Senior Finance Officer

Senior Finance Officer

 Description

Working at the World Bank Group provides a unique opportunity for you to help our clients solve their greatest development challenges. The World Bank Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge for developing countries; a unique global partnership of five institutions dedicated to ending extreme poverty, increasing shared prosperity and promoting sustainable development. With 189 member countries and more than 120 offices worldwide, we work with public and private sector partners, investing in groundbreaking projects and using data, research, and technology to develop solutions to the most urgent global challenges. Visit www.worldbank.org.

Regional Context

The Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) Region is committed to helping Africa realize its considerable development potential, with a focus on employment generation. The core values guiding our work are passion for our mission of sustainable poverty reduction with keen attention to quality and transformative impact, putting the needs of the client at the center of all our activities, trust and respect as a common currency, intellectual rigor and curiosity, honesty and integrity, teamwork, openness to learning and the courage to admit we do not always have the answer.  

Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) has offices in 26 countries and is a vibrant and changing environment for development work. The last two decades of democratic elections and, in some countries multiparty systems has created a greater openness to pro-poor reforms. A vibrant civil society has become increasingly vocal on policy issues, and African citizens are more and more holding politicians accountable for their actions (although there are variations across countries). Regional institutions, such as AU/NEPAD are applying peer pressure on national leaders to improve their performance.  

While the overall business climate in Africa is the weakest in the world, several countries—including some fragile states—have made great strides in improving their environment for business. What is emerging as a result is a growing region, with setbacks from time to time, that is increasingly seen as a destination for investment as much as for aid; and one where leaders are increasingly willing to address problems of poor governance that harms development effectiveness.  

The Africa Eastern and Southern (AFE) Region seeks to seize this opportunity to better support our clients in realizing the ambition of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting prosperity. 

Vice-Presidency Context
The Budget, Performance Review, and Strategic Planning (BPS) VPU is mandated with overseeing the resource management function of the World Bank with the following key accountabilities: strategy and business planning; expense management; performance review and reporting; resource management infrastructure development and maintenance; internal controls and risk management; and resource management capacity building.

BPS has a service delivery model with three core roles:
• Business Partners (client facing): embedded partners focused on decision support and performance oversight with strong understanding of the business. 
• Centers of Expertise (COE): providing thought leadership and analytics, designing business finance policies, practices, and coordinating business finance knowledge management; and 
• Service Center: central unit to manage delivery of high volume and transactional and reporting services across the Bank, including help desk support to clients.

BPS is organized into four  departments under a Vice President: (1) BPS Corporate Units (BPSCU) - supporting Institutional, Governance and Administrative Units, Capital Budget and providing BPS systems, knowledge, data governance and the service center; (2) BPS Operations Units (BPSOU) – supporting Practice Groups and Regions (3) BPS Strategic Planning (BPSSP) – supporting the corporate strategic business and budget planning process; and (4) BPS Corporate Procurement (BPSCP) with teams responsible for coordinating and overseeing the sourcing strategy, selection, contract execution, and vendor management across the globe. 

BPS Operations Units (BPSOU) is comprised of six client-facing units providing support to the (a) Global Practice VPUs (Sustainable Development; Infrastructure; Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions; and Human Development); (b) the Regions (the Africa East and West Regions; the Europe & Central Asia and Middle East & North Africa Regions; the South Asia and East Asia & Pacific Regions; and the Latin American & Caribbean Region; and (c) Operational & Country Services (OPCS).

Unit Context
Sitting within BPSOU, the BPS Unit of the Africa Region (BPSAF) is responsible for business planning, budgeting, work programming, deliverables reporting, and financial reporting for all the departments in the World Bank Eastern and Southern Africa Region and Western and Central Africa Region. In addition, in country offices, BPSAF staff performs accounting, payment processing, cash management and administration functions. Overall, BPSAF ensures that each department maintains cost efficiency and effective controls over all financial transactions and provides support for effective management and monitoring of deliverables.

