UK Finance Lead

UK Finance Lead
London, SE1
 
About the Organisation 
 
Established in 2008, our client exists to expand access to quality secondary education in Africa. They build and run not-for-profit secondary schools in Uganda and Zambia and have a portfolio of 31 secondary schools educating over 15,500 children. 
 
Over the past 10 years, our client has grown to over £5.5m turnover, comprised of school revenue, grants and donations from individuals and foundations, and several large institutional grants. 
 
To support their ambitions for growth, our client is recruiting for the role of UK Finance Lead, a role which will be both management accountant for the Group, and support on strategic finance across the organisation.
 
The Benefits 
 
- Salary of £40,000 - £45,000 
- Pension scheme (up to 6% matched contributions) 
- The chance to make a tangible difference to education in Africa 
 
This is an exciting chance for a qualified accounting professional to play a key role in the future success and financial management of an incredible charity. 
 
You’ll be joining the organisation at a time when they are looking to expand into new geographies and take on new projects. 
 
So, if you are an experienced problem-solver, good at influencing others to achieve great things, and want to have an impact on one of the greatest challenges of our time, then this is the role for you.
 
Your Role 
 
The UK Finance Lead will be building on strong momentum of financial management improvement at the charity. After fast growth, our client has spent the last two years consolidating its financial management approach across its schools and country programmes. They have made good progress, achieving a clean set of audited financial statements for the year ending January 2018 and excellent progress on the quarterly audit reports they receive from DfID Girls Education Challenge. However, there is a lot more our client wants to achieve, and this role will sit within an ambitious global team where processes are regularly being reviewed, refined and innovated.
 
The UK Finance Lead will be supported by a Finance and Administration Assistant for support on UK bookkeeping. They will work closely with the Grant Managers and Finance teams in both Uganda and Zambia and therefore need to travel regularly to provide technical assistance in all offices. They will represent global finance at the quarterly meetings of the Finance, Audit and Risk Committee, a subcommittee to the Board. 
 
In the next strategic period, our client will be expanding into new geographies and taking on new projects to use their expertise and experience to support other educators. The Finance Lead will play a pivotal role in this work, acting as the financial analyst supporting the senior team to make good financial decisions in this new area, and ensuring our client is compliant with any tax and charities commission regulations as they move into these new types of work.
 
Key Priorities
 
- Ownership of all UK financial processes
- Leading on cash management, including planning foreign exchange transfers
- Production of monthly management accounts for our client’s UK office, monthly global consolidated management accounts and annual group audited financial statements
- Financial reporting and budget preparation for major grants and proposals
- Support to UK team with financial analysis to support broader decision-making
- Technical assistance to the Uganda and Zambia finance teams with relevant expertise, using experience from UK finance to advise on best practice in financial management and strategic finance
 
About You 
 
To be considered as the UK Finance Lead, you will need: 
 
- At least three years’ finance and audit experience 
- To be a part or fully qualified accountant with an ICAEW, ACCA or IMA qualification 
- Strategic decision-making experience 
- Experience with, or the willingness to learn, Xero and QuickBooks 
- Experience and skills in building relationships and influencing others to achieve results 
- To be passionate about transforming lives through education 
- The ability to build and maintain complicated spreadsheets to support grant reporting and financial modelling 
- The ability to consolidate accounts 
- An understanding of charity accounting and the ability to apply finance knowledge to comply with charity fundraising 
  
Webrecruit and our clients are equal opportunities employers, value diversity and are strongly committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all employees and all applicants for employment. Equal opportunities are the only acceptable way to conduct business and we believe that the more inclusive our environments are, the better our work will be. 
 
So, if you are ready for an exciting challenge as the UK Finance Lead, please apply via the button shown. This vacancy is being advertised by Webrecruit. The services advertised by Webrecruit are those of an Employment Agency.