Director, Finance and Operations

Grade: Director

Role: Director, Finance and Operations

Type: Full-time (40 hours/week)

Term: Indefinite

Location: This role sits within our Finance and Operations Team, which is part of our Swiss entity (known internally as “Global Hub”) and provides leadership and partnership to our teams in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. This role is open to candidates residing in the United States.

Salary: $160,358 – $180,403. Please find our 2024 salary bands here – CPI’s salary structure is linked to one’s country of residence.

Reports to: Acting Global Director of People, Finance, and Operations

Work experience required: at least 12+ years as a qualified accountant or similar experience in budgeting, forecasting, accounting, treasury, banking, compliance and risk management and a minimum of 5 years experience of being a full-scope Finance Manager/ Finance Director/ Senior Financial Management experience. Experience in managing a small/medium-sized global not-for-profit organisation with over 10 million dollar turnover is strongly preferred.

Closing: April 25 2024

About the Centre for Public Impact:

At the Centre for Public Impact, we believe in the potential of government to bring about better outcomes for people. We are a global not-for-profit organisation, founded by the Boston Consulting Group, who serve as a learning partner for governments, public servants and the diverse network of changemakers who are leading the charge to reimagine government so that it works for everyone.

We are a small but complex organisation, nearly 10 years old with a global footprint that is expansive and we partner with some of the biggest names in government, academia, and public sector innovation in the world. We have four regional teams in Europe, Australia/ Aotearoa New Zealand, Asia and North America. This role is part of our Global Hub team that partners with our regional teams and global initiatives to provide centralised expertise on finance, operations, people & culture, and communications initiatives.

Our Values

• courageous – we have the courage to speak the truth, to challenge without fear and tackle the difficult questions
• respectful – we respect differences, we seek to understand them and we look out for one another
• optimistic – we are positive about what we and governments can do for our societies
• inclusive – we are nonpartisan, and we work together and seek ideas and solutions across the divides

To advance our purpose of reimagining government so that it works for everyone, CPI seeks to attract and support a diversity of backgrounds, experience, talent and thought. For this reason, we encourage applicants from all backgrounds to apply. This includes candidates that have previously found it hard to be considered for other positions on the basis of their qualifications, disabilities, personal background or life events. If you would like to apply for the position but see a barrier to joining us, please do apply and we will work with you to find a solution. You can also read our full Diversity Equity and Inclusion Policy here.

What does the Director, Finance & Operations role involve?

Our Directors have overall responsibilities, obligations and duties, such as finance and budget performance and strategic development. They create protocols and policies needed to help with organisational delivery. This position is accountable for day-to-day finance, payroll and accounting activities, partnering with all stakeholders by providing guidance, advice, and day-to-day management of our finances and finance and operations team and striving to maximise efficiencies and is adaptable to change.

The Director, Finance & Operations will report to the Acting Global Director, People, Finance, and Operations, work closely with local service providers and partner with stakeholders across the organisation.

As someone whose work will include building relationships with everyone at CPI, you will be responsible for making sure our global teams are set up to succeed and assist in keeping our workplace a great place to work for everyone. This role will support all CPI regions worldwide.

Key responsibilities include:

• Finance & Accounting
  • Champion efficient operations in accounts receivable and accounts payable in all regions and central Global Hub, where required
  • During the month end process, ensure that all balance sheet items are all accounted and reconciled with their respective subsidiary ledgers and/or schedules and all contra or clearance accounts are cleared at the end of every month
  • Lead the Finance & Operations team in preparing annual financial plans for effective financial management of the global teams
  • Lead the Finance & Operations team in preparing monthly management reports and performing monthly forecasting
  • Oversee and be responsible for strategic business planning and financial modelling over the mid and long-term to support the delivery of the strategy
  • Ensure effective financial management, including budget monitoring, accurate reporting, and VAT compliance
  • Manage the production of financial information for the Board and Finance, Risk & Audit sub-committee
  • Lead the organisational audit and donor-specific audits, ensuring compliance with statutory requirements
  • Ensure compliance with financial regulatory requirements, including VAT and other taxes
  • Responsible for data protection and financial governance
  • Track cash flow to ensure that CPI has sufficient funds available to meet payments as they fall due, maintain banking relationships, manage financial reserves, implement treasury and risk management strategies
• Contracting, Operations, IT and Risk Management
  • Work with global teams in drafting funder or supplier contracts to support the delivery of our programmatic activity
  • Liaise with legal advisors, auditors, regulatory bodies and other advisors to ensure CPI’s operations remain legally compliant in all regions where CPI operates
  • Own the organisational risk management process, ensuring legal compliance across our global operations
  • Work with Finance & Operations team on maintaining and updating risk registers to track key corporate risks and ensure mitigants and financial controls are working as expected
  • Ensure CPI’s assets are properly controlled and accounted for.
  • Provide robust advice on all commercial decisions.
  • Overall responsibility for CPI’s cyber security and data protection in accordance with best practice and legislation.
  • Work with the IT Manager to evaluate and approve investments in technology that drive innovation and efficiency across the company, ensuring the technology strategy supports the company’s long-term objectives.
• Strategic Implementation
  • Identifying areas of improvement to ensure consistent systems and processes for financial control, statutory and management reporting, contracting and other Finance & Operations priorities
  • Working with global teams to build financial forecasts based on projected programmatic activity, hiring needs and/or other costs that align with CPI’s strategic plan
  • Ensure all budget holders are trained and supported to have a clear understanding of their area of financial responsibility.
  • Provide financial and management reporting, cash-flow, quarterly forecasts and financial commentaries for stakeholders
• People Leadership
  • Takes responsibility for supporting the professional development of Finance and Operations staff, including providing corrective feedback when necessary
  • Create a team culture where team members feel supported, nurtured and with a sense of belonging and inclusion
  • Providing inspirational leadership to the Finance and Operations team which supports, motivates and challenges them to develop and deliver to a high standard, reflecting the values and aims of CPI
  • Proactively cultivate relationships with regional directors, Global Hub staff, all others at CPI and Board of Directors as required
  • Leading and supporting programmatic staff to develop the skills and knowledge needed to effectively develop and manage their budgets.
• Thought Leadership
  • Researching the effects of any changes, law or government regulations on CPI’s accounting policies and procedures
  • Collaborating with each of our global teams to understand what’s working and what isn’t with regard to our Finance & Operations processes and helping us to probe, respond, and innovate as needed
  • Ensuring our policies are inclusive and equity-centred and take into account the diversity of our staff’s needs, backgrounds and lived experiences

