Senior Program Finance Manager

Helen Keller Intl

JOB ANNOUNCEMENT

Senior Program Finance Manager

Flexible location in Africa where Helen Keller can support employment Guided by the remarkable legacy of its co-founder, Helen Keller, Helen Keller Intl partners with communities striving to overcome longstanding cycles of poverty. By delivering the essential building blocks of good health, sound nutrition and clear vision, we help millions of people create lasting change in their own lives. Working in more than 20 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and the United States and together with a global community of supporters, we are ensuring every person has the opportunity as Helen did to reach their true potential.

Helen Keller is seeking a Senior Program Finance & Budget Manager to provide expertise and hands on support in all areas of program and organizational budget planning, monitoring, analyzing, reporting and forecasting for an assigned portfolio of

country offices and multi-country programs. The position will support the leaders of their portfolio to integrate dynamic financial planning and analysis and budgetary processes into their routine program management.

Since Helen Keller works in several francophone countries in Africa, strong verbal communication skills in French are strongly preferred.

Functional Relationships

Reporting to the Director, Program Finance, this position is a key member of the Program & Finance unit of our Finance department. The position provides guidance to senior staff in country office and multi-country program teams, liaising with members of Country Management and Program Management Teams, including Country Directors, Program Directors, Finance leads, Project Managers, Regional Directors, etc. to facilitate the integration between finance and program work with the common goal of ensuring that project objectives are met. This position may liaise with donors, representing Helen Keller at donor and project partner meetings on an as needed basis.

Helen Keller has a matrixed reporting structure. Regular communication and a spirit of teamwork among colleagues, both hierarchically and laterally are essential to make this structure thrive. The Senior Manager will develop and maintain fruitful, collaborative relationships with staff at all levels and locations within the organization. They will serve as a liaison to other subject matter experts, such as Accounting, Budget Analysts, Grants and Contracts, and Procurement.

Specific Responsibilities

Overall Management and Leadership

• Lead a collaborative effort with leaders of assigned portfolio to ensure high-quality financial planning, management, reporting and auditing of all programs, including thorough budget preparation and oversight.
• As a member of the global Finance department:
• Identify operational challenges and/or any concerns about non-compliance that affect the integrity of resource management and bring them to the attention of senior management;
• Participate in international work groups assigned to develop global policies and/or optimize systems and procedures;
• Make proposals for best practices in financial operations; and
• Participate in the recruitment process of other staff as requested.
• Model collaboration for your matrixed colleagues: effectively consult and inform colleagues to maximize efficiency and knowledge sharing and integrate guidance and direction from subject matter experts in your office and elsewhere in the global organization to maximize performance.
• Consult with and guide staff to achieve goals and ensure accountability to beneficiaries, partners, colleagues, and donors by providing ongoing feedback in a context of mutual respect.

Budget and Grants Management & Analysis

• Maintain a complete financial knowledge of the assigned portfolio of awards / country offices.
• Support and guide finance leads for assigned portfolio to:

1. Analyze accruals, forecasts and other financial deliverables for awards.
2. Review and analyze monthly project expenditures, fund execution rates, and donor funds received, and provide appropriate information to the Program Manager and relevant country office colleagues on a monthly basis.
3. Ensure the relevant accounting team is notified of any incorrect expenses/charges and follow up on any necessary reclassifications.
4. Conduct monthly monitoring of project implementation rates and share variance analysis reports with the budget stakeholders.
5. Monitor budget spending and burn rates with a primary focus of ensuring proper project spending and reasonableness around shared costs, but also to prevent last minute cost- extensions, no-costs extensions, and/or budget realignments.
6. Prepare monthly budget estimates that can easily be used for donor budget updates and rolled into our annual and mid-year budgets.
7. Prepare, maintain, and monitor Salary/LOE (Level of Effort) report and tracker for global staff to monitor budget against spending at both the Project and Employee level.
8. Prepare timely and accurate donor invoices, internal and external financial reports, such as budget vs. actuals, donor reports and other financial deliverables for awards.
9. Review budgets and budget amendments as assigned ensuring they conform with the work plan; cover the personnel and operating costs; reflect the narrative and are reviewed for accuracy, reasonableness and compliance with donor and Helen Keller regulations.
10. Represent budgets and other financial information correctly in financial and project management systems and maintain hard and electronic files for each project.
11. Prepare budget narratives for grant proposal budgets, as requested.
12. Review work plan budgets to determine how they impact the monthly projected burn rates.
13. Review cost proposals for completeness, accuracy and reasonableness.
14. Review and analyze impact of cost extensions, no-cost extensions, and other budget realignments.
15. Prepare forecasts, as well as reforecasts.
16. Prepare accurate annual and mid-year budgets that fully reflect the award portfolio that are ready to be consolidated into the organization-wide budget.
17. Troubleshoot matters arising and escalate to senior leaders with proposed solutions.
18. Advise Country Directors, Program Directors, and/or Regional Directors, and supervisor of unusual budget variances or problems and recommend corrective action.
19. (May do these tasks directly for gap-fills and/or multi-country programs who do not have an assigned finance lead.)

