Samer Zawahreh

• Ensured programme financial management of the Hub systems’ (Quantum & Q+), projects’ budgets and policies.
• Oversaw operational efficiency, ensuring adherence to UNFPA regulations and completion of the year-end closure.
• Spearheaded the Hub operations strategic management, ensuring alignment corporate policies across Operations.
• Led on decentralisation through capacity building initiatives which enhanced complex humanitarian delivery.
• Collaborated with senior leadership and cross-functional teams to develop and implement strategic frameworks.
• Cultivated partnerships with UN agencies and donors fostering inter-agency coordination & resource optimisation.
• Supervised and mentored operations personnel promoting a culture of excellence and continuous improvement.
• Actively participated in strategic decision-making processes ensuring Value-for-Money resource mobilisation.
• Facilitated effective program execution and resource allocation through engagement with other peers’ functions.
• Contributed to the formulation of policies and procedures that advance UNFPA’s mission in the region.
• Developed of Financial, HR, Procurement, and other Operations functions toolkits.
• Led on digitization and automation initiative supporting the operations in the region.
• Strengthened stakeholders operational and financial capacities, covered Grants Manager during absences.

• Strengthened whole-of-organisation financial management employing change management approach.
• Explained the new UNIT4 Financial Model to involved offices to enable effective impact assessment.
• Ensured successful roll-out of the solution to the global country and regional offices.
• Developed budgeting and reporting processes and provided training to the global regions and countries’ SLTs.
• Ensured any request for scope additions and issues are resolved and provided post-go live support globally.
• Led on testing data migration and provided constructive feedback to resolve the data migration issues.
• Shared knowledge and lessons learned, supporting the team resolving issues and complete deliverables.
• Support the Finance Transformation Lead in the leadership and management responsibilities.

• Produced financial and management reports and forecasts in compliance with donor and internal requirements.
• Supported budgeting and ensured budgets are in line with proposals and fundraising unit requirements.
• Provided guidance on finance donor compliance that informs proposals and budgets development.
• Maintained compliance of grants internal financial policies e.g., anti-bribery and corruption.
• Partnered with international teams by producing management reports and supporting budget holders.
• Managed budgets development for proposals including modifications, amendments, and forecasting

• Led the department and participated in developing the strategic plans with the Country Leadership Team.
• Built a strong risk management and accountable culture for the organisation's resources and programmes.
• Advised the various departments on risk mapping, planning, and mitigation, including support and programs.
• Guided the team on internal and external audits functions by controlling risk-based approach.
• Coached lessons learned and best practices to reinforce compliance within ACTED and its stakeholders.
• Promoted, and improved ACTED's anti-fraud, due diligence, money laundry and whistleblowing policies.
• Led on investigations into fraud and ethics violations in the organisation and implementing partners.

The Scope of Work for this consultancy are:
Accounting: Maintaining the Accounting System and building procedures of the Month end Routine, Banks Reconciliations, Soft and Hard Filing Process, and the other Accounting Functions. Compliance: Development of Procedures of reviewing the payments, Establishing Tracking tools, and Representing the organization to a specific project audit. Budgeting and Reporting: Preparing standard Budgeting and Financial Reporting Templates and Preparing the Master Budget. Subaward Finance: Preparing a full procedure starting from Initiating the projects, Projects Monitoring, until the Projects Closure for the subawards and establishing the roles for each donor requirements. At the end, Playing an Advisory and Capacity Development role for the organization based on request.

Achievements:
Covered the Budgeting and Financial Analysis Manager role in her absence right after my joining to this new role. Managed more than 17 grants all over the hubs, that leaves us with a total portfolio of $80m. Representing the Central Finance Unit in the BvAs Meetings. Pushed the BVA meetings to become more earlier than usual. Provided tools in order to minimize the manual working. Maintaining high-level communication with the HQs providing them with the feedback regarding the systems, and the correct methodology of generating the reports.

