Head of Finance & Operations at Street Child

Street Child is a UK charity working to protect vulnerable children and improve access to education in some of the poorest communities in the world.  We work in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nepal and since November 2016, Street Child has been involved in the Humanitarian response in North East Nigeria.

Street Child works in the fields of education, child protection and livelihoods, working to deliver sustainable solutions and create maximum impact. Our work combines counselling, family mediation, business support, school building, teacher training and child protection.  We were a key player in the Ebola crisis and led the global response for children orphaned by Ebola in Sierra Leone and Liberia. We deliver all our programmes through local partners and, since 2008, together we have built/renovated over 200 schools and are now helping to educate over 40,000 young people.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Head of Finance & Operations

Location: Maiduguri, Borno (with frequent travel within Nigeria)
Employment Type: 24-month fixed term contract, Full Time
Reporting to: Country Director
Responsible for Finance Staff: Procurement and Logistic staff; HR and admin staff

Background

• Street Child believes every child deserves to go to school and learn. Our projects focus on education, child protection, and livelihood support to address the social, economic, and structural issues underpinning today’s education crisis.
• We partner with local organizations and communities to deliver our locally rooted programs.
• We use evidence to drive learning and the refinement and scale-up of programs to create maximum impact for most children at the lowest cost.
• We pride ourselves on being willing to go to the world’s most challenging places where others won’t, including remote, hard-to-reach areas and fragile, disaster-affected states across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Role Purpose

• To develop, manage and implement financial, and administrative processes and policies of the Street Child of Nigeria programme to ensure that they are relevant and functioning efficiently and effectively, compliant with Street Child International financial system, policies and procedures, donor requirements and national legislation.
• To monitor and proactively detect risks and opportunities and bring these to the attention of management and to ensure that administrative and financial service support to the programme is adequate and timely.
• To build the functional finance and administration team's capacity and ensure the team has appropriate skills to perform tasks assigned to required standards and oversee procurement functions to ensure compliance and efficiency.

Key Responsibilities
Finance:
Treasury

• Supervise the Street Child of Nigeria programme’s banking arrangements to ensure adequate liaisoning with principal bankers and minimize the programme’s exposure to currency gains and losses
• Approve monthly bank and cash reconciliations and take appropriate timely follow-up actions on outstanding issues
• Verify cash flow forecasts requests to be submitted to Headquarters and donors.
• Liaise with donors dealing directly with the Nigeria programme to ensure timely receipt of funds

Management Accounting

• Lead and guide the timely preparation of the Nigeria programme’s financial reviews, budgets, BVAs and explanations of major under/overspends to be submitted to the management team.
• Collaborate with the programme staff and global teams in budget proposal preparation
• Supervise the preparation of monthly, quarterly, annual and other regular reports and provide necessary explanations.
• Train programme and finance staff to prepare budgets in donor formats
• Perform quality control on all new budget proposals and provide adequate budget to cover programme support costs.
• Circulate and discuss with budget holders, monthly management reports and their implications.
• Monitor actual expense against budget and prompt programme staff to draw up timely contingency plans for potential budget over and under spends

Financial Management:

• Support the Country and Regional Representatives in providing relevant information and reports to Headquarters.
• Effectively manage all internal, external and donor compliance obligations
• Guide and participate in strategic planning for Finance and Administration Department and programme staff
• Establish and maintain effective financial and accounting policies, procedures and systems for the office in compliance with Street Child International, Revenue Authority and donor requirements. These should be documented in the Financial Manual and updated when necessary
• Produce year end statutory accounts and manage the external audit process
• Ensure prompt filing of annual accounts, tax returns and all other statutory reports
• Supervise and ensure all transactions are processed and recorded in Accounting System in line with financial policies, statutory and donor regulations
• Generate, review, and approve all finance and administration departments reports
• Approve payments to vendors, local authorities, payroll, and other parties and ensure proper coding to reflect correct expenditure is charged to appropriate projects and line items
• Oversee the close of financial periods in the reporting systems
• During partner visits, assess the adequacy of services provided by finance and administration to partner offices and follow-up on financial, grant/contract management, internal controls and other programme support needs identified.
• Liaise and communicate with global teams and donors to maintain their confidence and clarify any issues
• Ensure confidentiality and security of financial information is maintained in line with document archiving policy. This will include ensuring that adequate backup arrangements exist for all the organisation’s data
• Liaise with internal and external auditors, promptly acting on management reports and recommendations and ensuring annual returns are submitted on time
• Ensure budget holders receive appropriate financial training and information to allow them to effectively manage their budgets, to give financial and administrative training to staff as required, and to provide financial support, advice, and training for the development of effective financial systems among partner organisations to ensure that grants managed by SCoN are used effectively and for the purposes given
• Ensure that appropriate procurement policies and procedures are followed and an asset register for the programme is maintained, and all assets are adequately insured against all risks

