Finance and Budgeting Manager, Vital Landscapes at World Resources Institute (WRI)

Job Highlight:   

Reporting to the Director of Finance and Operations, WRI Africa, 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 Vital Landscape program. You will also prepare financial forecasts and assessing financial risks for WRI Africa Senior Management to enable better decision making and programmatic coordination. You will work with the Vital Landscape 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.   

What will you do:    

Financial Management (60%):   

• Oversee management of budgets for WRI Africa’s Vital Landscapes, 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
• 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 and support as needed
• Ensure compliance with WRI Africa’s accounting, grants and contracts policies, and procedures for organizational audit clearance
• Oversee development of annual and interim financial reports to funders as needed, including providing guidance to GFSs and resolving issues on more complicated financial reports

Program Management (40%):    

• Directly supervise Vital Landscapes Grants & Finance Specialists, providing guidance on policies and processes
• Work with Vital Landscapes staff and managers on staffing, hiring and promotion, preparing of job descriptions to fill gaps in skills and/or resource, and guiding teams through the offboarding of staff, in consultation with HR and relevant program leads
• 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 7 years full-time work experience in financial management and administration, 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 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
• Familiarity with database software and management (such as Salesforce, Concur, Cognos, TM1, etc.)
• 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