Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer

The role

This is a big role that brings together the operations aspects of running an international NGO. The Deputy Director will lead the financial management and oversight of the MRG group, and will line manage the finance team, Fundraising, Operations and HR. The role includes responsibility for all administrative functions as well as security, GDPR and IT (including cyber-security).

Finance

This will involve drawing up budgets, monitoring expenditure, ensuring transactions are processed and producing financial reports. The Deputy Director will ensure that we meets all statutory and donor regulations relating to financial transactions. They will also be responsible for generating financial management information about past, current and future financial metrics to allow the Director and the Trustees to make well-informed decisions to ensure the organisation remains financially healthy and sustainable.

Fundraising

MRG has a well-established fundraising team, with a full-time Head of department, three part-time team members working remotely, and one full-time specialist on monitoring, evaluation and learning. The Deputy Director will oversee and support the team.

HR, Operations and Administration

MRG has a staff complement of around 80 individuals, some are employees of our three registered offices (London, Budapest, Kampala). MRG has staff based in over 20 countries, some of which are higher risk locations. Our staff also travel extensively for work reasons. Cybersecurity is a known and increasing risk. Administratively oriented staff are largely based within teams and do not report to this post. A full-time Operations Officer works remotely to support these central functions.

About you

We want someone with lots of experience and who fits our values and is committed to gender equality, anti-racism, decolonialisation of practice, disability inclusion, sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) inclusion.

Our ideal candidate will have:

• a financial qualification with experience of overall financial management of a charity or other non-profit, with operations in multiple countries and a turnover of at least £3 million per annum.
• Experience of leading the preparation of draft accounts for audit to comply with UK Charities SORP requirements and UK Company law, or in a similar context.
• Experience of managing the complete accounting and payroll function.
• Experience of international charity finances involving many projects funded through co-financing by multiple donors, different currencies, and managing multiple donor financial budgeting and reporting systems.
• Experience of work involving support functions in an organization working internationally – including experience providing support in or for at least some global south contexts.
• Senior-level HR experience with international exposure
• Experience supporting the development of security and cyber-security measures.
• Experience of organization-wide data management including data protection legislation and Customer/Contact Relations Management software packages.
• Experience of leading for an organisation on security, including working in contexts with significant risks and working on cybersecurity.

Abilities and Skills

• Good communication and presentation skills including good written and spoken English
• Excellent numeracy and ability to interpret and analyse numbers.
• High level of competency in Excel.
• Problem solving mentality, flexibility, team player.
• Ability to prioritise work, meet deadlines and combine responding to urgent requests with longer terms tasks and activities.
• Ability to stay calm under pressure and to assess and absorb information quickly.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality.
• Ability and willingness to travel as required.
• Working knowledge of any out of French, Arabic, Russian or Spanish would be an advantage, as would the ability to converse in any language from a part of the world where MRG has projects.