Ethel Khembo

In brief, my responsibilities involve working in coordination with the Team Lead under direct supervision of Senior Resource Management Officer; Establish Financial Plans and Budget Management to ensure fiscal discipline in the client units; Maintain an effective RM Infrastructure, i.e Policies, Systems and Processes to support the client units, Knowledge Sharing and Client Service, and Quality Assurance and Internal Controls. Specifically my roles are:

• Support clients establish and maintain financial plans, improve financial operations with careful, in-depth analysis and proactive recommendations for improvement.
• Enhance management decision-making by providing insightful financial analysis and budget monitoring reports on monthly basis.
• Develop monthly variance reports for TTLs to track actual performance against projected budgets, facilitating corrective action when necessary.
• Advise Practice Managers on Quality Assurance related issues, ensure compliance with all relevant Bank policies and guidelines, mitigating exceptions on QA reports.
• Coordinate Quality Assurance and Internal Controls for EAP RD Units and GGHVP Units for which BPSHE is responsible.
• Support RM Infrastructure, ie, clients' capacity building on RM systems, policies and processes; knowledge sharing and consistent client service.
• Strengthen internal communication between BPSHE and Client units, fostering collaboration towards shared objectives.
• As Records and Information Management Coordinator, contributed to the architecture of new BPSOU Sharepoint Landscape Project.

Responsibilities involved working on diverse and highly complex issues under direct supervision of the Country Manager and Senior Resource Management Officer based at Headquarters and the general direction of the Chief Administrative Officer for Africa Region. Specifically I:

• Collaborated with the Country Manager in strategic resource allocations for the country office.
• Identified potential bottlenecks in resource allocation and proposed strategic solutions to resolve them.
• Optimized budget utilization by closely monitoring resources and identifying cost-saving opportunities.
• Produced detailed and relevant monthly budget reports for use by Country Manager in making business decisions.
• Implemented best practices in resource management to achieve higher levels of operational efficiency.
• Supported financial and cost analysis related to financial statements, bank reconciliations, audit readiness, and internal controls compliance efforts.
• Reviewed internal systems in conjunction with WFA QA scorecard report and organized training plans to address areas in need of improvement
• Communicated to staff on regular basis updates and feedback on resource availability and Bank Policies and guidelines.
• Managed office facilities and staff in collaboration with various Bank Units such as BPS HQ, HR, GCS, HSD.
• As RM Team Lead, provided guidance, supervision, and mentoring to new RM and Administrative Staff located in Malawi Country Office.
• Liaised with external clients such as UN Agencies, commercial banks, vendors and contractors to establish strong relationships.

• Handled day-to-day accounting processes to drive financial accuracy.
• Performed reconciliations of bank, general ledger and vendor accounts and reviewed expense data for accuracy.
• Managed cash flow effectively, ensuring all company liabilities were met in a timely manner while ensuring the bank account did not hold too much surplus funds.
• Established strong relationships with banking partners to facilitate access to various financial services as well as vendors for better contract terms for goods and services.
• Maintained accurate records of fixed assets and carried out annual inventory reconciliations.
• Prepared and filed VAT refund claims with MRA and reconciled the receipts.
• Responded to WFA QA queries, Scorecard exceptions and other QA reviews on timely basis and resolved any issues.
• Updated and reconciled Malawi Country office accounts backlog of over a year within my first 3 months of joining the Bank while learning and new to SAP, and later became SAP Champion.
• Backed up RM Analyst roles for Malawi and Angola Country Offices concurrently from March to April 2007.
• Maintained HRBEN/local, ie,updating Medical Benefit Plan contributions, dependency requests, analyze staff loan requests, annual certification of benefits, etc.

Prior to joining the Bank, I worked in various organizations in both private sector and NGOs holding positions of Internal Auditor and Accountant. My notable achievements include:

• Performed internal audits of financial and departmental operations, developing risk assessments and conducting process walkthroughs for compliance with documented processes at Toyota Malawi.
• Designed a system of Internal Controls and Procedures and built up Ledger and Cash Book from the scratch for Office & Industrial Systems Limited (OIS) using kills obtained from previous job as Internal Auditor at Toyota Malawi.
• Learned on my own Sunsystem Accounting Package when I joined OIS and successfully assisted the company, who were the suppliers of the software, in implementing and training of all accounting staff at Malawi Institute of Education in Zomba, Malawi.