Country Finance Manager

Job Title: Country Finance Manager

Reports to: Head of Operations

Department: Operations

Salary Grade: 10

About CRS

Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States. CRS works to save, protect, and transform lives in need in more than 100 countries, without regard to race, religion or nationality. CRS’ relief and development work is accomplished through programs of emergency response, HIV, health, agriculture, education, microfinance and peacebuilding.

CRS Sudan is as dynamic and diverse as the needs of the people we serve. Since 1978, CRS Sudan has been assisting the people of Sudan across the emergency, recovery, and development spectrum. Key sectoral areas for CRS Sudan include food security, livelihoods, nutrition, health, peacebuilding, and natural resource management. CRS Sudan has an expanding portfolio of programs crossing the emergency response and resiliency spectrum. Currently, CRS Sudan oversees programming across five Darfur states and the Red Sea. CRS Sudan main donors include USAID, FCDO/UK, WFP, UNICEF, BMZ and other private donors and foundations.

Job Summary:

You ensure a high level of resource stewardship, strict financial accountability and financial risk management while ensuring the effectiveness and robustness of the Country Program (CP) and relevant partners’ financial management systems, processes, and practices in support of high-quality programs serving the poor and vulnerable. You anticipate and manage financial management services needs and delivery challenges, and identify and implement improvement solutions, as needed, to minimize CP and partners’ exposure to financial risk. You will build staff capacity in finance systems and policies through frequent training and travel to field offices.

Roles and Key Responsibil ities:

• Effectively manage talent and supervise. Manage team dynamics and staff well-being. Provide coaching, strategically tailor individual development plans, and complete performance management for direct reports. Frequently visit field offices with the primary focus of developing finance staff capacity.
• With support from the Head of Operations, develop and implement a country program-wide finance system training initiative. Focused on both finance and non-finance staff, lead a training program aimed to increase staff knowledge of the Oracle ERP system and CRS finance policies.
• Develop and manage financial processes in accordance with policies and provide proactive service delivery, advice, and support to managers, staff, and subrecipients in relation to managing the whole project cycle (Design, Start-up, Implementation, Close-out), ensuring efficiency and compliance with CRS’ policies and procedures, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), donors’ rules and regulations, and legal requirements.
• Provide direction and coordination of effective budget development and management (Annual Program Plans and project budgets), ensuring accuracy and consistency of financial data and safeguarding of resources.
• Ensure integrity of accounting information by reinforcing a culture of accountability, reviewing accounting issues for compliance, and establishing quality control over accounting transactions and financial reporting.
• Develop and maintain a country wide policy for the storage and maintenance of supporting documentation resulting in a reliable and easy to follow audit trail of financial transactions.
• Lead the preparation of accurate financial data, analysis and projections and support the Senior Management Team and Program/Project Managers in interpreting data for decision-making and effectively managing financial risks.
• Oversee the performance of accurate reporting procedures and timely submission of reports to relevant stakeholders (CP managers, Regional Office, HQ/Finance, donors, local government entities).
• Lead assessment of staff and subrecipients’ financial management capacity, ensure capacity strengthening on finance policies and regulations, as needed, and monitor and measure impact.
• Lead efforts to close audit financial management findings in a timely and sustainable way.

Required Languages – Fluency in English is required; Fluency in Arabic is highly preferred

Travel – Must be willing to travel to field offices up to 50%. Occasional international travel required, as needs dictate.

Supervisory Responsibilities: Finance Manager for Field Operations, Senior Finance Officers.

Key Working Relationships:

Internal: Country Representative, Head of Operations, Head of Programs, Chiefs of Parties, Regional Finance Officer, Various Operations and Programming staff, CRS Headquarters Finance Team.

External: CRS partners and donors, peer organizations, external auditor

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Excellent analytical skills with ability to make sound judgment and decisions
• Very good planning, monitoring and organizational skills
• Ethical conduct in accordance with recognized professional and organizational codes of ethics
• Proactive, resourceful, solutions oriented and results-oriented
• Ability to work collaboratively

Catholic Relief Services carries out the commitment of the Bishops of the United States to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas. Our Catholic identity is at the heart of our mission and operations. We welcome as a part of our staff and as partners people of all faiths and secular traditions who share our values and our commitment to serving those in need.