• Collaborate with country and central program teams to effectively analyze:

1. variations in expenditures between similar activities across countries and project phases;
2. optimal Human Resources structures and budgeting;
3. possible standardization of costing per “ingredient” needed for each activity; and
4. effective ratios between subawards and direct activities.

Training and Site Visits

• Act as expert-user to guide and support colleagues in use of templates, reporting software, etc.
• Provide expertise, advice, and training to colleagues to build their understanding of financial terms, conditions, and standards to ensure that programs are delivered with minimized compliance risk; and work collaboratively with global management colleagues to train and build skills and knowledge across the organization.
• May travel to train and support colleagues, monitor financial management, and conduct site visits to project locations and sub-recipient offices.

Competencies

• Demonstrated knowledge of and experience in financial analysis, grants management and budgeting; General understanding of or willingness to learn generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
• Successful track record budgeting for wide range of competitive public and private solicitations, including demonstrated ability to ensure budgets and budget narratives are effectively and comprehensively tied to the donor requirements and project design.
• Analytical and conceptual skills, as well as the curiosity and learning agility necessary to be successful in a growing organization with evolving financial and operating systems.
• Demonstrated high-level proficiency in the use of various financial related software (spreadsheets, accounting packages).
• Proven knowledge of USAID (including both assistance & acquisition solicitations), GAC, FCDO, UN agencies, World Bank and others. Experience interpreting and applying donor rules and regulations in order to ensure that all cost applications meet donor requirements.
• Experience with USAID grants and cooperative agreements and various contract types including fixed price, cost reimbursement, time & material and Federal Acquisition Regulations and Cost Accounting Standards strongly preferred.
• Interest in international development and public health programs as well as an understanding of the synergy between the programmatic, operational, and financial components in project design and implementation.
• Ability to negotiate/support negotiations effectively with donors, troubleshoot issues, and take proactive approaches to improving financial and budget management processes.
• Evidence of strong analytical skills, time management, organizational and customer service skills.
• Proven ability to create and maintain effective systems for managing information, and tools for making information accessible and understandable to a broad audience.
• Ability and maturity to work with personal confidential information responsibly and objectively.
• Experience in providing financial training to Finance and non-Finance staff is highly desirable.
• Experience managing staff and mentoring colleagues strongly preferred.
• Strong interpersonal, and written and oral English language communications skills including ability to:

1. write business correspondence, internal memos, routine reports, and document procedures;
2. communicate complex information in a clear and consistent manner; and
3. build collaborative relationships with employees from diverse backgrounds at all levels.

• Ability to communicate verbally in French a strong plus.
• Collaborative, flexible, and solution-oriented. Ability to maintain balance when under stress.
• Adaptable to a changing work environment scaling for growth; Ability to make recommendations for process improvement in a growing organization.
• Ability and willingness to:

1. flex work hours to accommodate multiple time zones; and
2. travel to country offices (up to 10% travel).

• Demonstrable respect for all persons, regardless of religion, ethnicity, class or gender with a high comfort level working in a diverse environment with a commitment to high professional, ethical standards.
• Personal commitment to Helen Keller Intl’s mission and goals and the values embodied by our namesake and co-founder: courage, integrity, rigor, and compassion.

Qualifications

• Master’s Degree in business administration, public administration, finance, accounting, or related field with 8-10 years directly related prior work experience including at least five years managing complex portfolios preferably for a UN agency or international NGO; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

NOTE: We require all staff who travel internationally to be fully vaccinated.

To Apply

Qualified candidates should submit a cover letter and resume to HKI.Recruitment@hki.org noting the job title in the subject line. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

In the spirit of our founder and namesake, Helen Keller is dedicated to building an inclusive workforce where diversity in all its forms is fully valued.

Helen Keller is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, disability, veteran status or any other protected characteristic.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If you

are a qualified individual with a disability and need to request accommodation during the application or interview process, please contact us at the email above or call +1 646-356-1789.