Scope of Work:
• Representing the Central Finance Unit in all the BVAs Meetings
• Support the B&FA Manager in budget development tasks by working closely with programs and other functional units during budget modifications and new proposal development. Ensure that budgets are presented in the internal format before they are converted to the donor format
• Support the budget holders on phased budget system (breaking down budgets by quarters or years or as required by month) so the planned activities for the quarter or month is aligned with the phased budgets
• Maintain and update the staff cost analysis database that captures all staff budget LOEs in each grant and provide analysis on staff cost coverage and funding gaps
• Closely coordinate with the different units and hubs to track staff movements and update the staff cost allocations to determine and analyse its impact on compliance and available budget balance
• Monitor the cost coverage for operations costs including vehicle running cost and other office running costs for the whole country program on a monthly basis and indicate how each one of them is funded by different grants, the charging codes (Fund & LIN code) including the grants charging period (from -to)
• Maintain an updated list of grant budget codes, quick codes reference guides and compile the latest grant documents in the finance folders
• Verify that program-related purchase requests and personnel recruitment forms that are subject to financial review are adequately funded and are allowable costs. Provide budget codes to staff relative to staff costs, general travel and training, as well as support on other programmatic coding requirements
• Based on the computerized accounting info detailed Budget Versus Actual, grant portfolio status or similar reports, perform further analysis on elapsed periods vs burn rate (fund utilization rate) and play an advisory role to the budget roles on indicative basis so that the program implementation follows the Program Management Minimum Standard guides that we are on scope and on budget.
• Perform high level ledger scrub or sensibility checking of transactions on the BVA so that they are reasonably included in the specific grant Budget Versus Actual (BVA)
• Consolidate all grant forecasts on a monthly basis and analyse donor flexibility requirements. Provide feedback to budget holders during BVA meetings to manage the over/underspends, potential disallowances and reclassifications
• Follow-through all outstanding actions from relevant parties to ensure that deadlines are met and issues are addressed with high level of analysis, efficiency and quality
• Participate in any budget related meetings or consultations as may be necessary to achieve the objectives of the role and continuously provide active support to all functional units

Achievements:
Managed the financial component of Mercy Corps South Syria’s sub-awards and projects and achieving positive performance and quality results in initiating, monitoring, and closing sub-awards, in particular during the latest emergency response under US, DFID, EU, ECHO …etc. Funded Projects. Provided the needed Capacity Development to the partners in the areas of Accounting, Compliance, and Finance.

Scope of Work:
- Making sure that the partners policies and procedures are in compliance with the donors and MC policies and regulations.
- Conduct meetings with the new partners in order to assess their capacity and to provide recommendations
- Review of the Due Diligence Package “Pre-award Assessments, Conflict of Interests, RPSs”
- Review Partners’ Budgets and Financial Polices against MC guidelines and the donor regulations
- Prepare Financial Reporting Templates and Supporting Documentation Matrixes.
- Review and Track partners’ Financial Reports, Supporting Documents, expenditures, contracts, and procurement.
- Provide capacity development and training to partners and their finance focal points.
- Manage Subawards Systematically (Issuing Subaward Cards for new projects, Uploading the Financial Reports to the System and etc).
- Review and monitor the posted expenditures, Milestones, and the expenditures using Jet Reports. Close subawards and archive and maintain documents in accordance with MC’s file retention Checklist.

Managed all North Syria’s Accounts with the support of the General Accounts Manager, Closing Turkey and North Syria/Turkey Accounts, and moving the Balance Sheet Accounts to the new Ledger “Syria Ledger”.

Scope of Work:
•Support the Accounting and Finance Manager in managing the accounting cycle and Remote Management of transactions.
•Develop tools to complete the payroll process in a timely and efficient manner.
•Review Advances, EERs, and Payment Requests
•Preparing Navigator Entries and Archiving, and Assisting in the maintenance of accounting records to make sure that are complete and accurate
•Preparing all the Payroll Process starting from the payroll process until the following up that the payrolls are received in NS
•Preparing EPARs (the basis of individual allocation) for National and Expatriate staff and importing them into the system
•Preparing the Balance Sheet Accounts reconciliations and Prepare reclass when required, Amortizations, and Prepaids
•Maintaining Filing and Tracking system for all documents
•Assist the Finance Manager on developing documentation guidance for new program initiatives in relation to Finance Requirements.
•Preparing the month end closure routine.

International Relief and Development/ Blumont
Working in one of the most challenging environments in Jordan, in direct contact with the Program Teams, Volunteers, Beneficiaries, and Activities under a UNHCR Funded project
Achievements:
Handling and Controlling nearly %70 of the budget expenditures.
Invented some reports and analysis to be sent regularly to the management in order to assist them overview the Financial Statuses, take some related decisions, and to review the program spending behaviour.
Guided and trained the program teams preparing the related documents to the Finance department.
Coordinating with the CFW focal point to develop the stipends (Cash for Work) SOPs.

Scope of Work:
The scope of work of my role was (Accounting, Compliance, Financial Analysis, and Cash Distributions) for the overall camps activities

First one to apply the UNHCR and the other donors’ Policies and Procedures in the organization.
Scope of Work:
Mainly Accounting, and Compliance.

Configuring Opera system and made the interfaces for Sun system (The Accounting System) in adoption of Country’s Regulations, Chart of Accounts, and The Corporate Policies.
Presenting the work policies to the operational departments in compliance with the corporate policies.
Suggesting the manual reports on Excel sheets to be presented to the Finance Manager and to the corporate.
Involving in the team and assisting them, such as: The Payroll, General Accountant, and the Account Payable.
Responsible for all the revenue transactions and reporting to the Corporate Office

Volunteered as Finance Assistant at Equality Centre (Community Based Organization) for three years during my study in the university