Head of Finance & IT (National Hired) At Save the Children

TITLE: Head of Finance & IT (National Hired)

TEAM/PROGRAMME: Finance Team

LOCATION: Bangkok Office, Thailand National Office

CONTRACT LENGTH: Open ended

ROLE PURPOSE:

The Head of Finance & IT is a permanent member of the Senior Management Team (SMT) of the Save the Children (Thailand) Foundation (SCT), and shares the responsibility for establishing the direction and overall coordination of SCT. The post holder will be accountable to the Executive Director of SCT, the Board of Directors of SCT, including the Treasurer of the Board, to develop and maintain a secure and effective financial system for SCT, to monitor and ensure its financial sustainability, and to support its growth as an independent organization.

The Head of Finance & IT ensures accurate and appropriate budgeting, cash flows, financial controls, recording, monitoring and reporting in emergency and development programming contexts to Save the Children and the donors. The position serves as a resource for training and supporting programme staff and partners in their financial responsibilities. The Head of Finance & IT is tasked with driving the organizational culture and ensuring a healthy and productive work environment in SCT.

The desired position holder is expected to be a great team player and work and collaborate effectively across SMT Team members, within Finance team members and with various stakeholders (including local and regional/global Save the Children movement)

SCOPE OF ROLE:

Reports to: Executive Director

Staff directly reporting to this post: 3 (Treasury, Sr. Finance Officer (FP&A), Sr. Finance Officer (C&C)

Staff indirectly reporting to this post: 4 (Finance Officer (FP&A), Sr, Finance Office (Mae Sot), Finance Assistant (Mae Sot), Finance Assistant (Pattani)

Role Dimensions: The post provides overall financial management to Save the Children (Thailand) Foundation (SCT) with 100%.

KEY AREAS OF ACCOUNTABILITY:

As a member of the Senior Management Team, will contribute to:

• The identification and implementation of the office’s strategic direction and the development of an organizational culture that reflects our values promotes accountability and high performance, encourages a team culture of learning, creativity and innovation, supports our people to deliver outstanding results for children and excellent customer service for colleagues, members and donors.
• Active and regular working relationships with host government authorities and partner agencies, including humanitarian and development donors and local and international NGOs
• Ensuring that the SCT complies with all Save the Children policies and procedures outlined in the SCI Quality Framework, including during emergency response
• Close coordination with the Management Team and Finance Team of field offices, to ensure sound financial management is conducted.
• Close coordination with the Board of Directors, and the Treasurer of the Board, on financial matters and financial oversight

Financial Control

• Lead day-to-day Finance operations, including using Agresso accounting software and reporting monthly to the Executive Director.
• Manage and monitor bank and cash operations, including cash flow forecasting and supervising the petty cash system, review the cash vouchers along with the supporting documents, ensure quick payments, effective use of cash management; provide reasonable services to the stakeholders, assist in smooth operation of goods and services procurement, including having the full month end process and cash count verified by a person independent of the finance operations.
• Check that all payments comply with SC financial guidelines and donors.
• Ensure that staff salaries and benefits are paid according to contract and increments and cost of living increases are added at the appropriate times; and that all tax liabilities according to the country rules and regulations are met accurately and on time.
• Provide the Senior Management Team (SMT) and all budget holders a monthly update on the budget variance analysis (BVA) in a timely manner after the system hard close, ensuring the analysis meets the needs and standards required by the key stakeholders and budget holders.
• Ensure key stakeholders and budget holders are supported in reviewing their expenditures and budgets/ forecasts.
• Ensure the integrity of all accounts, prepare the monthly financial reviews (MFRs) with all control accounts reconciled, reviewed with SMT and signed by the Executive Director. The MFR should be uploaded onto Citrix monthly.
• Ensure quarterly effort reporting is prepared, reconciling timesheets with charges made in the finance system. Investigate major variances, make appropriate adjustments, and share the reconciliation with the Regional Office.
• Coordinate submission of control reports, respond to findings and recommend resolutions or action plans.
• Identify and resolve discrepancies in financial records and reports.
• Enforce the organization’s fraud policy and update financial risk assessment and action plans.
• Ensure that SCT operates within its Bank and Cash procedures, coordinating the funds request from the budget holders to the regional office and ensuring that the minimum level of cash is in the bank accounts and petty cash.
• Monitor the cash forecast against actual spending regularly to ensure the request is realistic. Support the timely submission of financial reports and attachments to members, individual donor timeframes and requirements and government regulatory agencies
• Ensure multi-currency accounting involves recording transactions into the system. It includes managing multiple currency balances in the general ledger, tracking exchange rates, calculating gains/losses, and reporting in a base currency.

