VisionFund International - Regional Project Manager, Asia

Position Title:	VisionFund International - Regional Project Manager, Asia	Application Deadline Date:	31 Jan 2014
Position Location:	Bangkok, Singapore and other Asian locations considered	Position Start Date	01 Mar 2014
Region:	VisionFund International	Position End Date:	29 Feb 2016
Requisition Category:	International	Recruitment Priority:	Need Immediately
Country Name:	VFI	Program/Office Name:	VFI
City/Province:	Bangkok, Singapore and other Asian locations considered	Employee Type:	Home Country Intl. (HCI)
Job Grade Level:	16/164	Recruitment Status:	Actively Recruiting
Is this a family post?	Family - Spouse with Children
		Requisition Num:	2013VFICBLN-9AKFZP

*CANDIDATES MUST BE LEGALLY AUTHORISED TO WORK IN ASIA. THE SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATES WILL BE BASED IN THEIR COUNTRY OF PERMANENT RESIDENCE, BASED AT THE RESPECTIVE NATIONAL OFFICE*

PURPOSE OF POSITION

World Vision (WV) is a Christian relief, development, and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. One important component of World Vision’s work is microfinance, providing financial services such as credit, savings and insurance to the poor, enabling them to earn increased income, build assets and provide for their families. Numerous studies confirm the strong impact of microfinance on the well-being of children. Studies also show, however, that the integration of microfinance with other development activities can have an even greater impact when compared to either microfinance alone or development activities alone. WV’s microfinance operations are managed through VisionFund International (VFI) and its 6,000 staff, a WV subsidiary. VFI manages a network of 36 Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs) globally and has outstanding loans of approximately $450 million to some 800,000 clients and annual network revenues of over $138 million. The MFIs were created to provide financial services in the areas where WV works.

Operationally, microfinance is similar to banking and requires a high level of automation to manage and deliver the product. Therefore, having the right technology skills and platforms to deliver the services is critical to achieving VFIs strategic goal of impacting 3.5m children by 2015.

Because of the highly specialised nature of the technology and the business, VFI now has its own small team of people who will be responsible for the efficient and effective use of technology within the business. This technology is primarily banking and accounting systems, and derivative MI. RPMs are therefore people with both a technical capability and a strong understanding of the business model and processes (operational and financial) who can bring the two aspects together and strengthen the IT capacity in our MFIs.

RPMs will have oversight of MFI Information Technology (IT) functions and MFI IT Managers will have a dotted line to the RPMs. A typical region will spend over $1m on IT, have around 25-30 IT staff in total (numbers which may be too low because MFIs are not spending enough to be sustainable), and be spending about another $0.5 - 1m annually on major IT projects.


KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:

The RPM is there to support the MFIs in the region in all matters pertaining to use of systems and technology. In practice this means:

• Ensuring that MFIs have the skills and competencies both within IT and business functions to use their technology to maximum effect, and support them in skills training and capacity building so that they become more capable in managing technology.
• Supporting MFIs in making decisions on the selection and deployment of technology. VFI has strategic platforms and standards, but the RPM will help the MFIs determine the appropriate standard solution, how it will be deployed, and how it will be used to the best effect.
• Overseeing significant IT projects, in particular system upgrades and implementations, to ensure that the MFI has resourced the project correctly, that appropriate contracts are in place with vendors, and that the various phases of the project are designed correctly and executed to plan. Oversight can include direct contact with software vendors to monitor project progress, approve vendor resources/staffing and provide key decision-making.
• Reviewing how the MFIs are using their systems, and whether they can be making improved use of technology to improve their business processes and controls (for example, using mobile payments). This responsibility requires the RPM to learn and understand the business and its goals at the local level.
• Tracking what is happening in MFIs in the region on a regular basis. In practice this means ‘meeting’ at least monthly with the local IT teams and being given monthly reports on their activities and issues, and then helping solve issues if escalated (see next point).
• Working with WV’s specialist technical support group for Microfinance (MSG) to provide technical support and reviews where needed, and supporting MFIs when there are systems issues, bringing in vendor or MSG support as required.
• Supporting VFI direction by ensuring IT projects adhere to global policy and procedures.
• Ensuring that MFIs have the right controls over their technology and systems set up.
• Looking at ways in which opportunities exist to improve regional efficiencies and performance through ideas like regional processing centres virtually or remotely.
• Reviewing annual plans and budgets and ensuring that adequate provision is being made so that the MFI is on a path to sustainability in its use of technology.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES:

Required:

• Requires a post-graduate degree or diploma, or equivalent, in Information Management or a related field.
• Must have at least seven years experience at IT senior management level.
• Ability to build strong interpersonal relationships and carry out work through ‘influencing’ and ‘persuading’ others due to World Vision’s federal structure.
• Ability to maintain a global, regional, national and community perspective when representing the region.
• Extensive cross-cultural experience in within the region.
• Lead vendor negotiations for software acquisition (e.g., ERP), hardware acquisition (e.g., telecommunications), and outsourced services (e.g., implementation or on-going systems support).
• Ability to lead and work well in a team context.
• Ability to promote good customer service and manage a service delivery environment.
• Experience with project management disciplines preferred.
• Good written and oral communication skills.
• Willing and able to travel within and outside the region for a minimum of 35-40% of time.
• Must be fluent in English.
• Spiritual strength with commitment and willingness to pray with staff and engage with staff.

VisionFundInternatio.pdf

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