Finance and Operations Manager

USAID’s four-year (2021-2025) Resilience through Agriculture in South Sudan (RASS) Activity will improve food security and community household recovery and resilience in 13 target counties, reducing long term reliance on humanitarian assistance. To achieve this ambitious aim, RASS will employ a resilience pathways approach to improve the effectiveness of local systems and strengthen the capacities of community groups to achieve gender responsive and diversified market-sensitive production; facilitate increased production of diverse nutritious foods by strengthening productivity, reducing food loss, and improving nutrition behaviours; and strengthen and expand household and community opportunities for sustainable, locally driven livelihoods. RASS targets graduating communities from high integrated food security phase classifications to low IPC acute food insecurity and support a change from a focus on humanitarian assistance to inclusive development assistance and economic growth.

CONTEXT AND GENERAL TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

RASS will work with a sub-partner consortium and through local partnerships to ensure the sustainability of RASS interventions in various field sites for achieving its objectives. RASS will work through field offices either directly or through co-location within existing consortium partners, prioritizing collaboration, learning and coordination with other USAID and/or donor partners. It is on this backdrop that a strong operational platform/model is envisioned to deliver timely, agile, and adaptive activity implementation in South Sudan.

POSITION DESCRIPTION AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The Finance and Operations Manager (FOM) is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day financial and operational transactions for the RASS Activity. He/she will ensure compliance with all policies and procedures related to Finance, Operations Procurement and Management, Office Administration, Inventory Management, Facilities Management, Fleet Management, and Logistics. The FOM will provide direct support to the Director of Finance and Operations (DFO) in carrying out these functions. He/she will prioritize the use of DAI’s TAMIS for proper adherence to the organization’s policies and procedures. More generally, the FOM is responsible for ensuring operational staff facilitate implementation support according to USAID and DAI policies and procedures. The FOM will collaborate across RASS teams, including with home office project management and accounting staff, to meet the financial and operational needs of RASS. S/he will promote strong collaboration between teams and will continually reinforce RASS’s agreed-upon core purpose and principles. S/he will contribute to a learning environment in which personal, professional and team growth is supported, with a shared understanding that the “team” always comes before the “individual.”

The following comprise main responsibilities of the Finance and Operations Manager:

Finance & Operations Compliance:

• Support the Director of Finance & Operations to ensure that all organization and project finance and operations policies are fully operationalized, developing where needed, standard operating procedures (SOPs), guidelines, checklists, and workflows to ensure compliance with established policies and procedures.
• Ensure finance and operations workflows, processes, procedures, and best practices are undertaken in compliance with DAI policies, donor regulations and country local laws.
• Oversee and update the Field Operations Manual, including providing trainings to staff, proactively building understanding of RASS team members for adherence to operations and financial management requirements, and advising the DFO on required changes.

Accounting and Finance:

• Ensure that appropriate checks and balances (separation of duties) are maintained, and that staff carry out responsibilities in line with the latest Project Schedule of Authorities (PSOA).
• Ensure that financial transactions, including payroll and field expenses, are carried out in a timely manner, properly documented, and in compliance with DAI policies and procedures.
• Review all biweekly field finance reports prepared by the Accountant before they are submitted to the home office for approval.
• Provide management support to the Accountant to ensure timely monthly financial closure.
• Support the DFO and collaborate with activity managers to ensure appropriate and sufficient cashflow for timely field activity support.
• Under the facilitation of the Director of Finance and Operations, support periodic project file reviews, including compliant financial reporting and complete documentation.
• Ensure requests for payments receive proper approvals and include complete documentation prior to payment issuance.
• Undertake financial or cost analysis and draft cost reasonableness memos, as required.
• Offer budgetary advice and analysis to project /objective leads on a timely basis.
• Supervise the Accountant to prepare monthly accruals, commitments, and projections for the South Sudan office, to be integrated with project-wide budgeting exercises.

Operations Management:

• Facilitate operations systems, processes, and workflows that prioritize staff safety and security, supports technical innovation, is flexible and agile, and delivers on time and on budget activity implementation.
• Directly responsible for the day-to-day management and quality oversight of inventory management, facilities management, office administration, fleet management, logistics, and operations procurement.
• Assess operational risks and propose mitigation strategies.
• Highlight and provide the need for any adjustments to the RASS Field Operations Manual, TAMIS workflows, and other guidance documents.
• Provide support to Human Resource functions as instructed by the DOF.
• Ensure that staff in the South Sudan office follow best practices for file management across all operations work practices.

Relations and Stakeholder Engagement Management:

• Develop and maintain strong working relationships among both internal and external stakeholders, including but not limited to RASS staff, bank officials, NRA, among others.
• Support the DOF to undertake capacity building efforts and knowledge sharing to staff for enhanced functioning of financial performance and compliance.
• Communicate regularly with operations colleagues in Juba and in the counties, as well as with the DAI project management team to highlight challenges and propose solutions.
• Work in collaboration and support of the sub-grants team as may be required from time to time.
• Enhance responsiveness regarding communication among and across all stakeholders and home office colleagues.

Team Management & Support

• Provide the needed management leadership, coaching, and mentoring to direct reports.**
• Supervise the Finance & Operations team to proactively address any concerns and support their professional growth.
• Ensure strong relationships are maintained between staff in the Operations Department and across all RASS teams.
• Monitor HR issues according to the Employee Handbook and DAI policies and procedures, such as with poor performance, employee dissatisfaction, or staff learning and professional development needs, escalating issues and suggesting solutions.
• Serve as a member of activity teams as needed and serve as a member of other temporary cross-project teams such as during startup and closedown.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Finance & Operations Manager will directly supervise the Accountant, Procurement & Logistics Officer, and HR & Administration Assistant. S/he will oversee supervision of fleet management through the Procurement and Logistics Officer.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Education & Work Experience: University degree in Business Management, Operations Management, Logistics, Financial Management or Accounting or appropriate field and six years of relevant professional experience or Post-graduate degree in any of previously mentioned fields and three years of relevant professional experience. Management experience on USAID-funded projects a plus. **
• Demonstrated Professional Knowledge: proven experience in systems development, including writing policy manuals or best practices documents, navigation and application of USAID rules and regulations, demonstrated experience with financial management tasks such as developing or updating budgets, managing field accounting software, and operations procurement.

• Demonstrated Professional Ability:** proven experience managing teams in fast-paced environments, risk management, and successful implementation of progressively higher-level responsibilities throughout professional career, showcasing the ability to be a self-starter, team player, problem solver, and meeting deadlines with minimal supervision. Showcases a strong command of Microsoft Office suite, including but not limited to Word, Excel, and Outlook.

• Demonstrated Communication Skills: Ability to communicate/collaborate effectively across teams, cultures, gender, generations, including with team members based in other countries. Proven ability to effectively communicate across different knowledge levels with experience facilitating or co-leading trainings to staff. Professional fluency in English and Juba Arabic a must, local languages a plus.

REQUIRED ATTRITBUTES OF ALL RASS TEAM MEMBERS

• Be Flexible and Adaptive – given the pace and frequency at which conditions may change in South Sudan, team members are expected to be agile with position requirements, adapting to changing circumstances for successfully meeting the objectives of the contract.
• Be Collaborative and Inclusive –individual team members are expected to model openness to new and competing ideas, seek feedback from colleagues, demonstrate and internalize respect for diverse opinions, and proactively create safe spaces for participation in decision-making processes to ensure the views of different groups, gender, and levels of understanding and experience within systems where RASS operates are considered and incorporated into activity programming, security, and development of RASS policies and procedures.