Job Opportunity for Senior Finance Manager, Global Development at Gates Foundation in New Delhi

The Foundation

We are the largest nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world. Founded on a simple premise: people everywhere, regardless of identity or circumstances, should have the chance to live healthy, productive lives. We believe our employees should reflect the rich diversity of the global populations we aim to serve. We provide an exceptional benefits package to employees and their families which include comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with no premiums, generous paid time off, paid family leave, foundation-paid retirement contribution, regional holidays, and opportunities to engage in several employee communities. As a workplace, we’re committed to creating an environment for you to thrive both personally and professionally.

The Team

In India over the past two decades, the foundation has been working with India’s Central and State governments, community groups, nonprofit organizations, academic institutions, the private sector, and development organizations, to achieve our shared goals. Our strong networks and ability to convene intellectual resources from many sectors and regions of the globe allow us to address complex challenges as they emerge or evolve. With a particular focus on Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, we work with partners to develop impactful and sustainable solutions to improve the quality and coverage of key services for the poor and vulnerable. We also work in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Maharashtra to support programs in the Global Growth Opportunities portfolio (urban sanitation, agricultural development, and digital financial inclusion), and gender equality.

The Senior Finance Manager, Global Development will be based out of our India Country Office (ICO), in New Delhi, and be part of the Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) team that is responsible for optimizing portfolios to achieve foundation goals, engaging with partners and grantees, and identifying and analyzing grants to increase foundation impact:

– Portfolio Management: Optimize finite resources across portfolios to achieve foundation goals using a fluid capital market approach to fund priorities.

– Partners and Grantees: Engage in coordinated strategic and business analysis across funders and institutions with shared strategic objectives and strengthen partners to improve their capacity to implement.

– Grants: Assess value for money, identify and mitigate risk, and provide financial analysis in order to increase grant impact. 

Your Role

This role is responsible for providing strategic financial and business support to the Global Development Division.

The postholder must be successful at influencing through effective partnership and communication skills and should have experience using financial analysis, organizational due diligence, and modeling skills in advisory roles. Other critical skills for success include solution-orientation and a proactive approach to responsibilities. The ability to synthesize data and present key takeaways to a non-finance audience is key. And most importantly, the candidate must be passionate about the foundation’s mission, particularly in addressing the gender and global health inequities that exist today. Financial experience navigating matrixed organizations and not for profit experience a plus.

The postholder will report to the Deputy Director, Financial Planning & Analysis, Country Offices.

What You’ll Do

The selected candidate will be responsible for:

• Independently lead complex annual budgeting and financial planning processes, including partnering with Program Officers and the Strategy, Planning and Management teams, to translate business strategy into mid and long-range forecasts to produce detailed, dynamic four-year budgets, as well as risk assessments and scenario modeling.
• Independently lead analysis and provide program leadership with strategic and financial information to support budget management and forecasting, and effective financial resource allocation and decision-making through the foundation’s financial and strategic processes.
• Independently create dynamic financial plans, dashboards, and grants to streamline organizational capacity and discuss with finance leadership.
• Provide business advice to program teams on a set of diverse and complex grants, driven by factors such as grant structure, organizational effectiveness of the partners, and more.
• Serve as financial lead to Program Strategy Teams (PSTs) and support divisional needs and projects.
• Lead organizational assessments/due diligence of key grantees/partners, and partner with
• Program Officers to develop appropriate mitigating strategies to manage financial and organizational risks of partners and grantees.
• Partner with programmatic teams to manage grant and contract spending.
• Work closely with PST leadership to recommend financial strategies and translate strategy into long-term grant plans during strategy development efforts.
• Advise Program Officers in negotiating and structuring complex grants and sizing and sequencing partner payments.
• Drive, cultivate, and manage key functional relationships and partnerships with internal partners.
• Identify and effectively communicate financial trends and themes within division and supported teams.
• Assess and advise program teams on business plans and perform financial sustainability analysis of organizations and specific projects. Recommend risk mitigation actions including grants to strengthen the organizational capacity of partners.
• Drive analysis and processes to identify financial risks to support grant making and management, including proactive monitoring of actuals and forecasts against budget.
• Independently lead forecast and portfolio allocation management for assigned PSTs, including the monitoring of actuals and forecasts to budget, with risk assessment and produce variance analysis.
• Develop executive level financial deliverables and solutioning for PSTs and divisions.
• Independently lead data analyses to generate new insights on complex grant portfolios, leading to improved allocation of resources. Structure grants to optimize cash disbursements in consideration of operational risks.
• Leverage tools and reports to plan and monitor workflow, forecast and payout performance.
• Cultivate business trends across FP&A for divisional teams.
• Participate and/or lead in complex transactions and special projects for PSTs with significant financial analysis components.
• Lead complex transactions and special projects for teams with significant financial analysis component.
• Potential mentorship of Finance Associates or Finance Managers (with business need), by leading trainings, prioritizing collective success, and nurturing team development.
• Other duties as assigned. 

Your Experience

You are a creative, thoughtful, and curious professional who has an excellent track record of achievement in roles of increasing responsibility. You should be prepared to work across a diverse set of disciplines, bridging a wide range of expertise, with a demonstrated ability to work with agility, and diplomacy in a matrixed and multi-cultural environment. Additionally, we seek:

• Bachelor’s degree with 10 years of strategic financial analysis and/or planning and leadership experience, or equivalent years of relevant experience.
• Demonstrated financial acumen and experience in financial analysis, business case development, budgeting, and forecasting.
• Identify operational and financial risks of executing against annual budgets and broader planning horizons and propose mitigating strategies to program leadership.
• Proven technical and complex financial knowledge, including understanding of financial statements, financial modeling and complex grant and deal structuring.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills; including ability to craft compelling presentations and communicate sophisticated financial concepts to broad and diverse audiences.
• Ability to work on multiple projects – or support multiple teams – simultaneously.
• Highest level of integrity and leadership by example, helping to set the tone for the organization and demonstrate an affinity for creating and enabling an inclusive culture.
• Strategic problem solver with proven track record using quantitative and qualitative data to present options for decision making, highlight tradeoffs and propose recommendations for a broad variety of business models and transaction types.
• Must be a hands-on, team-oriented individual with highly developed interpersonal skills, adept as an influencer and negotiator.
• Demonstrated ability to work with C-level executives.
• Strong collaborative skills and demonstrated ability to navigate and develop positive, constructive working relationships across a matrixed organization and/or shared services business model.
• Project management skills and solutions orientation with proven ability to proactively identify needs and deliver results.
• Advanced Excel skills required; data visualization experience preferred.
• International finance experience/exposure preferred. 

Other Attributes

• Comfortable in a wide range of cultural, geographic and operational situations, demonstrating culturally sensitive behavior with a diverse range of people and a deep commitment to development issues and high standards of personal integrity.
• Ability to travel up to 15-20% domestically and internationally. 

Must be able to legally work in the country where this position is located without visa sponsorship.

Application deadline: 1 June 2024