Somalia: COUNTRY OFFICE FINANCE DIRECTOR

1.BACKGROUND

CARE is a global leader within a worldwide movement dedicated to ending poverty. We seek a world of hope, tolerance and social justice where poverty has been overcome and all people live with dignity and security, we put women and girls in the center because we know that we cannot overcome poverty until all people have equal rights and opportunities. CARE Somalia is an International NGO working in Somalia. CARE Somalia and its partners work with vulnerable communities to address the underlying causes of poverty, promote peace and development, through its strategic goal to reduce poverty by empowering women, enhancing access to resources and services and improving governance.

2.JOB SUMMARY

The primary function of the Country Office (CO) Finance Director is to develop, manage and administer the CO plans for proper recording, documentation, control, monitoring and reporting of financial operations in compliance with CARE and donor rules & regulations. S/He provides oversight of the day-to-day financial operations at the CO level and is accountable for organizing and providing high level quality financial services to CO programs, projects and units staff. S/He works closely with the Shared Services Centre (SSC) and Regional Management Unit (RMU) and CO senior management to ensure appropriate financial support and resources are available. S/He ensures a partnership is developed and nurtured between Finance, Program and other program support units in the CO.

The CO Finance Director profile includes: very strong accounting and financial management knowledge, analytical skills, attention to detail, ability to work effectively under time pressure, very strong business partnering skills with ability to influence CO senior staff, team player, proactive individual with ability to offer structured guidance, ability to ensure that the right priorities are set for the CO finance team, proven experience in training finance and non-finance staff, proficiency in English.

The CO Finance Director position has direct reporting line to the Country Director with dotted lines to SSC (Finance and Accounting Director or designee) and RMU (Regional Program Support Director). S/He is an integral member of the CO Senior Management Team.

As a member of the CO leadership, the Finance Director supports the overall performance of the Country Office and delivery of its strategy, as well as ensuring that the CO meets the executive team’s key performance indicator and respective dashboard targets. The Finance Director also plays a pivotal role in mitigating financial and overall risk of the CO, and in ensuring liabilities are minimized and addressed in a timely manner, as well as strengthening the capacity and competitiveness of the CO to raise funds.

JOB RESPONSIBILITY #1 - (35% TIME ALLOCATION)

Financial System Operations Management and Country Office Data Processing

The CO Finance Director plays a crucial coordination and management role in financial system operations to ensure the system is functioning properly and is being effectively used by CO staff. S/He provides day-to-day oversight of CO financial operations and ensures efficient process flows and controls over finance and accounting functions are adequate. S/He ensures financial data are processed in the system accurately and reported to donors, management and other partners timely. Specific roles and responsibilities include:

• PeopleSoft operations, workflows, roles and user management: ensures CO users are setup in the system and trained appropriately; ensures workflows are developed and implemented adequately in the CO system; ensures budget holders and other users are trained properly in their roles; ensures policies, procedures, user manuals and other quick reference guides are available to CO staff and disseminated; ensures the maintenance and management of PeopleSoft chart fields (e.g. fund code and project ID requests, activity ID, category ID, etc.) and other tables (vendor files, cost allocation tables, users table, etc.) are performed timely and satisfactorily; documents system issues experienced by users and escalate to SSC appropriately;
• Accounts Payable, Treasury and Cash functions: Determines CO short and long terms cash needs and coordinates cash requests and approvals, including the submission of cash flow projections; ensures vendors are paid and account receivables are collected timely; ensures staffs receive proper training and are effectively using the cash related modules (e.g. Account Payable, Cash Management).
• General Ledger, Accounts Receivable and other modules: Ensures journal entries (e.g. payroll, allocation, etc.) are processed timely and accurately, cash receipts are recorded properly, and all modules (e.g. procurement, asset management, etc.) are used by CO staff adequately.
• Data processing and period closing functions: accountable for ensuring that the period closing processes defined for Business Units (BUs) are performed timely and adequately; accountable for the preparation and submission of complete, reliable and timely financial reports to CO managers and donors, local entities and other partners as relevant; ensures that reports prepared by SSC (e.g. USG awards) are completed and submitted timely; supervises the quality and integrity of financial data and supporting documentation and ensures completeness of data recorded in the system. This includes but not limited to the following transactions: a) Accounts Payable vouchers --e.g. cash disbursements, settlement of cash advances--; b) General Ledger journal entries --e.g. payroll allocation, adjustments, accruals--.; c) Cash Management module --e.g. cash transfer processing and dispatching--.; d) Asset Management entries --e.g. depreciation entries--; e) Account Receivables --e.g. donor receipts; f) Budgeting and Forecasting --e.g. budget data created in People soft through the budget upload templates or other budgeting tools.
• Budgeting and Forecasting functions: ensures all budgets (e.g. project proposal, annual operating budgets, etc.) are prepared in budgeting tools in use by the organization; coordinates and supervises the preparation of CO forecasts and future years budgets; leads the preparation of the CO shared program cost (SPC) budgets and implements CARE policy and guidelines related to fair sharing of support costs; supervises the monitoring of actual expenses against budgets and ensure partnership between CO finance staff and budget holders and all managers who make budget decisions in the CO to ensure costs expenses are managed properly within the approved budgets.

