Finance Manager 13 views0 applications

Location: Sankoré International School, Gigiri, Nairobi, Kenya

Reports to: School Director

Start date: As soon as possible — this is a founding-stage priority hire ahead of the 2026 school opening

About Sankoré

Sankoré is building a new model of international education, one grounded in excellence, rooted in context, and designed to develop the next generation of African leaders.

We are a startup institution preparing to welcome our first class of students in September. Our ambition is to build not just a strong school, but a high-functioning institution from day one where systems, culture, and operations match the quality of teaching and learning.

Role Overview

Sankoré is building the financial backbone of a brand-new school, and the Finance Manager is the person who makes that backbone strong, honest, and dependable from day one. This is an execution-focused, to-junior level role: Without it, budgets go untracked, tuition goes uncollected, and Sankoré cannot meet the financial discipline SHOFCO’s audit standards require.

The Finance Manager owns the day-to-day machinery of school finance — budgeting support, bookkeeping, banking, tuition collection, procurement reconciliation, and, eventually, payroll and HR administration — in close partnership with the Operations Manager, the School Director, and SHOFCO’s central finance office. Because Sankoré is founding-stage, this person will build several of these systems working in tandem with the SankoréOS platform now in development for school-wide operations.

This role sits at the center of two of the school’s non-negotiables: financial integrity (SHOFCO requires multi-person, “multi-eyes” review on procurement and spend) and trust with families (tuition, financial aid, and financial assistance touch every household at Sankoré). Success here is measured in clean books, on-time reporting, and families who feel fairly and respectfully treated around money.

Key Responsibilities

1. Budgeting and Financial Planning

• Coordinate and manage Sankoré’s annual budgeting cycle, working with the School Director and department leads to build a complete, defensible budget.
• Prepare the annual budget in a timely, well-documented manner for presentation to the Director and the Board.
• Present and defend the budget at Board meetings, answering questions on assumptions, variances, and risk.
• Monitor actual expenditure against budget throughout the year and flag variances early, not at period-end.

2. Bookkeeping, Banking, and Expenditure Tracking

• Maintain day-to-day bookkeeping for all Sankoré transactions, tracking expenditure against the approved budget.
• Manage the Sankoré bank account once it is operational (pending KRA PIN clearance), including reconciliations and cash flow tracking.
• Partner with SankoréOS as it comes online so financial data flows cleanly between the bookkeeping system and the school’s broader operating platform, rather than living in parallel spreadsheets.
• Maintain an accurate, audit-ready paper and digital trail for every transaction.

3. Tuition and Family Financial Support

• Own tuition payment processing end-to-end: invoicing, collection, reconciliation, and receipt — beyond the stopgap receipting the Operations Manager currently handles.
• Proactively follow up on late and non-payments with clear, family-respectful communication and escalation paths.
• Build and manage, in partnership with the School Director, a system for processing requests for financial assistance outside of the formal scholarship program — with clear, consistent criteria families can trust.
• Coordinate with Admissions on sliding-scale tuition cases so financial and enrollment data stay aligned.

4. Procurement Compliance and Reconciliation

• Serve as the second set of eyes with the Operations Manager on procurement sign-off, satisfying SHOFCO’s audit standard for multi-person review.
• Prepare the month- and period-end reconciliation package for SHOFCO’s central finance office (statements of source and justification, three-vendor procurement documentation, and related audit artifacts) on schedule.
• In partnership with Operations, maintain procurement documentation to a standard that would hold up under an external audit at any time, not just at period-end.

5. Payroll and HR Systems Administration (as Sankoré grows)

• Create and manage Sankoré’s payroll system, ensuring accurate and on-time pay for every staff member, every cycle.
• Build and administer HR-adjacent financial systems and communications, including pension entitlements and medical insurance enrollment and changes.
• Manage employee leave requests in coordination with the leadership team, outside of standard vacation tracking.
• Ensure Sankoré’s payroll and HR-finance practices meet Kenyan statutory obligations (PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, and the Affordable Housing Levy), remitting on time and keeping documentation audit-ready.

