Global Manager, Finance & Grants Administration

What does the Global Grant Manager, Finance & Operations role involve? 

The Global Grants Manager is a critical role at CPI, primarily focused on enhancing the operational efficiency and financial compliance of our grant funded programmes. Reporting directly to the Acting Global Director of People, Finance, and Operations, this position requires a strategic thinker with a strong foundation in finance and grants management, who will work closely with programmatic teams and partner with stakeholders across the organisation. 

The role will involve working directly with large global funders, as well as directly with sub grantees and suppliers on CPI programmes. This role will also provide overall finance support to our Europe team in collaboration with our Global Senior Associate, Finance and Operations. Our managers have overall responsibilities, obligations and duties around finance, budget performance, and strategic development. They create protocols and policies needed to help with organisational and programmatic delivery. This role will be responsible for receiving and reviewing partner expenditures and reports and preparing consolidated financial reports for donors as well as be accountable for day to day grant management and administration.

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 largely be focused on our Europe team, however you will support all CPI regions worldwide. 

Key responsibilities include: 

Finance & Accounting

• Support efficient operations in accounts receivable and accounts payable in Europe and other CPI regions where required

• Support donor compliance during reporting by using the right templates and budgetary ceilings as applicable 

• Assist the Finance & Operations team during the month end process to 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

• Assist the Finance & Operations team in preparing annual financial plans for effective financial management of the global teams

• Assist the Finance & Operations team in preparing monthly management reports and performing bi-monthly forecasting

• Contracting & Operations

  • Work with global teams in drafting funder, grantee and/or supplier contracts to support the delivery of our programmatic activity

  • Onboarding suppliers into our financial systems and ensuring purchase orders are raised that follow our internal financial policies & procedures

  • Liaise with legal, auditors and other advisors to ensure CPI’s operations in Europe remain legally compliant

  • 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

  • Work with the CPIE team to ensure a financial risk assessment is maintained and updated and addressing any suspicions of fraud in line with policy

• Audits

  • Work with the CPIE team and F&O team to ensure programmes are audit ready

  • Coordinate donor audits on assigned programmes

  • Support the team in ensuring that any recommendations and actions resulting from audits are duly actioned and implemented

• Donor & Grants Management

  • Support our project teams to ensure programmes are implemented in line with Donor policies and requirements 

  • Lead the sub granting process for all implementing partners and consortiums in collaboration with the relevant regional/project teams

  • Ensure that the necessary information is documented, tracked and updated on the appropriate financial transaction and reporting tools

  • Lead on the preparations of budget versus actuals to support ongoing grants decision, identify deviations in implementation progress and flag delays/request for support

  • Proactively update Senior leadership on progress, risks and financial status  

Who are we looking for? 

The person we’re looking for will:

• Be passionate about CPI’s vision for reimagining government

• Have 4+ years work experience in financial grant administration within the non-profit/charity sector, including managing large transactions.

• Strong understanding of grant regulations, compliance requirements, and financial management principles.

• Proven project management skills, with a track record of successfully leading and delivering projects on time and within budget.

• Excellent communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with diverse stakeholders.

• Prior experience using financial transaction, reporting and accounting software is essential, CPI currently uses  Xero and Approval Max so experience of using these tools would be highly desirable . Please note that this is a technical role and these skills are non-negotiable for us. 

• Have excellent organisational skills and experience with balancing competing priorities

• Have high integrity, with the ability to keep information and conversations confidential.

• Have excellent interpersonal skills, including feeling confident building new relationships, and negotiating challenging conversations if necessary

• Be highly self motivated and capable of taking initiative and working autonomously

• Be comfortable with ambiguity and the complexity of our work, where anything is possible but not always known in advance

• Interested in joining an international organisation and be willing to make the effort needed to build relationships and stay connected with colleagues in different time zones

• Be comfortable working in a fast-paced environment and about the idea of working in startup environment with a small but growing team

• 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

CPI is deeply invested in creating an experience of equity, inclusion, and belonging for everyone on our staff. We actively seek to recruit, develop, and retain a team of talented staff that represents diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences.  We are using Applied in order to reduce bias in our hiring process and ensure that we are shortlisting candidates based on their skills and ideas. Please note that we do not ask for a cover letter and instead, the application requires three paragraph-length answers. Your application will be anonymized for review. Although we ask for your CV, it will not be looked at until further down the process. Please apply by July 5, 2024 (23:59 BST)