Deputy Chief of Party- Finance, Contract and Administration at Abt Associates

Key Roles and Responsibilities

•  Works with the Chief of Party to liaise with USAID on finance, contract, and administrative issues.
•  Serve as the project’s contact with the client on finance and administrative issues, participating in discussions on contract issues and actions, and following up on client requests and concerns.
•  Manages the financial operations and reporting activities and provide guidance and technical assistance to project site teams.
•  Creates and maintains financial reporting and tracking systems that provide basic data measurements on financial performance of project activities.
•  Develop and/ recommend cost cutting and compliant strategies to implement the project with less resources
•  Oversees development, management and monitoring project budgets and annual workplans; ensure project procurements are included in approved workplan and do not exceed approved annual budget.
•  Ensure that the project operations are in compliance with all USAID and Abt policies and procedures.
•  Ensure that contractual and internal approval requirements (e.g., waivers, approval memos) are met, and prepare justifications supporting these actions in coordination with project leadership and business support groups
•  Conducts regular trainings to build the capacity of technical and adminitration personnel on different topics including compliance, travel, budgeting, forecasting and procurement.
•  Provide ongoing financial administration to the project, including the processing of approvals for procurements, consultant agreements, and vendor invoices.
•  Monitor integrity of site office procurements through spot checks and attendance at evaluation committee meetings for higher value or complex procurements.
•  Enforce competition of services or goods instead of sole source whenever feasible.
•  Ensure vouchers include proper documentation and approvals prior to site office payment.
•  Oversee the timely submission of the monthly field expenses (ROV) to the headquarters office.
•  Serve as the project’s contact with the client on finance and administrative issues, participating in discussions on contract issues and actions, and following up on client requests and concerns.
•  Support the development, execution, and management of subcontractor and consultant agreements.
•  Develop and implement systems to streamline financial practices and procedures to mitigate risk of fraud
•  Inform and keep home office backstop team updated on all contractual, financial and legal issues affecting the project
•  Perform random audits of inventory to make sure inventory reports prepared by operations team are always accurate and up to date.
•  Serve as primary project liaison with Abt’s Human Resources Department on personnel issues, and support other staff as needed in recruitment and onboarding of staff, employee benefits tracking and administration, and assist in preparing consent requests for salary increases with home office project management staff. Oversees the hiring and termination processes for staff, working in collaboration with HR and the COP.
•  Directly supervises the finance, IT and procurement managers
•  Manages and directs the startup, general operations, and closeout of the program.

Preferred Qualifications

•  Masters Degree (minimum), in Business , Administration, or other relevant field.
•  At least 10-12 years of professional experience managing financial, procurement and contractual aspects of large international development projects, preferably USAID-funded projects.
•  Significant experience managing and supervising financial and procurement management personnel.
•  Significant hands on experience in procurement required.
•  Familiarity with US Government Cost Accounting Standards and subcontract management
•  Strong analytical and computer skills, with an emphasis on budget development, budget management and financial analysis.
•  Experience in audit highly desirable
•  Written and spoken fluency in English.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree + Fifteen years of relevant experience, or Master’s Degree + Twelve years of relevant experience, or PhD + Ten years of relevant experience