Finance Specialist

Under the supervision of the Senior Manager (Innovative Financing), the Finance Specialist will coordinate the day-to-day deployment of financing interventions and other special contracting transactions, including under the Vaccine Independence Initiative (VII) Revolving Fund and other VII-enabled financial instruments, to help secure timely access to affordable essential health commodities for partner countries.

Summary of key functions/accountabilities:

• Coordinates internal and external work on expansion of VII and other financing interventions with the objective of helping improve timely access (particularly to immunization and nutrition commodities) and/or market dynamics.
• Leads origination and execution of financing transactions and liaises with partner countries, UNICEF country offices and financing partners such as the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
• Drafts transaction approval requests for submission to UNICEF senior management.
• Leads financial monitoring, tracking and financial analysis activities for the Financing unit within UNICEF’s Procurement Services Centre.
• Supervises Senior Planning Associate performing data reviews and analyses related to pre-financing and other special contracting transactions.
• Leads design of tools to support the monitoring of special projects and activities.
• Engages with other Supply Division units to ensure payments and monitor account balances and identifies and initiates required adjustments.
• Supports negotiations and drafting of amendments/renewal of external donors’ and financing partners’ contributions.
• Designs and prepares financial reports for internal management and external donors and other third parties with support from the Senior Planning Associate.
• Executes year-end reporting and reconciliations for area of responsibility.
• Prepares periodic reports, statements, schedules summaries analysis and document work papers relating to areas of responsibility.
• Addresses queries by UNICEF teams as well as external donors.
• Analyses utilisation and optimises use of current capital base available for financing, including in-depth financial forecasting.
• Drafts reports and reviews / recommendations of strategic options related to available financing mechanisms for essential health commodities.

To qualify as an advocate for every child you will have:
Education:

• Advanced University Degree (Master’s degree) preferably in Business Administration, Finance or Economics is required.
• A first University degree may be accepted in lieu of a Master’s degree in the above field in conjunction with two additional years of relevant work experience.

Work Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of relevant financial industry experience (banking, accounting, auditing) in an international organization or in the private sector is required.
• Experience with deploying financial instruments (including guarantees, trust funds, innovative financing mechanisms) desirable.
• Proven strong analytical and numerical skills and detail-oriented.
• Computer literacy (incl. good command of Microsoft Excel).
• Experience with reviewing legal documentation is an asset.
• Experience in interacting with internal and external stakeholders and donors (international organisations, philanthropists, etc.) desirable.
• Experience with financing or commercial issues relating to health products is an asset.

Languages:

• Fluency in English is required. Knowledge of another official UN language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish) is an asset.

Source: https://jobs.unicef.org/cw/en-us/job/569446