Plan International is a rights-based development and humanitarian organization working for better lives for all children. We are independent of government and have no political or religious affiliation. Our purpose is to strive for a just world that advances children’s rights and equality for girls. We have been building powerful partnerships for children for more than 80 years, and are now active in more than 85 countries.
Our global strategy has a specific focus on girls, as they are often the most marginalized and most often left behind. We have committed ourselves to the ambitious target of reaching 100 million girls over 5 years, to ensure they can learn, lead, decide and thrive. This is our contribution to reaching the sustainable development goals, and in particular the goals on gender equality. Our organization is transforming itself to meet this enormous challenge everywhere we work. We need bold, forward-thinking and innovative individuals to lead our country operations, driving change and delivering results that will allow us to reach our target of 100 million girls.
In Finance, our vision is ‘to be a globally trusted partner in the organisation’s delivery of life-changing programmes for girls and young women’.
We aim to do this by ‘providing the robust financial systems, reports, tools and data, and the skilled people to enable successful project delivery. We equip our customers with the insights, capabilities, and expert advice that they need to change lives’. Plan International embarked on an ambitious and exciting strategic change initiative to make the organization more transparent, legitimate, and agile. Strengthening our financial planning, decision making, and analytics is a key enabler in attaining our strategic goals.
ABOUT MEESA
The Middle East, East and Southern Africa Region currently comprises 15 countries and a regional hub. The Region also manages the Africa Union Liaison Office and a Shared Service Centre. The Shared Service Centre provides transactional services to the Country, Regional and Global teams based in Nairobi and to some countries beyond. This role sits in the Regional Hub Management Team of eight people, led by the Regional Director.
ABOUT THE ROLE
The Regional Finance Director (RFD) will provide critical leadership to ensure that Plan International Inc.’s finances in the MEESA region adhere to external and internal financial standards and donor regulations. The RFD will ensure that Regional Management and the Global Hub (GH) finance function are alerted to financial risks and opportunities in MEESA, while also providing strategic analysis on the business environment.
The RFD will play a key role in driving alignment to the finance strategy and priorities at a regional and country level and alignment to country and regional priorities in global level finance. This role will also be accountable for the professional management of finances and finance team capacity in the MEESA.
Country Directors are accountable for the performance of their country teams. COs each have a Country Finance Manager and team who have responsibility for meeting internal financial standards and donor regulations. The regional role is to have technical oversight of the finance function in COs. The Regional Finance Director monitors the financial performance of all COs and supports the finance function to have the capability to achieve high financial standards. They work with the Directors of Sub-Regions and the Regional Hub Management Team to identify and address areas of concern. The Regional Hub works with the COs to strengthen their finance capacity.
The Regional Finance Director will be part of the MEESA Regional Management Team and of the Regional Hub Management Team whose remits are broader than just finance. He/she will also be part of Finance Leadership Team and as such participate actively in the global function strategy development and continuous improvement.
QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCEE
Relevant financial and business analysis qualification.
MBA or another relevant advanced degree preferable.
8-10 years’ experience in a similar senior role.
Experience with NGO implementing projects, particularly grants funded ideally gained in project countries.
Experience in supporting a regional roll-out of an ERP platform would be an added benefit.
Strong leadership and management skills.
Strategic problem solving.
Analytical skills.
Communication skills, appropriate to the audience, particularly Communicate finance concepts and issues clearly to non-finance people.
Ability to work in a multidisciplinary and multicultural environment.
Strong team-building and motivational skills.
Strong negotiating, facilitating and influencing skills.
Proficient in computer skills and use of relevant software and other applications (e.g. word processing, spreadsheets, database, internet).
Possess the capabilities needed to deliver effective solutions to complex business challenges.
The ability to conduct cost/benefit analysis.
Business case development.
Modelling techniques and methods.
Knowledge and experience of using any/all of the following would be an added value:
SAP ERP systems
Power BI
Dynamics 365
Experience of moving an organisation to a new ERP would be an added value.