BPSAF is seeking to recruit a Senior Finance Officer based in Nairobi, Kenya to help drive, support, and implement the BPS Service Delivery within the BPSAF team. The Senior Finance Officer works independently under the guidance of the BPSAF Manager. The individual will have primary regional responsibilities, including supervising BPS staff in a few Country Management Units, and s/he will be called upon to assist the BPS Manager in various regional exercises, such as the country office modernization exercise, aspects of policy formulation, country office decentralization and operations, controls, cost efficiencies, business planning, amongst others. S/he will require seasoned experience to handle diverse and complex budget related matters and day-to-day resource management work program issues. S/he is expected to actively analyze topics such as business plans, unit performance indicators, cost effectiveness and internal controls issues; budget and expense indicators; and providing coaching and guidance to more junior BPS staff on a daily basis will be an integral part of the responsibilities of the Senior Finance Officer. This position therefore requires highly developed technical, analytical, writing and communication skills, as well as team leadership, and coaching skills.

In so doing, the Senior Finance officer is entrusted with sensitive and confidential information and relied on for his/her experience and sound judgment and for working independently on diverse and highly complex tasks/issues.  He/she plays an advisory role to ensure adherence to institutional and regional guidelines and controls and to ensure that the objectives of the Region and the institution are respected.

BPS staff are expected to be fungible and to work across the BPS Functions over time – in response to business needs and in support of their professional development.

Roles and Responsibilities:
Financial Management/Monitoring:
• Overall:  Supports the BPS Manager on key aspects of the Finance function including strategic aspects as well as corporate planning and monitoring.
• Leads various regional exercises, including but not limited to, working with WFA in implementing and providing support to the country office modernization exercise.
• Formulates Regional policy guidance notes on key cost containment and related issues and disseminates widely.
• Focal point for country office decentralization and operations, including but not limited to, matters pertaining to the Global Mobility Support Framework (GMSF), staff loans, CO procurement, security, facilities, CO transactions, amongst others.
• Capital Budget planning and monitoring: Support the BPS Manager in the management of the capital budget portfolio for the region.
• Business Planning:  During strategy and business planning, oversees aspects of the business planning process, such as the formulation of the WPA amongst others. 
• Process Improvement: Generate concept notes and best practices papers; handles complex institutional and program implementation issues; leads the development of proposals and their subsequent implementation.
• Cost Controls, Analysis and Cost Effectiveness: Independently handles complex and technical financial, administrative, and cost effectiveness policy and program issues within the Region.
• Leads the interface with other relevant institutional units in resolving issues.
• Provides expert leadership on the identification, production and analysis of key performance and effectiveness indicators.
• Produces major/complex reports for management designed to facilitate decision making.

Financial Control and Fiduciary:
• Provides guidance, advice, interpretation, and recommendations to the Country Director, Managers, and staff on BPS policies and procedures.
• Ensures that audits and quality assurance reviews recommendations are implemented properly.
• Coordinates preparation of accounting scorecard responses and implements recommendations.
• Reviews accounting transactions, reconciliation reports, open items report, and monthly accounting reports.
• Ensures that Bank’s assets and inventories are appropriately recorded and safeguarded.
• Maintains consistency in the application of accounting rules and procedures.

Reporting, Communications and Liaison:
• Produces and presents major/complex reports and presentations for Regional management, client meetings, town halls, and BPS.
• Builds strong working associations and takes the lead in VPU-level liaison with other Bank units (BPS, OPCS, GPs, etc.) as assigned by the BPS Manager;
• Supports the Finance  team in their discussions with Departmental management.
• Proactively establishes and maintains interface with the client, within own VPU and across VPUs; participates in management team meetings, provides reliable information, ensures effective back-up arrangements; ensures timely submissions of tasks/outputs.
• Advises/liaises with staff in client units in order to improve knowledge and awareness with respect to budget methodologies, policies, internal control policies and procedures.
• Provides advice and guidance to others on best practices related to budget and trust fund issues.

Team Lead Role:
• Provides guidance, supervision, and day-to-day technical advice to Finance staff, and coordinates the integration and consolidation of unit inputs during planning and allocation exercises.
• Exercises significant team leadership, and coaches’ junior Finance  staff.
• Contributes to the development of administrative policies and practices for process improvement and the efficient and effective operation of the country office.

Note: This internal requisition is open to WBG and IMF staff only (including short-term and extended term consultants/ temporaries). External candidates are requested not to apply. In case an external candidate applies, their application will not be considered.

