Head of Post-Award Grant

Job Tittle - Head of Post-Award Grants  

Department: Finance / GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation Inc

Team: Finance & Compliance

Location: Atlanta, GA

Position type: Full-time, Permanent

What the hiring manager says

This role is pivotal to safeguarding donor compliance and enabling the Foundation to scale. As we expand our grant portfolio and establish our European presence, we need a senior post-award leader who can drive consistent, high-quality grant financial management, strengthen controls, and coach our Post-award Financial grant managers.

Lorena Ferro

Head of Finance & Compliance

About the Team

The Finance & Compliance team provides end-to-end stewardship of the Foundation’s donor-funded portfolio, supporting programmes from award through closeout. Working across the US 501(c)(3) and the new Belgian AISBL, we partner closely with Programmes, Operations, Legal, and People & Culture to ensure robust financial management, strong internal controls, and timely, accurate donor reporting.

The role will be joining the established Foundation Finance and Compliance team that includes 10 professionals located in Atlanta, India, London and Kenya. This role will also work closely with the Director of Strategic Development and the M4D Head of programmes located in London.

About the Role

The Head of Post-Award leads the financial management, compliance oversight ensuring the Foundation meets donor requirements throughout the grant lifecycle. This role provides leadership to the Post-award (FBP) team, owns the post-award operating model end to end, and acts as the senior point of accountability for the quality and timeliness of donor financial reporting, forecasts, and audit readiness.

Key Responsibilities:

A. Leadership & Oversight

·       Lead and manage the Post‑Award Finance function, including Post-award Managers.

·       Allocate portfolios based on donor complexity and workload.

·       Provide technical leadership on donor rules, allowable costs, and compliance requirements.

·       Act as the escalation point for donor-related financial issues.

B. Donor Financial Compliance (High‑Risk Donors in Particular)

·       Serve as the internal owner of financial rules for FCDO, SIDA, EU, GIZ, US Government, and other high‑risk donors.

·       Develop and maintain donor-specific compliance guidance, templates, and checklists.

·       Ensure adherence to cost principles, budget categories, procurement requirements, exchange rate rules, and reporting formats.

·       Manage High risk grants

C. Post‑Award Financial Management

·       Oversee the financial management of all active grants from award to closeout (Manages High-Risk Grants).

·       Review and approve donor financial reports before submission to donors or Coalitions.

·       Lead quarterly Budget vs Actual reviews with Head of Program and Post-award managers.

·       Ensure correct grant set‑up in Workday (worktags, budgets, reporting structures).

·       Develops templates (budgets/forecasts/recons/life‑of‑grant) and dashboards; ensures staff cost allocation integrity.

·       Coordinate with the Accounting team on general ledger structures, reconciliations, and restricted income recognition.

D. Governance, Controls & Audit Readiness

·       Defines, implement and maintain strong internal controls for grant financial management.

·       Oversee document retention standards, audit trails, and financial compliance files.

·       Lead preparation for donor audits (FCDO, SIDA, Gates, etc.) and coordinate with auditors.

·       Ensure consistent application of GSMA and donors policies across US and Belgium entities.

E. Partnership with Subgrant Compliance Team

·       Work closely with the Head of Subgrant Compliance to ensure alignment between:
• subgrant monitoring
• expenditure verification
• fund disbursement schedules
• subrecipient reporting deadlines

·       Ensure subgrant financial data is incorporated accurately into donor reports.

·       Support the integration of risk‑based approaches for Innovation Fund partners.

F. Capacity‑Building & Continuous Improvement

·       Coach and develop Post-award team to reach donor‑compliance expertise.

·       Leads  training for Programme teams on budgeting, reporting, procurement requirements, and cost eligibility.

·       Improve operational efficiency through standard templates, dashboards, and automated workflows.

·       Lead  optimization / automation of processes and improvements of Workday to enhance grant financial management.

 Key Deliverables (First 12 Months)

·       Establish a consistent Post‑Award operating model and workflows.

·       Publish a complete donor compliance guide for all active donors.

·       Implement standardised financial reporting and reconciliation templates.

·       Deliver monthly cross‑functional grant review meetings with action logs.

·       Zero late or inaccurate donor financial reports.

·       Clean audit results across donor and statutory audits.

·       Leads automation projects and tooling improvements for the Foundation

·       Improved Workday configuration to support accurate grant tracking.

About You

Experience and Skills:

·     Significant experience in post-award grant finance within an INGO, foundation, or multi-donor environment.

·     Demonstrated expertise with high-compliance donors (e.g., FCDO, SIDA, EU institutions, GIZ, US Government) and complex reporting requirements.

·     Proven people management experience, including coaching and developing Post-award partners.

·     Strong audit management experience (donor and statutory), including preparation of PBC documentation and issue resolution.

·     Strong analytical skills, ability to translate donor requirements into workable controls and processes.

·     Systems-oriented; experience with Workday financials and grant/worktag configuration is highly desirable.

·     Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills across programmes, operations, legal and leadership.

Behaviors:

·     Proactive, solutions‑focused mindset

·     Strong attention to detail and commitment to compliance

·     Ability to coach and develop team members

·     Collaborative approach with high integrity

·     Comfortable working across time zones and geographies

Contract type

Worker type

Working at the GSMA offers you unparalleled access to the mobile industry. We offer a chance to truly shape the direction of mobile, whatever your role. By joining the GSMA, you will be exposed to a fast-paced rapidly evolving environment, working on global solutions, genuinely fascinating and industry-changing projects and a stimulating and dynamic environment designed to enable you to flourish.

In addition to architect-designed offices and competitive compensation, our benefits include fantastic learning & development opportunities, generous holiday allowances, four additional days off for professional development and many others.

To learn more about the GSMA, visit our career site, our LinkedIn page and our Twitter page.

Being You at the GSMA

We care deeply about diversity, equity and inclusivity and aspire to be the best at it. Your well-being and work/life balance is important, so flexi-time and remote working is available to all staff. We're keen to ensure everyone is equal, represented and connected so we particularly encourage applications from all demographics. The sucess of the GSMA year on year will continue to be contributed by people from all walks of life.

GSMA Values

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Passionately driven

We approach everything we do with unparalleled capability, tenacity and commitment, knowing that the challenging scale, pace and complexity of our work is what leads to its world-changing impact.

Insightful leaders

We continually develop and engage our expertise, insight and creativity so that we’re always ready to respond to the changing landscape with authority, agility and nuance.

Stronger together

We lean on each other so the industry can lean on us, embracing our diversity by actively seeking out perspectives and skill sets beyond our own, fuelling each other’s successes and constantly asking how we can help.

Underpinning our values is our collective mindset to show up purposefully as good human beings every day, in every situation. When we’re at our best – we are collaborative, considerate and compassionate to others, and we create a safe space for one another to thrive, assuming positive intent in our colleagues. And if we aren’t at our best and the pressure is on – we feel free to be ourselves but still remain curious, lean into the tough stuff and we are always respectful to others and accountable for the part we play.