Summary
Date Posted: Thursday, May 07, 2020 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
We work with growth-oriented organizations across East Africa, who are committed to building a highly-performing team and are looking for innovative approaches to boost their human capital. Schooner Africa Fund (SAF) is a start-up Impact Investment Fund. SAF is the Program Related Investment arm of the Schooner Foundation (SF) - a private family foundation head quartered in the USA. The SF has been funding projects in Africa for eighteen years with a focus on human rights, peace & security and economic opportunity. As a family foundation, we are maintaining a small office, build partnerships with like-minded organizations, and involve family members in the investment comittee and advisory roles.
ABOUT THE ROLE
• As Spark pivots from a traditional implementation NGO to a training and service provider for governments and civil societies, our growth strategy demands tightening our operational efficiency model, internal systems and deliberately building the team. We are seeking an Operations Director to lead organizational excellence and shape our operational model to deliver our impact in a lean way.
• You will develop financial growth models and projections, strengthen internal HR systems and develop our finance and people teams to drive operational efficiency as Spark scales across Rwanda and beyond.
• The Operations Director will work closely with the Executive team and interact with the Board of Directors to drive high level operational strategy relating to financial and team development. This person in this role will directly manage a Finance Director, HR Manager and Organizational Excellence Manager with opportunity to build out their teams further.
• We are looking for candidates with a strong strategic finance mind, passion for culture and people development, who are excited about new age institution building and are excellent at management. .

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES WILL INCLUDE:
Spearhead organizational excellence:
• Lead a process that ensures we set strong organizational goals, budgets and KPIs across the organization, continually drive efficiency and quality, and develop work plans that enable us deliver to our target.
• Ensure strong processes, systems and procedures are developed and operationalized across Spark, ensuring compliance across countries of operations and sources of funding. This will include responsibilities such as internal audits, compliance checks, procurement policies and oversight, etc.
• Drive change management across Spark and its team as our models changes and we grow and ensure that Spark’s culture and unique approach is kept in mind, supported and exacerbated.
• Manage and develop functional teams within and across Finance, Human Resources (HR), and Operations to support Spark’s program teams, including working closely with the Organizational Excellence Manager who builds management capacity and strengthens internal communication.
Drive Strategic Finance:
• Responsible for developing growth and financial models that drive operational efficiency and impact: lead on financial modeling for growth, and analysis on efficiency such as modeling out cost per community for different scenarios. Be a thought partner to program leads during expansion planning.
• Directly manage Finance Director who leads finance team to deliver on budgets, reports, policies and internal financial regulations and to ensure priority goals, systems, reports, audits and compliance processes remain current.
• Lead the development of budgets for new business opportunities and revenue streams, such as government and nonprofit contract based work.
• Manage the board finance committee (quarterly calls, develop decks and set agenda to review strategic financial questions).

WHY WORK WITH US ?
• Spark has grown every year since founding. You will join as part of senior leadership with immense opportunity to shape the future of the organization and grow as a leader.
• Spark has been recognized by the Government of Rwanda, NYTimes, Obama Foundation, Draper Richards Kaplan, Forbes and beyond as a leader in community-driven change.
• You will be joining a team that hails from ten countries around the world and is committed to a new world where every village and neighborhood has the power to drive local change.
• You will have the freedom and autonomy to make your role your own. We want to hear your crazy ideas, your vision for the future and your critical questions.
• You’ll never be bored – but we also respect and value work life balance and your need for down time, vacation and reflection.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR:
Passion for rural communities owning their future
• You are driven by a world with strong civil society where communities are in the driving seat of local change.
• You are passionate about improving aid delivery and governance.
• Past work experience in rural East Africa and Rwanda in specific is highly preferred.
Senior strategic finance skills and experience
• You have built projections and budget models on complex scenarios to inform programmatic or business growth.
• Expert level Excel skills, with ability to build models with multiple scenarios.
• You have overseen and coordinated creation of significant budgets before, ideally annual budgets of 2m$ upwards.
• Preferred: You have handled multiple restricted grants from large, bilateral or multilateral donors and understand their complex reporting requirements.
• Past experience that may have prepared you for this role: Business Analytics, Financial modelling or consulting/advisory for growth stage organizations (ie. on capex and opex models, ROI models, investment strategies, organizational (re)structuring and design)
• Added advantage: Audit or internal audit experience.
• Accounting experience and skills not required, but ability to understand key concepts is key.

Job Education Requirements: Not Specified

Job Education Experience: Not Specified

Work Hours: 8

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Job application procedure
Tailor your CV to this opportunity, showcasing your relevant past roles and results clearly
Prepare the application video as outlined under http://bit.ly/SparkOps – then submit your application via the form under the same link.
Got any questions? Feel free to reach out: spark@edgeperformance.co.ke
The recruitment is carried out in collaboration with edge. All official communication will come from email addresses in the domains sparkmicrogrants.org or co.ke 

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