Finance Manager

About Cord

Cord is an international charity working to make peace a reality where people don’t have the freedom to exercise their rights. We work to build the relationship between those in power and local communities. 

We believe that people flourish when all parts of society work together. Peaceful relationships make that possible. The simple act of talking begins a journey of growth which transforms mistrust, includes the excluded and turns adversaries into allies.

Cord operates in eight countries and implements programmes in the following areas:

• Empowering Women & Girls
• Accessing Fundamental Freedoms
• Climate & the Environment
• Economic Empowerment
• Supporting Stronger Societies

Role context:

Cord’s turnover is about £2m a year. About 85% of Cord’s funding is restricted, coming from institutional donors like the EU and the US government, and 15% (about £300K) is unrestricted coming from a committed UK supporter base and other private fundraising streams. 

In 2024, Cord operates in eight countries and has offices in Burundi, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia & Philippines. Cord has a global team of thirty people with finance staff across six country teams. 

The Finance Manager role is a newly created role which is being introduced to strengthen the organisation’s financial management and control systems. The postholder will work across the breadth of the finance function preparing internal management accounts and external annual accounts.

In 2024, Cord changed its finance system to use Business Central. The Finance Manager will become the organisation’s main ‘admin’ user of the finance system. In the near-term, there will be a particular focus on rolling out further functionality of the system.

The Finance Manager will have oversight of the UK finance function through the line management of the UK Finance Officer and will directly deliver on the international side of operations in the areas of donor compliance, programme financial management, partner financial monitoring, and reporting. The role will involve travel to international programme locations.

Key Responsibilities:

• To support the Head of Operations to provide finance team leadership, develop and deliver an annual finance workplan to ensure continual improvement, and to drive finance capacity across the organisation
• To ensure the effective financial management of the organisation create and maintain effective financial control
• To be the Business Central Finance System Lead, developing functionality, troubleshooting and capacitating system users
• To ensure financial compliance: prepare statutory accounts, partner compliance, donor compliance and financial reporting

Cord operates a hybrid structure in the UK with most team members working from home attending the admin office in Coventry for team meetings.  

We are a small, committed team who love working together to make a huge impact. If you like the sound of us, then look at the recruitment pack and come and join our team!