Job Openings at IPAS

Job Description

• The Financial Analyst provides integral financial analysis to organization-wide budgeting processes and financial review inform decision-making.
• This role will support the annual organizational budgeting processes and prepare value-add financial analysis on revenue forecasts and budget variances.
• This role will support the organization’s financial document review processes and program finance efforts in support of donor proposal budgeting and financial reporting, adherence to Ipas and donor best practices, donor compliance, and cost recovery.
• Additionally, this position will develop and maintain responsive financial capacity-strengthening guidance, templates, tools, and training materials.
• The Analyst will support efforts to ensure various end-users have the tools they need to review and understand the financial condition of awards and will provide insights to help end-users make better business decisions.
• This role contributes to financial compliance with operational and contractual requirements and reports to the Senior Manager of Financial Planning and Analysis.

Primary Responsibilities

• Support organization-wide donor budgeting and financial reporting through review of donor financial documents for accuracy, completeness, fee structure, adherence to Ipas and donor best practices, donor compliance, and cost recovery.
• Support global teams with donor proposal budgeting and financial reporting for awards, as requested.
• Create and maintain award budgeting and reporting templates to meet donors’ and Ipas’s evolving needs.
• Support improved organization-wide award administration through identification of needs and the development of responsive financial capacity-strengthening guidance, templates, tools, and training materials.
• Be a key contributor to the annual operating budget process for Ipas by designing and maintaining templates, leading trainings and communicating global guidance, consolidating budgets, providing analysis, and identifying trends.
• Provide strategic thought leadership and expertise to organizational financial management, financial reporting, and cost recovery initiatives.
• Review existing or new financial related business processes and reporting for opportunities to improve/increase efficiency.
• Proactively monitor financials, preparing regular analyses of financial trends to improve overall financial management and cost effectiveness. Promptly identify, provide preliminary analysis of, and escalate financial compliance and ERP issues for resolution.
• Support or oversee the upload and maintenance of donor-approved budgets for projects and awards in Workday.
• Other tasks as assigned.

Requirements:

Minimum

• Bachelor’s degree (B.A. or B.S.) with basic knowledge of a specialized field such as accounting, finance, business administration, etc.
• Five years of professional work experience, including at least two in a financial capacity.
• Ability to understand programmatic implications of financial management and to clearly communicate financial knowledge to a range of audiences, including non-Finance staff
• Proven analytical/problem-solving skills with capability to determine solutions to unusual and complex problems
• Proven skills in advanced Excel functions – including the efficient use of pivot tables and advanced charting functions to analyse and visualize financial data

Preferred Skills

• Master’s degree in Finance or related field
• Proven cross-cultural communication skills
• Substantial experience costing proposals for development partners such as FCDO, UNFPA, and GAC
• Understanding of data exploration, visual analytics concepts, experience with Power BI
• Experience working in the international NGO sector
• Working proficiency in French language

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The Director of Finance is a member of the global Ipas leadership team and brings significant financial management expertise and experience to advance the Ipas mission and strategic framework. The Director demonstrates a strong commitment to the individuals and communities we serve, models the Ipas values, and provides leadership, coaching, and strategic advice to the global Finance team as well as country and regional team leaders.

S/he manages a team that leads organization-level budgeting processes, financial analysis, and reporting. This role will manage the annual operating budget process for all countries and departments, as well as mid-year reviews and forecasts. This role will assist the CFO in preparing value-add financial analysis on revenue forecasts and budget variances. The Director leads efforts to strengthen the organization and use of Ipas financial data through donor-facing and internal reporting and analytics and financial report development within the organization’s ERP system, Workday. This role will also provide support and guidance for donor-facing budgeting and financial reporting efforts, ensuring that processes are designed to minimize risk to the organization while also being customer and user-focused. The Director will contribute expertise to help assess the training needs of teams across the organization related to financial management and create resources, tools, and activities to further develop those skills and serve as a resource for the consistent application of policies and procedures globally.

This role will lead efforts to improve cost efficiency for the global Finance team and across the entire organization. The Director will lead efforts to better articulate and bring additional nuance to the organization’s cost recovery efforts, how Ipas defines indirect costs and its indirect rate, and find ways to improve negotiations with donors on these topics, while also providing analysis and recommendations for reducing indirect costs themselves.