JOB RESPONSIBILITY #2 - (20% TIME ALLOCATION)

Staff Management and Development, Talent Management and CapacityBuilding

The CO Finance Director is responsible for finance staff and talent management and development as well as capacity building in financial management for finance and non-finance staff in the country office. Major roles and responsibilities include:

• Assesses training and development needs of finance and non-finance staff within the CO;
• Identifies gap in skills, develops training materials and provides training in accounting and financial management as needed;
• Participates in the elaboration and leading in the implementation of the CO’s Annual Performance Assessment policy and processes to include the preparation and monitoring of Individual Operating Plan (IOPs) for finance staff;
• Leads the hiring and firing of CO finance staff in close coordination with the CD & HR;
• Ensures succession plans are developed and implemented for finance staff in a way that assures CO staffs receive high quality support services at all times;
• Works with the CO human resources unit as well as SSC and RMU to develop and manage talent in the CO finance unit.

JOB RESPONSIBILITY #3 - (15% TIME ALLOCATION)

Quality review and analysis of financial reports to support management decision making in the CO -

· Performs quality reviews and analysis of CO books as well as any financial performance reports and provides feedback to CO management to improve financial management. The reviews and analyses include but are not limited to: bank reconciliation; balance sheet; income statement; grants/contracts reports; unrestricted and private contributions reports; actual expenses vs. budget; shared program costs and cost recovery; payroll allocation and timesheets; etc.

· Takes appropriate actions to address all issues noted (e.g. collect receivables; prevent overspending, match funding, etc.).

· Accountable for the overall quality of the CO financial reports and communications of issues to CO management, RMU and SSC.

JOB RESPONSIBILITY #4 - (15% TIME ALLOCATION)

Compliance and Control functions:

• Controllership and Accounting functions: ensures CO compliance with CARE’s accounting policy and procedures and generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP); ensures CO accounting systems and procedures comply with CARE's global policy and procedures; protects the organization assets through internal controls; ensures the CO payroll and other non-PeopleSoft systems provide adequate controls; reviews all leases and other contracts that require current and future use of the organization's assets and make any relevant recommendations to the CD;
• Compliance and Audit support functions: ensures CO compliance with donor rules and regulations; ensures CO preparedness for annual financial and donor audits; facilitates internal and external audits conducted in the CO; assists the CD in preparing CO responses to audit findings as well as planning and implementing audit recommendations.

JOB RESPONSIBILITY #5 - (15% TIME ALLOCATION)

General Country Office oversight and leadership

Supports the overall performance of the country office and delivery of its strategy, as well as ensuring that the CO meets the executive team’s key performance indicators and respective dashboard targets. The Finance Director also plays a pivotal role in analyzing mitigating financial and overall risk of the Country Office and ensuring liabilities are minimized and addressed in a timely manner. The Finance Director proactively develop tools and approaches that support overall decision making regarding the Country Office’s operational model, its viability and return on investments with respect to staffing and structure.

The Finance Director proactively ensures that the finance department is integrated throughout the programming cycle from design to completion and evaluations. Finance Director plays a key role in supporting proposal development and donor engagement by strengthening the capacity and expertise of the CO, and its competitiveness to successfully win and implement a variety of grant and contract mechanisms. The Finance Director provides leadership and technical advice in supporting programs conceptualize and develop business models for financial inclusion, agricultural and natural resource value chains and market systems, M4P approaches, and private sector and entrepreneurship activities.

PROBLEM SOLVING

It is expected that the CO Finance Director will have the ability to apply problem solving skills in an exceptionally difficult situations and serve as a key resource and advisor to other team members within the organization.

QULAIFICATIONS

Education

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance or Business Management or equivalent

Desired

• Master's degree in Business Administration or Accounting.

Experience

Required

• Seven (7) to ten (10) years as Finance Controller or Finance Manager in country office environment;
• Ten (10) years’ experience in not-for-profit financial, budgeting, accounting, financial reporting, grants / contract management and business management in developing countries;
• Thorough knowledge of financial and accounting practices and procedures.

Interested candidates who meet the criteria above are encouraged to send their application letters and detailed CV to SOMRecruitment@care.org by Friday 3^rd August 2018. Kindly indicate the position title on the subject line when applying. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

CARE is an equal opportunity employer promoting gender, equity and diversity. Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. Our selection process reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.