Operations Director
Executive · Kigali, Kampala, Nairobi
About Spark
Spark MicroGrants believes in a world where everyone lives with dignity and determines their own positive future. Spark has pioneered a community-driven development model in East Africa, and works with NGO and Government partners to scale adoption and impacts for rural communities – on their own terms. Our model combines facilitated community meetings with a small, discretionary grant to catalyse local action and institution building. Read more about our Approach, Impact and Values on our website.
Overview:
The Operations Director will work closely with the Executive team and interact with the Finance committee of the Board of Directors and will be overall responsible for the Operations team. The right candidate will drive high level operational strategy and its implementation. The director will directly manage a Finance Lead, HR Lead,Organizational Excellence lead, Procurement lead and the Project Management Unit lead with the opportunity to build out their teams further. We are looking for candidates with a strong strategic finance mind, passion for culture and people development, who are excited about new age institution building and are excellent at management.
Values:
At Spark our values are what define us and shape the work that we do. Our values are:
1) Facilitators. We don’t impose; we enable others to generate impact.
2) Community-driven. We are motivated by what is best for the community.
3) Process-centered. The how of what we do is just as important as the what.
4) Authentic. Our vision and values live in everything we do.
5) Dynamic. We seek opportunities and are willing to take risks to serve our community partners better.
1. Responsibilities
- Drive Strategic Finance:
- Responsible for developing growth and financial models that drive operational efficiency and impact: lead on financial modeling for growth, and analysis on efficiency such as modeling out cost per community for different scenarios. Be a thought partner to program leads during expansion planning.
- Directly manage the Finance Director who leads the finance team to deliver on budgets, reports, policies and internal financial regulations and to ensure priority goals, systems, reports, audits and compliance processes remain current.
- Lead the development of budgets for new business opportunities and revenue streams, such as government and nonprofit contract based work.
- Manage the board finance committee (quarterly calls, develop decks and set agenda to review strategic financial questions).
2. Lead the HR Function:
- Overall owner on the senior leadership team for all aspects of our HR systems. This includes collaboration with the HR lead for the employee life cycle and experience and ensuring Spark’s culture is embedded and reinforced at every step.
- Responsible for building a strong integrated people function, including HR and talent development. Supervise and streamline key talent processes incl. recruitment, onboarding, talent development and performance management.
- Ensure we’re building an effective organization structure towards growth. Directly support senior level recruitment.
3. Spearhead organizational excellence:
- Lead a process that ensures we set strong organizational goals, budgets and KPIs across the organization, continually drive efficiency and quality, and develop work plans that enable us to deliver to our target.
- Ensure strong processes, systems and procedures are developed and operationalized across Spark, ensuring compliance across countries of operations and sources of funding. This will include responsibilities such as internal audits, compliance checks, procurement policies and oversight, etc.
- Drive change management across Spark and its team as our models change and we grow and ensure that Spark’s culture and unique approach is kept in mind, supported and exacerbated.
- Manage and develop functional teams within and across Finance, Human Resources (HR), and Operations to support Spark’s program teams, including working closely with the Organizational Excellence lead who builds management capacity and strengthens internal communication.
4. Procurement and Logistics Leadership
- Maintain and improve sound procurement and logistics processes and procedures.
- Ensure organizational compliance with the above processes and procedures in line with World Bank funding guidelines as well and lead the exceptions process where necessary.
- Lead the development of the procurement committee and establish it in organizational processes
5. Project Management
- Support the development of organizational project management practices in collaboration with the project management team.
- Sponsor and advocate for the implementation of the established project management principles and practices by all departments.
- Lead the growth and development of the project management department.
6. Safeguarding
- Ensure compliance with internal policies and procedures, especially including the HR Code of Conduct, Finance Manual, and the Spark safeguarding framework pertaining to the World Bank funding
Qualifications/Skills/Experience:
- Bachelor’s Degree, a Masters Degree in a related field would be an added advantage
- Experience in senior strategic finance management and people management.
- Strong process mind (Development, Improvement and Implementation)
- Past work experience in rural East Africa
- Passion for rural communities
- 10 years experience is nurturing and retaining great talent
OTHER INFORMATION
Job Location: Uganda/Rwanda/Malawi
Estimated start date: As soon as possible
Application closing Date: On a rolling basis, we reserve the right to close this recruitment process at any time.
How to Apply: Follow this link to apply: https://sparkmicrogrants.bamboohr.com/careers/62
Please note that we are able to sponsor visa applications for this position.
Safeguarding
Our safeguarding follows a do no harm principle. All Spark staff are to respect and uphold the safeguarding procedures and principles to minimize harm to stakeholders, program participants, and the environment, in compliance with the World Bank Environmental and Social Framework and Rwandan Legislation.
Equal Opportunity Employer
Spark Microgrants provides equal employment and advancement opportunities to all individuals. Employment decisions at Spark are based on merit, qualifications, and abilities. Spark does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, gender identity, age, disability, marital status, or any other characteristic protected by the law. Spark will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities unless doing so would result in undue hardship to daily operations.
