Vacancy: Finance Director
About the Company: Our Client is the world’s largest chain of
primary and pre-primary schools. They democratize the right to succeed by
giving families living in poverty access to the high-quality education that
will allow their children to live a very different life.
The Position: The Finance Director holds a critically important
role at Our Client as the executive leading all Finance activities for a
Company that is scaling at an unprecedented rate. Today, the Company operates
in more than 359 academies in Kenya for more than 100,000 customers.
Within the next year, Our Client will
have launched 150 additional academies (expanding at a rate of one academy
every three days) across Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria, and will require financial
leadership to build world-class financial infrastructure for a rapidly scaling
multi-unit business.
This includes the design and
development of financial systems, policies, procedures and support team for the
business taking into account current and fast growing high volume transactions,
headcount, numbers of geographically distributed business units, and the
operations multi-country global brand.
The Finance Director is also able to dive deep into details and think at the ground level.
The Finance Director is also able to dive deep into details and think at the ground level.
He/she should be able to play offense
as a business and systems thinker – scalability of platform, improvements to
unit economic and scaling model, global shared services – as well as defense –
dealing with leakage, fraud prevention, and air-tight controls in challenging
operating environments.
The Finance Director will report
directly to the Managing director and is a core member of the leadership team.
Responsibilities
Responsibilities
- Build and develop systems - set up highly
efficient financial systems that take into account the highly technical
payment, cash management, payroll and financial operating systems of a
rapidly scaling, geographically distributed multi-unit operations. These
systems need to be highly efficient or automated, data-driven, transparent
and appropriate for emerging market conditions
- Develop financial and non-financial key
performance indicators and the appropriate reporting to assess financial
and operational performance across the Company.
- Ensure that systems and controls are in place
to minimize and mitigate risk of fraud/leakage, as well as proactively
audit key functions and accounts.
- Support business expansion strategies by
forecasting and assessing the financial impact of key decisions.
- Maintain budgetary oversight at both a global
and country-level of all departments within the company; work closely with
managers and senior executives on budgeting and forecast process.
- Manage the external audit process for
financial statements; ensure that Company is in compliance with internal
policies and relevant regulations.
- Lead cash and risk management – manage banking
relationships, cash flow forecasting, working capital, etc.
- Lead the department in recruiting and
retaining top staff; manage the development of staff through performance
management process.
Qualifications and Educational
Requirements
- At least 10 years of experience within
finance/corporate finance, including experience as Finance Director/VP
Finance.
- Deep experience leading and managing the
financial operations and strategy for a Company with hyper growth and complex
challenges across a broad scope of work.
- Degree in a business/finance related field –
e.g. accounting, MBA with a record of top academic performance from a
top-tier elite institution.
- Strong background in financial management
(systems) with a thorough understanding of financial regulations.
- Preferred Experience and Skills
- Experience leading Finance for fast-growth,
rapidly-scaling companies strongly preferred.
- Success operating in environments with high
risk of fraud and leakage, particularly in emerging markets.
