Manager, Finance and Operations, Food, Land & Water Program at World Resources Institute (WRI) Jobs In Kenya
Job Highlight:
Reporting to the Director of Finance and Operations, WRI Africa and the Director of Food, Land & Water WRI Africa (FLW), you will manage a range of business functions, including oversight of program budgets, financial information, and sub-agreement processes for the various projects under WRI’s Africa’s FLW. You will also prepare financial forecasts and assess financial risks for WRI Africa Senior Management to enable better decision-making and programmatic coordination. You will work with the FLW team’s project managers and WRI’s Accounting, Finance, and Grants & Contracts departments both in Africa and WRI’s Global office. You will be part of a growing team of operational professionals within WRI Africa and be responsible for the operations of the projects within the pillar.
What will you do:
Financial Management (60%):
- Oversee management of budgets for WRI Africa’s FLW program, starting with an initial focus on the Restore Local program, which is approaching $30 million dollars annually.
- Create and maintain a range of financial forecasts that model various revenue, labor, staffing and expenditure profiles, updating these on a quarterly basis to inform responsible hiring, attrition, funding cliffs and fundraising needs.
- Prepare financial reports for both finance and finance staff, financial forecast, analysis and dashboards.
- Participate in quarterly review meetings with members of the Executive and Grants & Finance teams in Africa and Global Office to present outlook and answer questions on variances.
- Lead quarterly meetings with Vital Landscapes project managers, country project leads and Grants and Finance Specialists to review finances, deliverables, and update forecasts
- Oversee a team of Grants and Finance Specialists (GFSs) within WRI Africa as they work to maintain budgets, manage grants and sub-agreements, providing guidance, leadership and support as needed
- Ensure compliance with WRI Africa’s accounting, grants and contracts policies, and procedures for organizational audit clearance
- Oversee preparation of annual and interim financial reports to funders as needed, including providing guidance to GFSs and resolving issues on more complicated financial reports.
- Work with the Director of FLW to prepare and negotiate budgets with a wide range of funders.
Program Operations (40%):
- Provide leadership to the program operations ensuring that there is the right operational framework to support delivery of the impact.
- Directly supervise Vital Landscapes Grants & Finance Specialists, providing guidance on policies and processes
- Work with Vital Landscapes managers to ensure consistency in quality of performance, upskilling and managing capacity, time and budgets
- Lead on compliance issues for the Vital Landscapes team, ensuring staff understand and adhere to the rules of the various funding agreements.
- Manage progress of spending against deliverables and work with project managers to proactively determine when grant amendments and extensions may be needed
- Guide Operation and Grants and Finance staff on grant closeout processes, ensuring adherence to WRI’s policies and procedures
- Prepare proposal budgets as needed and ensure all WRI Africa funding policies and requirements are followed
- Review core business processes of WRI Africa’s operations team (e.g., contract initiation) for efficiency and suggested improvements where needed
- In consultation with HR, provide mentorship and performance management support, guiding junior and mid-level operational staff within Vital Landscapes as they seek to develop their careers
What will you need:
- Education: You have completed a bachelor’s degree in business management, finance, public administration or related field.
- Experience: You have minimum of 8 years full-time work experience in financial management and operations, preferably in a non-profit setting.
- Experience in program operations, grant compliance and management, financial planning and management, budgeting, and leadership of complex large grants, sub-grants and contracts
- Experience with complex budgets and budget negotiation with different funders
- Experience preparing finance reports, financial forecast, analysis and dashboards
- Experience managing multiple complex projects with varying deadlines
- Experience communicating complex issues to partners and colleagues
- Experience working independently and providing supervision and mentorship to colleagues
- Experience working in an international organization with multiple offices a major plus
- Advanced budget, financial planning and analysis skills
- Familiarity with database software and management (such as Salesforce, Concur, Cognos, TM1, etc.)
- Advanced excel skills
- Languages: Verbal and written English proficiency required. Fluency in French is a bonus.
- Requirements: Existing work authorization is required where this position. WRI is unable to authorize visa work authorization