Compliance and Internal Control

• Ensure SCT complies with all Save the Children Financial Management Operating Standards and Standard Operating Procedures, including the requirements of the SCI Finance Procedures Manual.
• Ensure that effective systems are put in place, and regularly reviewed, to allow adequate financial management and control, including:
• Annual accounts and tax statement preparation.
• Accounting and management information systems.
• Cash and cash flow management and control in particular gain/losses on currency exchange;
• Financial procedures during emergency responses, including meeting all relevant responsibilities in the Rules and Principles for Emergency Response;
• Expenditure procedures, especially around procurement;
• Documentation of all controls and procedures;
• Ensure the integrity of SCT financial systems by reporting issues and by ensuring that the data validation is correct for all budgets e.g. projects, dates, exchange rates are all correct in the system and agree to donor funds summaries.
• Finance training for staff as necessary.
• Identify and effectively manage all key risks, especially financial, related to SCT’s activities
• Ensure that systems are in place for the control of all assets, funds, equipment, property, and facilities;
• Participate in the development of finance policies and procedures to be able to maintain a well-financially controlled environment in both development and emergency contexts
• Coordinate and assist any internal or external audits

Treasury

• Senior Finance & IT Manager to support the treasury compliance policy, for all financial matters, including the consideration, settling, approving and executing all agreements, documents, certificates, instruments, claims and transactions, and to open, operate and close bank accounts as prescribed by law in any country.
• Ensure the management of SCT’s Foreign Exchange exposure.
• Ensure the Treasury records the Agresso system for the procedure and managing of Foreign Exchange gain and losses.
• Review monthly fund requests from the budget holder to ensure submission of the availability of funds via Treasury Management System-TM5 to the Centre Treasury.
• Ensure the SCT Interest Policy that SCT maximizes interest returns on available funds whilst minimizing risk to available funds.
• Review the monthly arrears, Donor current bank balance report, Foreign Exchange report, and interest for reporting to the Executive Director.

Financial Reporting

• Develop and implement management reporting to support organizational decision-making. This will include the coordination and production of monthly and quarterly management reports and KPI dashboards to agreed timescales (or more frequently as required)

Planning and Budgeting

• Facilitates budget plans and uploads corresponding information into the finance system.
• Tracks programme budgets and advises budget holders on budgeting, expenditure patterns and necessary plan adjustments.
• Ensures awards and General Fund Schedules are aligned and that shared office costs are correctly charged.
• Ensures donor financial conditions are adhered to.
• Assist the Executive Director in the financial management of SCT resources, including (a) the formulation of country resource allocation, (b) providing effective support and guidance to the Senior Management Team and other key program staff during planning and allocation exercises, (c) monitoring the implementation of donor agreements and resource utilization. Highlight variances, provide analyses and recommend resolution or reallocation of resources.
• Participate in ensuring that finance and awards procedures are detailed in the SCT Emergency Preparedness Plan in order to enable rapid scale-up
• Participate in managing SCT’s annual budget and forecast processes, including developing templates and timetables.
• Manage the production and development of the funding grid, non-thematic cost share calculation, member core dues calculation and any other organizational-wide management accounting tools that may be required
• Monitor the organization’s financial sustainability and include long-term project/ income expenditure planning.
• Support the creation of the project budget proposal and provide the financial update information for the revised budget process.

