Finance and Risk Advisor

Sightsavers implements projects in over 30 countries in Africa and South Asia working to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote the rights of people with disabilities. We are looking for a new Project Finance and Risk Advisor (as they are known at Sightsavers) to work closely with country office staff and other support teams to ensure that projects funded by donors run smoothly.

About the role

Project Finance and Risk Advisors at Sightsavers specialise in support and advice of project financial management and donor compliance to key stakeholders across the organisation. They offer support and advice across the key stages of Sightsavers projects life cycle: design, launch, implementation and close-out. They ensure that project financial planning, monitoring and reporting are delivered on time and to a high standard.

A typical day could include:

• Calling a country office finance manager to discuss pending issues in the financial report
• Noticing an area for improvement in our review process. Making a note of it to bring up in our team meeting next week
• Dealing with ad-hoc requests about exchange rates and budget flexibility from various country office and global contacts
• Attending a meeting with stakeholders across the organisation to kick-start a proposal application
• Working on a payroll journal that charges staff time to donors for this month
• Pausing your work on the payroll journal to review and sign-off that project financial report that just came in your inbox.

About you

This job may be for you if you are:

• proactive by nature and have initiative
• comfortable taking decisions and have a good sense of when to escalate issues
• quick to notice irregularities, yet you do not lose sight of the bigger picture
• good at solving problems and have a keen eye for improvement
• confident holding close working relationships with a wide range of stakeholders

Jobholder Requirements

Essential:

• Able to demonstrate finance and accountancy experience or excellent numerical skills
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills
• Experience of working for an international charity (INGO)
• Proven experience of institutional donor project financial management
• Willing and able to travel on average twice a year if required (1-2 week trips)
• Good English language skills and experience working in English
• Good communication and stakeholder management skills
• Strong attention to detail with a willingness to follow issues through to resolution
• Continuous improvement mindset, seeking ways to improve processes and mitigate risk

Desirable:

• Proven experience of USAID, EC and FCDO project financial management
• Proven experience of financial training to finance staff
• Able to explain financial issues and procedures to a non-financial audience
• Experience of a computer-based accounting system
• High level of programmatic and financial understanding of the project cycle
• Spoken and written French would be an advantage

This is an involved role and please see the job description for full details. Please note that there will be an expectation that you can visit our modern and collaborative offices in Haywards Heath, West Sussex (RH16 3BW) twice per month to attend team and project meetings.

We anticipate that remote interviews will take place in mid October and the evaluation process will include a one-hour role scenario-based assessment in advance of this.

As an equal opportunity employer, we actively encourage applications from all sections of the community. Sightsavers is a Disability Confident Leader and qualified people living with a disability are particularly encouraged to apply.