The Director will support the Ipas Road Map, a multi-year plan shifting from the current, traditional international non-governmental organization (NGO) model to a networked organization with decision-making and leadership shared across the network. The Director is expected to contribute to this transition by actively working to dismantle hierarchy and racism within Ipas, supporting local decision making, fostering collaboration across the network, and improving organizational efficiency. In addition, the Director will contribute to the success of the Road Map by preparing and disseminating financial models and scenario analyses to provide critical data points to senior leadership in identifying the best structure and model for the Ipas network going forward.

• Recommend, supports development of, and implement new ideas and strategic direction to improve efficiency and effectiveness of global financial planning and analysis processes.
• Financial Analysis: Assists CFO with recurring and ad-hoc value-add financial analysis on spending over time, budget variances, cash flow forecasting, and provides insights on trends and issues to CFO and Executive Team.
• Operating Budget: Provide leadership to the FP&A team’s management of the annual organizational operating budget process by working with the internal Budget Committee in determining and communicating guidelines and timelines, designing, and maintaining budget templates, providing training, consolidating, uploading approved budgets into the ERP system, and preparing - and presenting as requested - materials for Ipas Board of Directors.  
• Donor Budgeting: Contribute to setting budgeting standards for the global network and providing feedback and support as requested and needed by country teams. Promote excellence in Ipas budgeting and contribute to shared accountability to achieve this objective. Oversee the organization’s financial document review process and program finance efforts to support adherence to Ipas and donor best practices, donor compliance, and indirect cost recovery. Manage the creation and maintenance of budget templates to meet donors’ and Ipas’s evolving needs. Adapt and tailor processes based on user feedback and capacity assessments – a singular process could have different levels of involvement and review depending on the skills of the user/team
• Financial Modeling: Gather key data points from multiple sources to produce financial models and perform scenario planning for the organization’s future revenue and cost projections. Work with Development to understand
• Stewardship of funding:  Promote a culture of strong stewardship of Ipas resources and work to improve cost efficiency. Foster shared leadership and promote a balance of efficiency and risk management.
• Cost Recovery: Oversee the management of Ipas’s policies around indirect costs and it’s indirect rate, working to bring nuance to these topics, communicating them clearly both internally and externally, and identifying and implementing new strategies for improved cost recovery. Provide analysis, insights, and recommendations for reducing indirect costs themselves, in addition to managing the indirect rate.
• Strengthen, document and disseminate financial planning and analysis policies and best practices, , and contribute to the development and strengthening of organizational quality standards as requested.
• In response to identified training needs, create and disseminate financial capacity-strengthening tools and mechanisms (e.g., online training, mentoring and coaching, peer to peer support, communities of practice) to increase organizational award budgeting and financial analysis skills and improve Ipas-wide fluency around Ipas and donor financial requirements and industry best practices.
• Provide guidance, leadership, and supportive supervision to Ipas’s financial analyst function to strengthen organization and award financial management and analysis.
• Gather feedback from other network offices in order to continually review and improve the global Finance team’s support services and respond to changing country and program needs.
• Other duties as assigned. 

Minimum Requirements

• Master’s degree (M.A. M.S. or M.B.A.) or equivalent demonstrated practical knowledge of finance and accounting
• 10 years’ professional experience, including 8 years’ experience related to financial analysis, budgeting, and forecasting
• Excellent writing and oral presentation skills, and the ability to effectively communicate complex financial activities to a large and diverse audience with varying levels of financial knowledge
• Proven customer service-orientation with a focus on capacity building
• Demonstrated expertise in Microsoft Excel, as well as other financial modelling tools and systems

Preferred Skills

• Supervisory experience
• Experience working in the international NGO sector
• Proven cross-cultural communication skills
• Working language proficiency in French, Spanish, or Portuguese

Competencies

• Aptitude for critical thinking and creative problem solving with a customer-service focus, helping to drive finance-related process improvements to increase efficiency and user experience.
• Numeracy- You love numbers, are energized by finding new ways to represent and analyse data, and just can’t get enough Excel.
• Communication Skills- You listen with empathy and attention.  You are not shy to speak up when you have something to say. You are an excellent writer.
• Lean- You bring awareness and commitment to doing work effectively and efficiently. We want people who will see a way to streamline or improve a process and who won’t hesitate to share their ideas in making it happen.
• Trainer- You have experience preparing and presenting in-house training sessions. You will present trainings several times a year on various topics.
• Take the Work Seriously but Not Yourself- Strive to do your best but know no one is perfect, you can laugh and learn from your mistakes. You also know when the search for perfection will have a negative impact on our ability to achieve Ipas’s mission.