6. Statutory, Legal, and Audit Compliance

• Keep Sankoré’s financial operations compliant with Kenyan tax and statutory obligations, and flag any point where the school may need a dedicated compliance review (for example, confirming whether a designated finance role is required under specific licensing, NGO, or education-sector conditions).
• Support the School Director and SHOFCO finance leadership in preparing for internal and external audits.
• Maintain confidentiality and integrity as the steward of the school’s most sensitive financial and HR-adjacent information.

7. Systems, Data, and Continuous Improvement

• Identify where manual, spreadsheet-based processes should be replaced by SankoréOS or other tools as the school scales.
• Bring a founding-stage mindset: build the system now so it can be handed off cleanly as Sankoré grows past current capacity.
• Flag, rather than absorb silently, any financial responsibility that has no clear owner (for example, capital budgeting, capital investment tracking, or risk management) so the School Director and Board can make an explicit ownership decision.

Candidate Profile

Required Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting, finance, business administration, or a related field.
• 2–4 years of relevant bookkeeping or accounting experience, ideally within a school, NGO, or small-to-mid-size organization.
• Working knowledge of Kenyan statutory payroll and tax compliance (PAYE, NSSF, SHIF, Affordable Housing Levy) and experience remitting these on schedule.
• Proficiency with accounting software and strong Microsoft Excel skills.
• Demonstrated integrity and discretion in handling sensitive financial and personnel data.
• Fluent written and spoken English and Kiswahili.

Preferred

• Progress toward, or completion of, a professional accounting qualification (CPA-K or ACCA).
• Prior experience in a school or educational institution finance office, including tuition or fee management systems.
• Experience working within multi-signatory or “multi-eyes” internal control environments.
• Experience administering payroll, pension schemes, or medical insurance benefits.
• Familiarity with NGO or nonprofit financial reporting and donor/board reporting standards.

Core Capabilities

• Financial accuracy and attention to detail — catches discrepancies before they become problems.
• Budget discipline — builds and defends budgets grounded in real numbers, not optimism.
• Integrity and confidentiality — trusted with money and with people’s personal information in equal measure.
• Procurement and vendor stewardship — protects the school’s resources without slowing down the people who need them.
• Payroll and HR administration — precise, timely, and calm under the pressure of a pay cycle.
• Family-facing communication — handles tuition and financial aid conversations with warmth and clarity, never shame.
• Collaborative controls mindset — genuinely works the multi-eyes process with the Operations Manager rather than treating it as a formality.
• Founding-stage adaptability — comfortable building a system from nothing and revising it as the school learns.
• Systems thinking — sees where SankoréOS and other tools should replace manual work, and helps make that happen.
• Proactive problem-solving — surfaces gaps and ownership questions instead of letting them slip through the cracks.

Personal Attributes

• High ownership and accountability
• Exceptionally organized and structured in thinking
• Calm, decisive, and solutions-oriented under pressure
• High integrity and professionalism
• Resourceful, pragmatic, and results-driven

What Success Looks Like

• The annual budget is prepared on time, defensible, and clearly presented at Board meetings.
• Bank reconciliations and expenditure tracking are current every month, with no scramble at period-end.
• The month/period-end reconciliation package reaches SHOFCO’s finance office complete and on schedule.
• Tuition collection improves quarter over quarter, with late and non-payments actively managed rather than accumulating quietly.
• The financial assistance process (outside scholarships) is live, documented, and trusted by families.
• Payroll, pension, and medical insurance administration run without errors or missed deadlines.
• The procurement multi-eyes process with the Operations Manager functions smoothly and would satisfy an external auditor.
• Ownership gaps (capital budget, capital investment tracking, risk management) are surfaced to leadership with clear recommendations, not left unaddressed.

How to apply

Interested applicants should send their applications together with a detailed CV to [email protected] email address. The Subject should clearly indicate the position being applied for. Applications without this information will not be considered. Applications should reach us no later than 31st July 2026. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.