How we work:

CPI aims to be the kind of workplace where you do good and meaningful work and get to be exactly who you are. We value collaboration and humility, sharing power and decision-making, and doing excellent work responsibly and flexibly, with the ability to also manage and enjoy your life outside of work. You will help shape the strategic direction of our complex organisation and lead a team of finance and operations staff located across the world. And you’ll get to work in a global context with smart, kind, and committed people who care about and invest in each other’s skills, perspectives, and leadership.

We are a remote-first team and are prioritising candidates from the US for this position. You will report to our Acting Global Director of People, Finance, and Operations who is based in the US, and you’ll work closely and daily with colleagues currently based in the US, UK, India and Australia.

The global nature of our work means that we’re looking for someone who is flexible and interested in sharing (and gaining) a global point of view in managing our Finance and Operations work. This means that we sometimes require flexibility (occasional early mornings or later evenings) in order to collaborate effectively with our teammates around the world.

Position Requirements, Skills and Experience:

We strongly encourage people to apply even if you don’t have all the skills and characteristics listed below. We will be happy to receive applications from candidates who already have some of these qualities and are willing to grow in others.

The person we’re looking for will:

• Be passionate about CPI’s vision for reimagining government
• Have 12+ years work experience as a qualified accountant and/or be qualified by experience (QBE). What we mean by that is someone with a solid understanding of financial statements and forecasting techniques. For example, you may have started out as a bookkeeper and moved up in your organisation to be able to put together financial statements (with relevant statutory governance skills) and have later developed into a senior finance role with full scope financial responsibility of an organization**. Please note that this is a technical, hands-on role and these skills are non-negotiable for us.**
• Have a minimum of 5 years experience of being a full scope Finance Director or a Senior Finance Professional in a comparable global not-for-profit organisation.
• Have strong experience in finance and operations management, particularly in accounting, finance, governance, risk and compliance
• Strong understanding of charity governance, company law, data protection, and regulations applicable to charities and foundations
• Experience in preparing statutory accounts, management accounts, and financial reports
• Excellent financial analysis and management skills, with experience in budgeting and forecasting
• Have experience of effectively communicating with team members, senior executives and board members
• Have strong team leadership and management skills, including the ability to drive multiple financial priorities simultaneously and support a staff team to move together with motivation, inclusion, and clarity toward our organisational goals and objectives
• Have excellent organisational and analytical skills
• Have high integrity, with the ability to hold confidential information and conversations tightly
• Have excellent interpersonal skills, including feeling confident building new relationships, and negotiating challenging conversations when necessary
• Be highly self motivated and capable of taking initiative and working autonomously
• Have an anticipatory stance, where you’re often able to sense what people need before they even know it themselves
• Demonstrate a curious, thoughtful, and confident leadership approach
• Be comfortable with ambiguity and the complexity of our work, where anything is possible but not always known in advance
• Be comfortable with technology and systems thinking, with an eagerness to learn and teach others
• Be comfortable working in a fast-paced environment and feel excited about the idea of working in startup environment and with a small but complicated (especially with regard to our financial systems) global organisation
• Be committed to cultivating a culture of equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace
• Be committed to exploring and experimenting with different ways of working and how to build our culture into something we are all proud of
• Feel excited about joining a global organisation and be willing to make the effort needed to build relationships, manage effectively, and stay connected with colleagues in different time zones – this role in particular will require flexible working hours that will balance both real-time and asynchronous working across the US, Europe, India, and Australia.

Salary & Benefits

At the Centre for Public Impact, we are committed to countering pay inequality and recently completed a global compensation benchmarking process to ensure that we’re paying our staff fairly and well for the roles that they hold and therefore, salaries at CPI are non-negotiable. Salary rises with experience, which includes work experience, educational experience, and lived experience.

CPI offers comprehensive benefits to its employees including a range of high-quality health, dental, and vision plans for individuals; 401(k) 3% employer contribution without a required employee contribution; $1,500 per year in dedicated professional development funds; generous paid leave and public holidays; paid parental leave and extended illness leave; and a year-end organisation-wide closure.

We are a remote-first organisation and anticipate this position will require approximately 20% domestic and international travel (depending on the candidate’s location).