Finance Support for Fundraising

• Ensure compliance with fundraising regulatory requirements, best practices and other relevant organization rules.
• Work closely with our fundraising team to set up and support the achievement of the required targets the Fundraising Team sets.
• Create financial tools for maintaining a fundraising finance database
• Provide the fundraising financial report highlighting financial trends and analysis

Head Quarter / Regional Office Compliance

• Follow the financial year diary, meeting all requirements in a timely manner, including month-end, quarterly reports and revisions, year-end schedules and annual budgets and budget revisions.
• Liaise with Executive Director/ SMT/ SCT board members to appropriately ensure effective and accurate financial information flows.

Information Technologies

• Ensure the implementation of Information Technologies (IT) as per Global guidelines.
• Oversee the IT support service provider to manage and maintain the organization’s IT infrastructure.

Staff Management, Mentorship and Development

• Ensure appropriate staffing within finance through the recruitment and training of finance staff as appropriate and ensure the availability of appropriate professional development opportunities for staff
• Ensure that all staff understand and are able to perform their duties with regard to financial management through induction and training of key programme staff
• Manage the performance of all staff in the finance work area through:
• Effective use of the Performance Management System, including the establishment of clear, measurable objectives, ongoing feedback, periodic reviews and fair and unbiased evaluations;
• Coaching, mentoring and other developmental opportunities;
• Recognition and rewards for outstanding performance;
• Documentation of performance that is less than satisfactory, with appropriate performance improvements/ work plans
• Provide line management to the finance team, ensuring that the work is planned to meet all deadlines
• Ensure adequate segregation of finance duty within the Country Office and Field Office.

BEHAVIOURS (Values in Practice)

Accountability:

• Holds self-accountable for making decisions, managing resources efficiently, achieving and role modelling Save the Children values
• Holds the team and partners accountable to deliver on their responsibilities – giving them the freedom to deliver in the best way they see fit, providing the necessary development to improve performance and applying appropriate consequences when results are not achieved.

Ambition:

• Sets ambitious and challenging goals for themselves and their team, takes responsibility for their own personal development and encourages their team to do the same
• widely shares their personal vision for Save the Children, engages and motivates others
• future orientated, thinks strategically and on a global scale.

Collaboration:

• builds and maintains effective relationships, with their team, colleagues, Members and external partners and supporters
• values diversity sees it as a source of competitive strength
• approachable, a good listener, and easy to talk to.

Creativity:

• develops and encourages new and innovative solutions
• willing to take disciplined risks.

Integrity:

• Honest, encourages openness and transparency, demonstrates the highest levels of integrity.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Thai Nationality
• At least 7 years experience in a senior finance and/ or office management post.
• Ability to speak, read and write in Thai and English as working languages
• Proficiency in computer use with various software packages and Advanced user on Microsoft Excel

EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS

• Familiarity with accounting package
• Experience of staff line management
• Experience of negotiating service contracts and procurement, ensuring compliance with organizational policy and value for money
• Experience of budget development and management
• Experience of donor reporting and liaison, including negotiating with donors
• Experience of advising staff on budgetary management and partners on accountability
• Experience of working with international NGOs
• Excellent organizational skills and a track record of consistently delivering on time.
• Excellent communication skills

Additional Job Responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities as set out above are not exhaustive and the role holder may be required to carry out additional duties within reasonableness of their level of skills and experience.

Equal Opportunities

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the Save the Children Equal Opportunities and Diversity policies and procedures.

Child Safeguarding

We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse.

Safeguarding Our Staff

The post holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with the Save the Children anti-harassment policy.

Health and Safety

The role holder is required to carry out the duties in accordance with Save the Children Health and Safety policies and procedures.

Interested candidates should apply and submit a motivational letter, comprehensive CV, expected salary and details of at least 3 referees via the following link;

View the external job posting

“We need to keep children safe so our selection process, which includes rigorous background checks, reflects our commitment to the protection of children from abuse”