account Management for commercial follow-up. WHAT YOU BRING You are a subject matter expert with 3+ years of practitioner experience at an asset manager, credit fund, or insurer, with fluency across end-to-end investment workflows in your area, not just the data those workflows consume. Specifically, in one or more of the following: - Credit portfolio management and research. High yield, leveraged loan, or multi-strategy credit investing, covering screening, underwriting, credit committee process, and ongoing portfolio monitoring - Private credit and direct lending. Origination, underwriting, documentation review, or portfolio monitoring at a private credit or direct lending platform - CLO investing. CLO management, warehouse and portfolio construction, or CLO debt and equity tranche investing - Distressed and special situations. Stressed and distressed credit analysis, restructuring and process tracking, documentation and covenant analysis, or capital structure work - Buy-side transformation, data, or research technology functions. Investment data, quantitative or systematic credit research, chief data office, digital transformation, or AI strategy roles where you have led or contributed to AI and workflow transformation projects specifically in credit investing Beyond your domain expertise, you are: - Demonstrably interested in technology applied to your domain. For example: participation in an internal AI, data, or research technology working group; external vendor champion or evaluation lead for domain tech. You may have already moved to a technology company focused on credit markets. - Familiar with and hands-on with modern domain tooling. Direct user experience of Rogo, Hebbia, AlphaSense, Octus, or comparable AI-native platforms in your workflow. You can speak from experience about what works, what doesn't, and why. - Comfortable operating inside confidential investment processes. You will sit close to live pipelines, positions, and internal research. You are disciplined about what does and does not travel between accounts, and clients trust you quickly because of it. - A strong communicator across styles and audiences. Extremely comfortable with the analysts who will be the day-to-day platform users. Highly credible with portfolio managers, heads of research, and CIOs. Strong writing and in-person skills. Able to flex style for technical and business audiences. - Highly collaborative across a broad internal network. The function operates in close partnership with GTM, Product, Engineering, and other 9fin teams. You are energised by cross-functional work, you bring people with you rather than working around them, and you know how to translate what you are learning in the field into inputs that other teams can act on. - Outcome-oriented. You measure success by whether clients are actually using the platform differently, not by how many meetings you held or decks you delivered. WHY JOIN 9FIN - Category leadership. 9fin is the reference platform for debt capital markets data and AI. Buy-side clients use us because there is no comparable alternative. - A genuine domain-expert role. You bring credit investing expertise; we back you with the platform, the product team, and the mandate to make it real inside client organisations. - Direct influence on the product. Field intelligence from your deployments feeds the product roadmap. What you learn on the ground shapes what 9fin builds next. - Series C stage, growing fast. Small enough that your work is visible, large enough to have the platform and customer base ready for real deployment. OUR BENEFITS We’re a scaling start up, and we enjoy sharing our success, when the company succeeds, we always reinvest that in our people. We also offer huge amounts of responsibility, an abundance of opportunity for growth and a platform to truly excel. Financial & Insurance - Competitive Salary - Equity options - Pension (your minimum contributions are 4% with 9fin matching up to 7%) - Private Medical Insurance - Paid sick leave with Income Protection for long periods of illness - Group Life Assurance - Season Ticket Loan & Cycle to Work schemes Time off - 25 holiday days per year - Local public holidays (with the ability to exchange them for alternative days) - Hybrid working model, to allow you the flexibility to decide how, where and when you do your best work - Work abroad for up to 3 months a year - 1 month paid sabbatical after 5 years of service - Enhanced parental leave & flexible working arrangements available Training & Culture - Professional learning and development budget - Bi-annual team socials - Summer and Winter company social events 9fin is an equal opportunities employer At 9fin we are dedicated to building and promoting a fair and inclusive workplace where everyone can reach their full potential and truly belong. We recognize that building diverse teams enables a more creative and productive environment. If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t perfectly align with the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You might just be who we’re looking for — either for this role, or perhaps another.