Closing date: 31 Oct 2016
About Translators without Borders Translators without Borders (TWB), a US 501(c) 3 non-profit with an operations center in Kenya, was founded in 1993 to provide volunteer translations to non-profit organizations. In 2010, the organization started a virtual platform to better coordinate these resources. In the last five years, we have translated over 30 million words of life-saving and life-changing content in over 150 languages. Our latest activations for the European Refugees, the Ebola crisis and Nepal earthquake have won widespread praise from the international community.
Although we remain a volunteer-driven organization with a small team, we have now secured funding to hire four key personnel, with the aim of taking the organization to a new level of professionalism, developing our extensive network of partnerships, and further developing our strong technology platform.
About the Role
Reporting to the Executive Director with a dotted line relationship with the Treasurer, the basic function of the Head of Finance is to develop, coordinate and administer TWB’s plans for proper recording, documentation, control, monitoring and reporting of financial operations, ensuring that TWB is strategic in its financial outlook. The Head of Finance is responsible for the day-to-day financial operations. S/He plans, organizes, directs and is responsible for providing quality financial services to all projects, unit and staff. S/He works closely with the Executive Director and management team to ensure that a partnership is developed between finance, program, and other functions. S/He assumes responsibility for implementation of donor rules and regulations.
The Head of Finance is an integral member of the Management Team.
The profile includes very strong accounting and finance knowledge, analytical skills, attention to detail, knowledge of quickbooks accounting software, ability to work effectively under time pressure, very strong business partnering skills with ability to influence senior staff, team player, proactive individual with the ability to offer structured guidance on a strategic level, ability to ensure that the right financial priorities are set for the organization within a broader program.
Responsibilities & Tasks
Controllership - Ensure compliance with TWB’s accounting policy and procedures and generally accepted accounting principles; Develop and implement accounting systems and procedures; Ensure finance function responds to overall country strategy and strengthens TWB’s ability to achieve objectives; Supervise the protection of the organization’s assets through internal control and auditing procedures; Facilitate any audits and follow up the implementation of the audit recommendations; Supervise the payroll system to include taxes and other deductions; Review all leases and other contracts that require current and future use of TWB assets and make any relevant recommendations to the ED; Supervise and control the quality of the financial processes and systems to include accounting software parameters and system switches, tables maintenance such as exchange rate table, cost pool and revenue recognition tables, vendor and donor files, accounting segments (project, fund, account, location code, etc), etc. Sub grants management, lawsuits and regulations, liaisons with the local administration and networking
Treasury and Cash functions - Responsible for day-to-day operations to include efficient process flows and controls over Accounts Payable, cash transfers and other cash journal entries; Ensure expenditures are justified and substantiated adequately; Coordinate banking operations and maintain liaison with bankers; Supervise the collection of contractual and miscellaneous receivables; Review and recommend to the ED the investment of short term cash surpluses; Supervise the preparation of the quarterly and annual cash budgets; Develop plans to minimize exposure to currency gains and losses; Develop and implement account payable and cash disbursement policies; Ensure bank and cash accounts are reconciled in a timely manner.
Budgeting and Forecasting - Develop budget guidelines and supervise the preparation of TWB budgets to include project proposal budgets and monthly, quarterly and annual operating budgets; Coordinate and supervise the preparation of the TWB quarterly forecast (pipeline) budgets and future years budgets; Ensure proposals include appropriate provision for finance capacity; Develop and implement guidelines and processes related to fair sharing of administrative and finance support costs; Supervise the monitoring of actual expenses against budgets and interact with the ED, Management Team, project managers, program coordinators and other managers who make budget decisions; Initiate and discuss any budget revisions with the ED, Management Team, project managers, program coordinators and other managers who make budget decisions.
Financial Reports and Quality Reviews - Responsible for the preparation and submission of complete, accurate, reliable and timely financial reports to managers, donors, Board/Treasurer. Supervise and control the quality of the monthly closing process and preparation of financial reports to include: bank reconciliation reports, intra-company reconciliation, payroll reconciliation, sub-office reports, subledger and non-subledger accounts reconciliation; Ensure quality review of balance sheet, income statement, grants and contracts receivable/payable accounts, etc at least monthly.
