Position Overview
Educate!, a fast-growing and award-winning social enterprise, is seeking a Finance Manager to take lead of the finance operations in Kenya. Educate! Is driving innovative pathways to sustainably impact Out of School Youth (OoSY) livelihoods at scale. We empower and train youth on running successful businesses within their communities. Educate! Also works closely with government players to drive reforms in the education sector.
Educate! is looking for someone who has non-profit experience, delivers results while leading multiple projects, is willing to improve on processes and able to lead change management processes. This person is a strong communicator, a team player and is able to work with diverse teams across multiple functions and programs. The Finance Manager we’re looking for brings in a strong background in grants project management, driving impact in a high budgetary compliance environment.
The Finance Manager will be reporting to Educate! Kenya Managing Director and will be part of the larger management team. The Finance Manager will be the finance lead in the organization ensuring the implementation of accounting and financial management functions, design and co-ordinate the implementation of sound accounting and financial management and control systems and procedures for all operational and administrative areas and to facilitate the maintenance of accurate and up to date financial and accounting records for effective and smooth running of all business operations under fast changing and complex circumstances.
About Educate!
By 2035, Africa will contribute more people to the workforce each year than the rest of the world combined. Educate! leverages an obsession with evidence and iterative learning to tackle one of our planet's greatest challenges — unlocking the potential of its youngest continent.
Educate! prepares youth in Africa with the skills to succeed in today’s economy. We've created a 100-hour experience that delivers the most essential skills youth need to transition to work, combining training, mentorship, and practical experience starting a business. We deliver this experience to youth in 3 ways: directly to schools, integrated into education systems, and through bootcamps for out-of-school youth.
All three delivery channels have been validated by several independent evaluations, and to date, more than 200,000 youth have been meaningfully impacted by this model across Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya. Along the way, Educate! has become the largest youth skills provider in East Africa.
Educate! is a team of over 210 largely African staff and 300 volunteer youth mentors. We prioritize building an engaging, fulfilling and growth oriented work environment. 50% of our top 30 leaders have been with us for over 5 years, 10+ alumni have started their own organizations and 6 current or former team members were Acumen Fund East Africa fellows.
We have been backed by top foundations such as Imaginable Futures, Big Bang Philanthropy, #startsmall, and Echidna Giving. Educate! won a 2018 Klaus J. Jacobs Prize and a 2015 WISE Award, and has been highlighted by the World Bank’s S4YE's Impact Portfolio, an Al Jazeera documentary, BBC, The Brookings Institution as one of 14 case studies on scaling education, and the Gates Foundation as a Goalkeepers Accelerator. In 2022, we received a catalytic investment from philanthropist Mackenzie Scott to scale our systems change work.
Educate!'s long-term vision is to design solutions that measurably impact millions of youth across Africa each year. By 2025, we aim to scale our annual reach by 4x and measurably impact over 400,000 new youth with the essential skills they need to succeed in life.
Performance Objectives
Financial Management & Oversight
- Provide leadership to the finance and accounting areas of the organization, proposing and implementing improvements in processes to increase efficiency
- Provide useful financial insights to help make better decisions about formulating and executing strategy, and provide guidance and analysis to executive and operational management to improve results.
- Maintain control of the following areas: general ledger, accounts payable, expense reports, and payroll.
- Prepare a variety of ad hoc financial scenarios as requested.
- Ensure full compliance with Kenya Revenue Authority, NGO Board and returns requirements
- Ensure accurate and timely financial reporting for decision making
- Overall responsibility for maintenance of internal control systems
- Collaborate and lead finance functions with Educate! team, especially with the budget owners/managers.
- Provide finance support and collaborate closely with the operations team
- Key contact with bank support personnel and Tax Advisors
- Periodic meetings with the Regional Finance team (Managing Director and CFO) for all Educate! accounting needs and deliverables
- Work in close collaboration with other contracted finance support teams
Financial Control & Accounting
- Observe and implement all Educate! accounting systems, payments, bookkeeping, and statutory filing.
- Ensure that all financial transactions are processed accurately, in a timely manner, and in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles through the Quickbooks system, identifying and correcting any variances.
- Develop, implement, and maintain processes and controls that are current best practices related to transaction processing.
- Manage, oversee, process (as appropriate), all of the following transactions: payroll, accounts payable, revenue and expense, fixed assets, cash, bank reconciliations, and allocations.
- Perform month-end closing procedures, including account reconciliations, and updating schedules.
- Maintain an orderly accounting filing system
- Revenue management & improvement of payment systems
Financial Reporting & Budget Management
- Ensure the monthly budget balances report is up to date and shared with budget holders
- Confirm expense codes on all requests as they are received, correct where necessary through the budget manager.
