Business Officer, MENA

Job Title: Business Officer, MENA
Location: London (United Kingdom)
Starting date: 04 October 2021
Duration: 12 Months fixed-term contract
Department: Middle East and North Africa
Term &LOE Full-time; 100%
Supervisor: Business Manager
Salary range: £34,088 (C1)
About Internews :
Internews works to ensure access to trusted, quality news and information that empowers people to have a voice in their future and to live healthy, secure, and rewarding lives. We envision a world where everyone can communicate freely with anyone, anywhere, and exchange the news and information they need to shape their communities and the world.
For 35 years and in more than 100 countries, we have worked with our local partners to build hundreds of sustainable organizations, strengthened the capacity of thousands of media professionals, human rights activists, and information entrepreneurs, and reached millions of people with quality, local information, improving lives and building lasting change. On issues ranging from health and the environment to conflict and governance, Internews has developed approaches that harness the power of media and information to create positive change.
Internews is a charity operating internationally, with administrative centres in California, Washington DC, London, and Paris as well as regional hubs in Nairobi, Kiev and Bangkok. Formed in 1982, Internews currently has offices in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and North America.
Our commitment to a culture of belonging:
Internews is passionate about our core values and about supporting positive change in the world. We pride ourselves on our commitment to innovation and flexibility. We believe that diverse teams are strong teams, and work to support an ethic of belonging, dignity, and justice for all people. Our current team includes a mix of genders, parents and non-parents, the self-taught, and people of multiple races, nationalities, ages, sexual orientations, and socio-economic backgrounds. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and encourage candidates of all races, genders, ages, abilities, orientations, ethnicities, and national origins to apply, and actively welcome those with alternative backgrounds and experiences.
About the role:
The Business Officer will work for the Middle East and North Africa Programme Management Unit (PMU) and will provide the highest standards of financial and administrative support to European funded Internews MENA Programmes. We are looking for a responsible and professional individual to perform a variety of financial and administrative tasks. Duties of the Business Officer will include the financial administration of current projects, oversight of project budgets and partner spending, facilitation of payment requests, budgetary projections and other financial and administrative duties that may be required during this period.
The Business Officer will work closely with the Senior Programme Officer, the Business Manager and the Programme Finance Analyst to provide timely and quality support to programmes as required.
Key Responsibilities:

• Financial administration of Internews’s projects:
• Review project expenditure and ensure accuracy of codings.
• Manage cash-flow to ensure the availability of project funds at Internews’ offices.
• Work with Programme Finance Analysts (PFAs) to prepare financial reports for donors, prepare notes for financial reports, and ensure that costs are reported in compliance with donor requirements.
• Monitor co-financing plans.

• Budget oversight:
• Review budget-versus-actuals and facilitate forecasting in line with project activities.
• Support partners with budget planning.
• Align internal templates to donor formats for effective monitoring and reporting.
• Monitoring HQ spending rates and work with PFAs to ensure adequate burn-rates.

• Sub-grants:
• support Internews’ partners to prepare budgets under sub-grant agreements.
• Review financial reports from partners when required and coordinate corrections as required.

• Payments and administration:
• Coordinate payment requests to London, including reviews, confirmations, and follow-ups.
• Monitor donor income and prepare requests for disbursements to donors.
• Review and verify suppliers’ invoices to London HQ and Internews’ accounting department in California.

• Support Accounting field teams in terms of induction and refreshment training regarding Internews and donors’ procedures and policies.
• Budget development: work closely with Programme Officer and country offices to develop budgets for new proposals. Coordinate with the Business Manager on the development of co-financing approaches and plans for opportunities with the European Commission and other European donors.
• Other tasks: participate in project audits carried out at the HQ as required by the London finance controls team; other financial and administrative may be assigned as required, including the preparation of requests for Personal Service Contracts.

Requirements:

• Relevant degree in Accounting, Business Administration or Financial management.
• Qualification in Accounting (Knowledge of ERP (Agresso) and QuickBook will be a plus)
• At least five years of experience working in a similar capacity.
• Experience with European funders (European Commission, SIDA, DFID, etc.)
• Proficiency in MS Office. Advanced proficiency in MS Excel.
• Fluency in English (both written and spoken).
• Knowledge of Arabic will be a plus.
• Creative and a good team player.
• Excellent multitasking skills.
• Good management skills and the ability to solve immediate problems.

Recruitment timeline:
Closing date: 10th September 2021
Candidates must submit a succinct covering letter of no more than 2-pages explaining how they satisfy the requirements of the person speciation in addition to a CV highlighting relevant experience. The successful candidate will also be asked to provide three professional referees, one of whom must be from their most recent employer.
The above noted job description is not intended to describe, in detail, all the tasks that may be assigned but rather to give the job holder a general sense of the responsibilities and expectations of his/her position. As the nature of business demands change so, too, may the essential functions of this position.
This position will be located in the United Kingdom and therefore a successful applicant must be able to demonstrate their right to work in the UK.

Job Types: Full-time, Contract