Financial Controller – Emergency Cell

Context & Mission

Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) is an independent humanitarian organization providing medical aid to victims of man-made or natural disasters, epidemics and endemics. Its Operational Centre in Geneva is responsible for medical assistance programmes in 24 countries.

The financial controller plays a pivotal role between finance and operations and is the contact person in the operational unit (cell) for financial management issues. Beyond his/her technical role, his/her extensive experience and understanding of operations are an asset for operational management.

The financial controller is a member of the operational unit, in charge of providing the support and supervision necessary to achieve the operational strategy and make sure field deployments are following established financial rules and procedures.

As a member of both the operational unit and the finance department, the financial controller reports to the Head of Programmes (RP) and Head of the Operational Finance Unit.

Responsibilities

For the missions monitored within the operation unit, the financial controller:

• Ensures financial needs are met particularly for new projects openings and implements the financial framework commensurate with the size of the intervention
• Contributes to the definition of the operational objectives and strategy by ensuring budgets are realistic and respect financial constraints, supervises the budgetary process throughout the planning cycle
• Oversees mission management with regards to the relevance and effectiveness of the financial means allocated, follows commitments and controls expenses vs approved budgets, analyses costs
• Is responsible for the proper management of grants and for the quality of financial documents and reports submitted to donors.
• Provides technical support to the missions in terms of financial and administrative management, anticipates financial risks and problems that missions may have to deal with
• Ensures the implementation of financial policies and procedures concerning financial management as defined by headquarters, vouches for adherence to the basic rules and quality standards. Propose adjustment of the said procedures to emergency context when necessary.
• Is in charge of the briefing, training and coaching of all Finance Coordinators and Finance managers present in the missions managed by the cell.

Your Profile

Education

• Tertiary degree (graduate level), preferably in business administration / finance

Experience

• Successful experiences in humanitarian aid, as finance coordinator for major INGO (preferably MSF)
• Experience managing emergency interventions including during the initiation phase
• Experience in team management

Languages

• Full professional proficiency in English and in French
• Other languages an asset

Personal Abilities

• Excellent analytical and reporting skills
• Rigorous, attentive to detail,
• Good organisational skills and able to set priorities
• Excellent ability to work in a multicultural environment successfully and to demonstrate commitment and support for diversity, gender-responsive, inclusive, and non-discriminatory behaviour and attitudes.

Skills/ Technical competencies

• Capacity to understand quickly complex technical concepts, learn fast and adapt
• Capacity to take initiatives and decisions, work under pressure, respect deadlines
• Good practise of a field accounting package and ERP (preferably UNIFIELD).
• Excellent knowledge of Excel, very comfortable with numbers and financial analysis

Terms of Employment

• Full-time position 100% (40h/week)
• Open-ended contract
• Working place: Geneva, with several visits to the field
• Ideal start date: May 2nd, 2023
• Gross annual salary: from CHF 101’172.- to CHF 115’332.- (salary commensurate with equivalent experience and internal salary grid)

How to apply

Candidates submit their application following the requirements: CV 2 p. max. – letter of motivation 1p. max. – in French or English.

Deadline for application is March 26th, 2023. Nevertheless, we reserve the right to close the position early if we consider the number and quality of applications received to be sufficient.

APPLY HERE

The applications will be treated confidentially.

Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.

At MSF, we are committed to an inclusive culture that encourages and supports the diverse voices of our staff members. We strive to create workplaces where teams of people with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, perspectives, ideas and experiences work together for the social mission of MSF to create better outcomes for our patients and the communities we work with.

We welcome applications from individuals of all genders, ages, sexual orientations, nationalities, races, background, religions, beliefs, ability status, and all other diversity characteristics.

MSF does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of discrimination or harassment, including sexual harassment. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo reference checks.