Staff and Talent Management - Provide supervision and development to direct reports; Provide accounting and financial training to staff; Organize training in financial management to non-finance staff as necessary; Implement Annual Performance Assessment policy; Develop succession plan to ensure that Finance level of service will not suffer due to the loss of any personnel; Provide guidance to subordinate staff in implementing the staff development plan.
Management Team Member - Participate actively in the Management Team at the strategic level. Identify financial management problems, risk and opportunities and present them to the Management Team. Propose in proactive manner different options, solutions, preventive and/or corrective actions to improve the financial management of TWB and develop finance as a part of overall strategy.
General and Other duties - Assist the Executive Director (ED) and other senior staff in the development of project proposals, personnel and development plans; Develop financial and accounting training program to include manuals to meet the organizational goals for sustainable improved performance in financial management; Assist the ED and other staff in the review and implementation of donor contracts and other financial commitments; identify and communicate potential issues regarding financial statement accounts to the ED and Management team; Assist the ED in preparing responses to audit findings, planning and implementing audit recommendations. Perform other duties as assigned.
Qualifications
Education/Training
Required
Certified Public Accountant and Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance or Business Management or equivalent.
Desired
Accounting certification in the US; Masters degree in business administration, finance or equivalent
Experience
Required
At least three years as a Head of Finance or equivalent experience
Five to ten years experience in not-for-profit financial, budgeting, accounting, financial reporting, grants/contract management, and business management in developing countries, including experience with US tax compliance.
Desired
At least three years experience in a developing country
Technical Skills
Required
· Thorough understanding of financial accounting, reporting and grants and contract management processes;
· Facilitation skills to conduct training sessions for small, medium and large sized groups; Solid analytical and problem solving, financial troubleshooting and audit experience;
· Ability to maintain customer focus while handling multiple priorities;
· Ability to quickly earn new systems, processes and procedures and adapt local practices to global standards;
· Excellent leadership, coaching and negotiation skills;
· Ability to work on teams, work at detailed level and understand the larger picture;
· Strong oral and written communication skills; Must be comfortable communicating in writing and electronically
· Experience with Quickbooks online; Proficiency in Microsoft Office including Excel and Word and good skills at using financial software applications;
· Must be able to work independently with limited direct supervision. Must be self-starting and able to meet deadlines
· English language fluency required.
Familiarity and comfort with communications packages/software
Core Values
Translators without Borders employees and volunteers are made of people who believe passionately about the value of this work and take personal responsibility for achieving the mission. Translators without Borders’ mission and organizational spirit embody the core values established in its strategic framework:
Excellence: As the leading voice for communicating humanitarian information in the right language, Translators without Borders is a leader in the translation industry and in the non-profit sector.
Integrity: Translators without Borders believes that every person, whether it’s the people who we serve, our volunteers or our staff, has value, deserves respect and has inherent dignity.
Empowerment: Translators without Borders believes in using language to empower people around the world to control their own development and destiny.
Innovation: Translators without Borders recognizes and celebrates the power of innovation to address humanitarian and crisis issues around the world.
Sustainability: Translators without Borders recognizes that meeting our mission necessitates establishment and maintenance of a solid financial and organizational infrastructure.
Tolerance: Our staff and volunteers are highly knowledgeable and skilled; value each other, our partner and our recipients; create a supportive work environment; and, conduct themselves professionally at all times.
Organizational Background Translators without Borders envisions a world where knowledge knows no language barriers. The US-based nonprofit provides people access to vital knowledge in their language by connecting nonprofit organizations with a professional community of translators, building local language translation capacity, and raising awareness of language barriers. Originally founded in 1993 in France as Traducteurs sans Frontières (now its sister organization), Translators without Borders translates millions of words per year, provides rapid response teams for crises and trains community and professional translators in places where translation is not well established. For more information and to volunteer or donate, please visit: http://www.translatorswithoutborders.org or follow on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/TranslatorsWB
How to apply:
This is a rolling recruitment process and will remain open until we have filled the position we need. Please submit a cover letter and CV tojobshelp@translatorswithoutborders.org. Kindly state the position for which you are applying in the subject line**