Procurement and Logistics:

• Create and implement a procurement strategy, policy and plan aligned to global and country procurement priorities with the aim of delivering value for money to our donors, quality goods and services to our programmes and projects
• Oversee the review and implementation of Street Childs Procurement policy and associated procurement procedures, ensuring that these comply with good practice and with the requirements of our donors. This will include identifying roles and responsibilities for sourcing categories of goods and services; updating these as necessary; ensuring they reflect best practices for the INGO sector; and ensuring compliance
• Oversee Street Child of Nigeria major procurements, supporting the staff directly involved and participating in tender panels as necessary
• Drive the process of improving, streamlining, and standardising procurement systems, tools and practices, in close collaboration with colleagues

Human Resources:

• To oversee HR functions and ensure compliance with local labour laws and other statutory requirements with regard to tax, pension, insurance, medical, workman’s compensation, recruitment, induction and exit record.
• Liaise with Global HR managers

Administration:

• Be responsible for asset management in accordance with donor Guidelines. The day-to-day tasks of asset management can be delegated.
• Representing at co-ordination meetings.
• Responsible for monitoring national and international staff security matters and advising the Country Representative of security issues.
• Be responsible for ensuring that SCoN fulfils its legal requirements for registration, including legal documents for managing the office and statutory audit
• Responsible for the logistical support for the organisation of events held by SCoN, usually through delegation to logistics team members

Other:

• Attend management meetings on behalf of the Finance, Procurement/logistics, HR and Administration Team
• Work closely with other members of the Management Team in taking overall responsibility for the activities and performance of the Nigeria programme, including acting as Country Representative for short periods as and when necessary.

Relations with Others:

• Reports and is accountable to Country Director, close working relationship with the other Programme staffs, close liaison with global Finance, HR, donors, affiliates and partners.

Qualifications and Experience
Attributes / Essential / Beneficial:
Experience and Knowledge:

• Educated to Degree or higher in Business Administration, Accounting or related field with at least 8 years of experience (4-5 of which is in senior operation leadership and management role).
• Ability to work independently and make rational, strategic and routine decisions.
• Good understanding of the Nigerian humanitarian operating environment
• Knowledge of statutory requirements of the country
• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in an international NGO with a multi- cultural setting
• Demonstrable experience of sub-contracting to partners and service provider contracts
• Building partnerships
• Decisive and innovative in cost control avenues.

Skills and Abilities:

• Strong analytical skills, with experience in developing and utilising monitoring and evaluation frameworks.
• Excellent IT skills (use of Microsoft Office, statistical and financial software, and preferably good knowledge of SUN system and VISION
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to build relationships and influence stakeholders.
• Commitment to Street Child's mission and values, with a passion for empowering vulnerable communities and promoting local ownership of programmes.
• Fluency in English (both written and spoken) is required; knowledge of relevant local languages is an asset.
• Excellent people management skills
• A self-starter with a strong results orientation and with high levels of integrity, credibility, and dependability.
• Ability to work in international settings and with various departments to implement successful programmes.
• Committed to and familiar with safeguarding approaches including anti-sexual harassment, exploitation, and abuse.

Planning and organisation skills:

• Outstanding leadership and team building skills.

Other:

• Position open for national and international staff.

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note: Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and early application is encouraged.