UN Women: Management Specialist to the Chief Finance Officer, New York, USA, P4 FTA

Overview

This role provides senior-level coordination, advisory, and executive decision-support to enable the effective functioning of the Chief Finance Officer (CFO) Office and the implementation of key decisions within UN Women.

Key Responsibilities

• Coordinate and manage the CFO Office’s strategic planning, engagements and executive workflow.
• Lead the CFO’s support team, and manage and coordinate the planning, implementation, monitoring and reporting on CFO Office’s priorities and workplans.
• Coordinate the CFO Office’s executive workflow by helping prioritize incoming requests, submissions, decisions and follow-up actions requiring CFO attention.
• Identify bottlenecks, delays, dependencies or unclear accountabilities in high-priority processes, and recommend timely action to keep matters moving.
• Assess incoming matters for strategic significance, urgency, reputational sensitivity and institutional impact, and advise on sequencing and escalation.
• Support the CFO in preparing for senior-level discussions by framing key issues, decision points, risks, stakeholder positions and actions needed to unblock progress.
• Translate follow-up from high-level engagements into clear direction, next steps and ownership for DFA leadership and relevant corporate counterparts.
• Provide analytical, advisory and decision-support services to the CFO.
• Coordinate development of high-quality strategic briefs, policy notes, speeches, talking points and decision papers for the CFO’s engagement with senior management, governing bodies, oversight actors and United Nations system counterparts.
• Provide coordination-oriented analysis that clearly identifies required decisions, responsible offices, timelines, risks, dependencies and escalation points.
• Anticipate emerging institutional, financial, administrative and operational issues that may delay implementation or require CFO intervention and propose practical responses.
• Review complex submissions from the perspective of executive decision-making and process readiness, ensuring that issues, risks, options, accountabilities and implications are clearly presented.
• Support the CFO in articulating DFA’s strategic position in corporate discussions, inter-agency forums and high-level governance processes.
• Support execution of CFO-led strategic priorities and institutional initiatives.
• Support the CFO in identifying, shaping and advancing priorities that strengthen financial stewardship, operational accountability, business transformation and organizational efficiency.
• Provide senior-level coordination for CFO-led initiatives that cut across DFA, regional and country offices, and corporate functions, ensuring there is clarity on purpose, ownership, timelines and expected outputs.
• Advise on sequencing, stakeholder engagement and executive messaging for major DFA change initiatives, reforms or management priorities.
• Monitor strategic-level implementation risks, interdependencies and unresolved issues, escalating matters that require CFO decision or senior management intervention.
• Promote coherence between DFA’s strategic direction and broader corporate planning, oversight, accountability and transformation processes.
• Coordinate corporate, intergovernmental, oversight and partnership engagements related to finance and administration.
• Advise and support the CFO’s engagement with the Executive Board, Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, Fifth Committee, United Nations system networks, auditors, oversight bodies and other senior internal and external stakeholders.
• Frame strategic messages and institutional positions on financial management, resource stewardship, accountability, internal control and administrative effectiveness.
• Coordinate the preparation of high-level inputs that require CFO-level judgment, ensuring they are analytically sound, strategically clear and aligned with corporate priorities.
• Support the CFO in maintaining strategic relationships with senior counterparts across the Organization and the United Nations system on matters within DFA’s mandate.
• Manage communications and support in managing internal and external partnerships relevant to the work of the CFO.
• Strengthen executive governance, institutional memory, knowledge management and follow-through mechanisms for the CFO Office.
• Strengthen executive-level follow-through mechanisms that capture decisions, commitments, responsible offices, timelines and escalation needs arising from the CFO’s engagements.
• Maintain strategic reference materials and decision records that support continuity, accountability and timely action in the CFO Office.
• Identify opportunities to improve the quality, consistency and strategic orientation of materials submitted for CFO review.
• Promote lessons learned and good practices to reinforce institutional memory, executive readiness and smoother movement of priority processes across DFA.
• The incumbent performs other duties within their functional profile as deemed necessary for the efficient functioning of the CFO Office, DFA and the Organisation.
• The Management Specialist may coordinate the work of consultants, interns and other support personnel assigned to the CFO Office, as required.

Required Experience

• At least seven years of progressively responsible experience in strategic coordination or executive office support, including experience in financial or operational management, corporate governance, institutional planning, management reform or related areas is required.
• Experience coordinating complex, cross-functional processes involving senior-level engagement is required.
• Experience providing advice and decision-support to senior officials on complex institutional, financial, governance or management matters is required.
• Experience preparing high-quality strategic briefs, speeches, policy notes, decision papers or management presentations for senior-level audiences is required.
• Experience in leading and managing personnel in international settings is required.
• Experience supporting engagement with governing bodies, oversight stakeholders, inter-agency mechanisms or senior corporate governance processes is desirable.
• Experience in financial stewardship, and resource management, institutional accountability, internal control or business transformation, in an international organization context is desirable.
• Experience working within the United Nations system or another international organization is desirable.

Qualifications

• Master’s degree or equivalent in business administration, public administration, finance, accounting, economics, international development, social sciences or a related field is required.
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Other Details