Regional Director, Finance & Operations

The Job

Full-time hybrid position based in Zambia, Malawi, Ethiopia, or Kenya.

Position Overview

The Regional Director, Finance and Operations will lead financial and operational support across Splash’s Africa country offices. This role is responsible for strengthening systems, improving operational efficiency, supporting compliance, and partnering with country and regional leaders to ensure teams have the tools and guidance needed to deliver high-quality programs.

As a member of both the Global Finance Team and the Regional Leadership Team, this position provides leadership and management to ensure strong financial infrastructure, effective controls, and practical operating systems across country programs. The Regional Director will contribute to country strategic and operational planning and will be accountable for monitoring delivery against financial plans.

The role serves as the principal finance business partner to the Senior Director, Global Finance and the Executive Director, Africa, while ensuring alignment with Splash’s financial control environment, CFO standards, donor requirements, and local laws. The position also oversees operations and compliance practices that support effective implementation of country programs.

This role reports to the Executive Director, Africa, and works closely with the Senior Director, Global Finance.

This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who brings strong finance and operations judgment, enjoys building practical systems, and can support country teams with both strategic direction and day-to-day problem solving.

Roles and Responsibilities

Finance:

·       Ensure country programs record accounting transactions accurately and on time.

·       Ensure country program books are closed accurately and on time each month.

·       Implement and maintain effective country program financial controls.

·       Ensure compliance with local accounting rules and regulations, donor requirements, and Splash’s financial standards.

·       Provide the regional team with clear visibility into the financial health of country programs and routine reporting to the Executive Director, Africa.

·       Prepare and review internal financial reports, ensuring headquarters, regional, and country leadership are informed of financial issues and trends.

·       Provide technical guidance and support to country offices as needed.

·       Ensure new finance initiatives and policies are shared with country offices in a timely way and monitor implementation.

·       Contribute to financial policy discussions, including the maintenance and development of country and global Finance Manuals.

·       Support country finance and operations managers in ensuring annual country audits are completed cleanly, accurately, and on time.

·       Coach and mentor in-country finance and operations teams, with a focus on building long-term local capacity and strengthening internal controls.

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Operations:

• Oversee daily operations across multiple locations, ensuring efficient resource allocation and implementing operational improvements.

·       Ensure compliance with relevant regulations and internal policies while identifying and mitigating financial and operational risks.

• Identify and implement process improvements to enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve overall performance.

·       Conduct monthly reviews of financial health and risk, proactively identifying potential issues and developing mitigation strategies with the Senior Director, Global Finance.

• Lead the development of country and global operations manuals and various operations policies.
• Collaborate with the global team in designing and implementing an integrated risk management process and framework for the organization as appropriate.
• Assume the role of the risk management focal person for the Africa region, coordinating country risk assessment, identification, and analysis, monitoring the implementation of mitigation actions, and reporting accordingly.

·       Coordinate policy and compliance audits, including liaising with internal and external auditors and ensuring audit findings and recommendations are fully implemented.

• Collaborate with local accounting or legal firms as necessary regarding office registration and tax-exempt status; track annual registration renewals and tax requirements; and maintain office registration and required employment documentation.
• Collaborate with global and country procurement teams to develop tools and processes for ongoing supply chain risk assessments, identifying areas of compliance vulnerability and risk; and developing and implementing compliance initiative plans for resolving problematic issues.

·       Develop control systems and monitoring processes to ensure procurement and contracting comply with policy and standard operating procedure requirements.

• Ensure regional compliance with all relevant local laws and regulations, including those pertaining to labor, taxes, human resources management, and registration.

Human Resources / People and Culture:

·       Support country and regional recruiting processes in partnership with Global HR and hiring managers.

·       Ensure recruiting, onboarding, and employment documentation processes are consistent, compliant, and streamlined across country offices.

·       Collaborate with the Global HR Manager to implement global HR initiatives in country and regional offices.

·       Partner with country leadership to help ensure HR practices align with local labor requirements and Splash’s global standards.

Leadership:

·       Contribute to the development and execution of regional strategic plans, ensuring alignment between financial and operational goals and overall business objectives.

·       Manage and develop finance and operations country staff, fostering a high-performance culture and promoting collaboration across teams.

·       Provide leadership to country and project administrators to ensure the application of best practices across all teams and the realization of efficiencies.

·       Champion adherence to safeguarding, anti-fraud, and ethical procurement policies throughout all financial and operational processes within the Africa region.

Compensation and Benefits

At Splash, we prioritize our mission by offering benefits to support our employees and their families.

Salary is in line with experience, qualifications, internal equity, and local market context.

Splash operates across time zones with flexible work schedules. Team members can set standard hours within their time zone but should be available for occasional off-hours work. This is balanced by a self-managed schedule allowing personal time.

Benefits may include paid time off, paid holidays, wellness time, medical coverage, retirement or pension contributions, and other locally applicable benefits, depending on country of employment and eligibility.