- Minimize the number of errors from the team through constant feedback and also in reporting.
- Prepare and analyze accurate monthly financial and management reports, including; income statement, balance sheet, budget and variance, projections and forecast, and cash flow
- Submit accurate, complete and timely management reports.
- Coordinate the preparation of the audited financial statements and all tax returns
- Reporting as needed to the regional finance team on Educate! financials
- Involved in the preparation of periodic budgets and updates
- Collaborate with budget managers by sharing budgets and providing support and clarity where needed
- Ensure budgets are entered into the accounting system
- Ensure BVA reports are prepared and have clear explanations at month-end
- Share monthly BVA reports with budget holders for ease of planning
- Share quarterly BVA reports with clear explanations with Educate!
- Monitor the budget memos and update the approved budgets and Quickbooks with the Budget Memos where needed
- Offer periodic training or refresher training to the teams aimed at improving financial management, discipline and accountability as stipulated in our policies and procedures.
Grant Project Accounting and Management
- Manage the grand project budgeting, budget management and reporting
- Develop and maintain grant project documentation, including financial reports and compliance records.
- Assess potential risks and challenges that may impact project expectations and success and communicate these risks to the relevant internal stakeholders.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting or finance.
- Certified public accountant (CPA, K) or ACCA qualification
- Finance & Accounting experience working in a non-profit environment
- Minimum of 7 years of finance and accounting experience, including finance, accounting, audit, and analysis (including gathering, evaluating, presenting, and reporting financial information to management and external stakeholders).
- Minimum of 3 years of managerial experience leading finance teams and cross-function collaborations.
- Minimum 3 years of grant project management experience
- Proven experience handling $1+ Million annual budgets
- Solid experience in coordinating audit activities and managing reporting, budget development and analysis, accounts payable and receivable, general ledger, payroll, and accounting.
- Proficiency with Quickbooks Online and excellent Excel skills.
- Entrepreneurial drive and proven ability to take ownership and lead the team’s combined learning.
- Collaborative, data-oriented approach to problem-solving
- Demonstrated ability to work in a self-directed manner, seeking out areas that need attention rather than being asked to look at specific problem areas.
- Consistently asks for help and seeks advice from colleagues to let the best idea or process win.
- Engaging and interactive communicator with a passion for coaching others
- Passion for Educate! the mission is a must, but past work in education or youth development is not required. We value diverse perspectives and encourage applications from people with a variety of backgrounds. Background working with and promoting youth agenda in a non-profit set-up is an asset.
- You fit our Five Cultural Tenets (see Educate! Culture below)
The location is Nairobi, Kenya
What Is Educate! About?
We’re ambitious. Are you? Educate! is growing fast, so new opportunities are opening up and expanding all the time. We’re inspired by people with drive, and we love to help them reach their full potential. We expect everyone at Educate! to contribute above and beyond their job description, grow their skills, and advance their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey.e their careers, and we are committed to supporting our staff members on that journey.
- We put Youth First, Impact-Obsessed - We never forget that Educate! exists to impact youth. We are purpose-driven. We obsess over impact daily and if it doesn’t lead to impact, we want nothing to do with it. We prioritize interacting with and listening to youth. We design and manage the organization to ensure every dollar creates transformative experiences that youth value.
- We Exceed Expectations - We take pride in going above and beyond to achieve the best results. When we know what needs to be done, we do it. We don’t wait to be asked and we don’t stop at what is asked of us. We look for solutions as much as we identify problems.
- We Are Always Learning - We are committed to seeking and applying new knowledge and ideas. We stay open-minded. We know there is always another way and we are excited to learn about it. We continuously look for resources of all kinds from multiple disciplines. We try new things, experiment, grow, and improve. We invest in learning for ourselves and our teams.
- We are One Team, Many Views - We say what we think while treating each other well. We believe that all people have the same inherent value and that diverse ideas and open dialogue fuel excellence. We constantly strive to create an environment where everyone can and does express themselves freely. We support and respect each other as people and colleagues.
- We have the Startup Mindset - We will always keep innovating to grow our impact. We aspire to be game-changing. We never think “we have arrived” or “we’re done.” We question the status quo in our industry. We move fast and embrace change to move towards our long-term vision. We’re not afraid of failure. We interrogate anything that slows us down.
Every person at Educate! — from interns to the executive director — is evaluated by how they live up to these five cultural tenets. They are at the core of how we achieve our mission and why we work as well as we do.
Educate is committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all who interact in our community. In creating this environment, we encourage people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds and life experiences to join our diverse team.