Selection Criteria

• Master’s degree in Accounting, Business, Finance, Management or other relevant discipline required to fulfill position specific requirements or Non-Finance Bachelor’s Degree plus an internationally recognized completed professional accounting qualification (e.g., CPA, CA, ACCA, CGMA, CMA)
• Eight years relevant experience across any two or more units (Country Office, non‐BPS, or recent external experience would fulfill second unit requirement).
• Expert knowledge and understanding of Bank policies and procedures, business planning, work programming, budgeting, and financial management.  Ability to perform multiple business support services.
• An excellent understanding of Bank operations, experience working with the Bank's internal control framework; knowledge of the Bank's information and budget systems (e.g. SAP, BI) and trust funds is highly desirable.
• Excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to interface with all levels of management, staff and external contacts, and ability to work in a matrix management environment, both as a team leader and team member.
• Proven ability to provide leadership, technical oversight, coach, mentor and develop more junior staff.
• Demonstrated ability to take the initiative, be proactive, and be able to play a facilitative role to ensure collaborative team results.
• Excellent communication skills – able to articulate clearly and to write concisely and succinctly, in English, for various audiences, including management and regional staff in general. Proficiency in a second language would be an advantage.
• Proven ability to research, analyze and synthesize information, interpret data, retrieve information from SAP or other databases and clearly and concisely prepare/present results, and propose practical solutions to complex operational and policy issues.

Competencies
• Technical Skills - Lead the implementation, execution, and monitoring of activities. Provide critical inputs to business planning and forecasting, innovating to enhance the impact of integrated planning and budgeting for all sources of funds. Translate business strategy into financial targets and tactical plans. Lead the development of functional reporting systems for management, project, or performance reporting. Advise on the optimal use of financial resources. Analyze scenario modeling and risk analysis to support financial strategies. Implement and apply advanced costing techniques. Drive the integration and standardization of risk management processes across the organization.
• Leadership Skills - Promote diversity and foster a cooperative culture aligned with strategic priorities. Utilize the skills and expertise of all team members, supporting cross-functional and geographically dispersed teams. Encourage exceptional performance by fostering a shared corporate identity and common purpose. Implement strategic training initiatives to improve BPS delivery. Advocate for developmental and other mobility assignments for team’s staff for organizational and individual growth. Support the recruitment, development, and retention of high-potential and high-performing staff through coaching, mentoring, and feedback. Foster a culture of flexibility and adaptability to ongoing change. Provide regular, timely, constructive and actionable feedback to team members and management. Guide and motivate Team Members. Recognize and reward team and individual achievements.
• People Skills - Influence and work effectively with people from different cultures. Negotiate effectively at senior levels by managing objections and challenges and communicate assertively in high-risk situations to resolve complex issues and build consensus. Lead organizational forums for broad idea exchange and establish systems to gather and disseminate diverse perspectives. Present complex information confidently to all organizational levels and lead the development of written content for critical situations. Drive cross-functional initiatives that create value, leverage a broader network across the business and externally.
• Digital Skills - Drive team knowledge acquisition and use of emerging technologies in work program delivery. Use digital tools to create knowledge and to innovate processes and products. Analyze data and implement data-driven solutions for business enhancement, while keeping abreast of analytics advancements. Define the best visualization approaches and solutions for specific business issues and create interactive dashboards using multiple techniques.
• Business Skills - Demonstrate advanced understanding of the World Bank Group's Operational and Financial models, including its financial instruments and its strategic direction, analyzing threats and opportunities and recognizing innovation potential. Understand client needs, provide expert financial advice, communicate complex ideas clearly, and customize solutions to client specifications. Design financial strategies in line with the World Bank's objectives, foreseeing business requirements and optimizing resource allocation. Identify and strategize around opportunities and challenges to maximize benefits and minimize risks, ensuring efficient financial resource management. Exhibit advanced critical thinking skills to analyze and evaluate complex business problems independently. Pursue integration, standardization, and simplification of systems and processes. Advocate for, lead and apply sustainable finance practices and projects with organization-wide impact.  

World Bank Group Core Competencies

The World Bank Group offers comprehensive benefits, including a retirement plan; medical, life and disability insurance; and paid leave, including parental leave, as well as reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity and inclusive employer with a dedicated and committed workforce, and do not discriminate based on gender, gender identity, religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or disability.

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