Chief Financial Officer

POSITION OVERVIEW:

We are seeking a Chief Financial Officer (CFO) to lead our global financial strategy, compliance, risk oversight, and long-term sustainability. Serving on the global management team, the CFO will partner closely with the CEO, Board, and country leaders to build the financial architecture required for government-partnered scale, blended finance, and multi-country expansion.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Financial Strategy, Sustainability, and Blended Finance

• Lead the development of Splash's long-term financial strategy in alignment with organizational growth, government partnership, and impact goals.
• Help Splash build a more sophisticated capital strategy that distinguishes between philanthropic funding, catalytic capital, government co-financing, donor-funded infrastructure, technical assistance, and long-term public ownership.
• Own the financial impact of program changes, tracing how new operational standards or models affect costs, budgets, and donor agreements.
• Partner with the CEO, Development team, and program leadership to assess how different funding sources can support different needs across the organization.
• Help answer existential financial questions regarding long-term sustainability, such as how national scale work is sustained beyond initial philanthropy and what happens financially after Splash exits a country.
• Support financial modeling for government co-financing, donor match requirements, phased implementation, working capital needs, and long-term sustainability.
• Advise the CEO and Board on tradeoffs related to scale, risk, unrestricted reserves, cost recovery, donor restrictions, and country-level financial exposure.
• Lead scenario planning and financial modeling for multi-year growth, including delayed disbursements, foreign exchange exposure, government payment timing, implementation shifts, and funding gaps.
• Build financial models that incorporate inflation, foreign exchange exposure, country-specific cost assumptions, and implementation timing so multi-year budgets are realistic and decision-useful.

Global Financial Management & Reporting

• Oversee global budgeting, forecasting, cash flow management, and financial reporting across Splash's US and international operations.
• Maintain full ownership of core financial operations, US GAAP compliance, clean audits, and internal controls across all entities.
• Ensure timely, accurate, and decision-useful reporting for the CEO, management team, Board, Finance Committee, donors, and country teams.
• Strengthen financial dashboards and analysis so country, regional, and global teams can track burn rates against activities, deliverables, restricted donor budgets, and implementation progress in real time or near-real time.
• Manage organizational cash flow, reserves, restricted and unrestricted funding, and liquidity planning.
• Partner with Program and Development teams to ensure budgets, forecasts, and donor reports accurately reflect implementation realities.
• Support budget modeling for new opportunities, including overall project budgets, donor-specific restricted budgets, match or co-financing assumptions, cost recovery, and implementation timelines.
• Ensure grant budgets, cost recovery, indirect cost allocation, and donor reporting are disciplined, transparent, and aligned with Splash's operating model.

Government Co-Financing and Public Finance

• Support the design and financial oversight of government co-financing arrangements, including contribution models, annual workplans, budget alignment, and fund-flow options.
• Help shape government finance conversations by assessing how public budgets, co-financing deals, and sovereign debt impact our strategic direction and fundraising.
• Help assess the financial implications of government-funded implementation, direct government procurement, contractor payments, cost-share commitments, and delayed public disbursements.
• Partner with country teams to ensure government co-financing commitments are financially realistic, well documented, appropriately accounted for, and monitored.
• Support financial analysis related to public-sector ownership, operations and maintenance, and the long-term transition of responsibility to government systems.
• Bring practical understanding of the risks and realities of operating in low-income settings, including public finance cycles, procurement constraints, documentation gaps, currency exposure, and varying local accounting capacity.

International Compliance, VAT, Tax, and Risk

• Ensure compliance with US nonprofit requirements, donor regulations, accounting and audit standards, and relevant international financial regulations.
• Oversee financial operations across multiple countries and entities, including registration, statutory compliance, local audit requirements, payroll, tax, banking, and accounting practices.
• Manage VAT, withholding tax, recoverability, exemptions, and other country-level tax issues that affect donor budgets, infrastructure delivery, and local contracting.
• Lead the annual audit process and manage relationships with external auditors, tax advisors, legal advisors, and other technical consultants.
• Maintain strong risk management practices across global financial operations, including internal controls, segregation of duties, fraud prevention, procurement controls, and documentation standards.

Systems, Controls, and Operational Discipline

• Build and maintain strong financial systems, policies, processes, and internal controls that support a growing global organization.
• Strengthen financial technology, reporting tools, data integrity, and cross-country accounting processes.
• Build and enforce the accounting and reporting architecture needed to track restricted funds by donor, project, activity, deliverable, country, budget line, and spending status.
• Strengthen budgeting, forecasting, financial controls, cost documentation, and approval processes so they are clear, efficient, and scalable.
• Ensure finance processes support procurement, contracting, and implementation without making finance a bottleneck.
• Drive a culture of financial accountability, transparency, and timely decision-making.

Team Leadership and Cross-Functional Partnership

• Lead, mentor, and strengthen Splash's global finance team.
• Build financial capacity across country teams and non-finance leaders so budget ownership is distributed and disciplined.
• Partner closely with Program, Development, Operations, and country leadership to align financial resources with program delivery and organizational priorities.
• Translate complex financial issues into clear, practical guidance for colleagues who are not finance specialists.
• Serve as a trusted partner to the CEO, Treasurer, Finance Committee, and Board.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Typically 15+ years of progressively senior financial leadership.
• Deep expertise in US nonprofit finance, including US 501(c)(3) operations, US GAAP, IRS reporting, audit requirements, and board governance.
• Significant global finance leadership experience in an international nonprofit, NGO, foundation, development finance institution, or other mission-driven organization operating across multiple countries.
• Strong knowledge of international financial management, including IFRS (and IPSAS where relevant), donor compliance, grants management, restricted funding, audits, internal controls, statutory compliance, procurement, VAT/tax, multi-currency operations, and financial risk management.
• Demonstrated ability to lead financial strategy, planning, forecasting, financial modeling, and multi-year, multi-country budgeting in complex operating environments.
• Hands-on experience working in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or Southeast Asia, is preferred.
• Experience supporting government co-financing, public-private partnerships, infrastructure financing, development finance, or blended finance is strongly preferred.
• Proven ability to work effectively with Boards, Finance Committees, CEOs, and senior leadership teams.
• Master's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, Public Administration, or a related field preferred. CPA, MBA, or equivalent professional qualification strongly valued.
• Advanced proficiency in Excel, financial reporting systems, accounting platforms, grant management tools, and financial reporting and analytics.