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Experienced Finance management professional with more than 15 years in International NGOs specialized in emergencies and development program; finance systems, partnership management, risk management, training/mentoring finance and non-finance managers. A Chartered Accountant, MBA holder and student of certified forensic accountant and worked in East, West and Southern Africa. |
 Contact MARGARET OTIM
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Area of Expertise: |
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Administration, Management, Finance/Accounting, Procurement
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Capacity Building, Training, Advocacy
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Disaster, Aid, Emergencies, Relief
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Environment, Climate, Energy, Water, Sanitation
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Professional Experience: |
My first full time job was with ACORD Uganda a UK charity (Jan/1991 – Dec/1994), starting as Assistant Finance & Admin Officer and later as Finance &Admin Officer in Jun/1992. Introduced electronic cash book, procurement monitoring template and capital asset register in excel. In Jan/1995, I joined CPAR Uganda, a Canadian INGO as Senior Finance & Admin Officer leading Finance and other support services. Here, I introduced activity-based budgeting with templates linked to ACCPAC coding to facilitate grants budgeting and also designed a tool for overhead cost recovery which was adopted by HQ. I was then promoted to Finance & Admin Director (May/1999) with an expanded responsibility to set up and oversee the Finance and Administration team of the CPAR Tanzania office.
After 12 years with CPAR, I joined Right To Play as Regional Finance Manager for East & Southern Africa (Jun/2006) – national position, heading the finance and other support functions in six countries (Uganda, S. Sudan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique). I set up finance offices and supported the Country Managers in budgeting; cash flow planning; international procurement; donor reporting, audit and country-specific compliance issues. Consolidation of financial reports, budgets and regional office audits; participated in the 5-year strategic planning for the Region and introduced cost recovery.
In Feb/2008, I took an expatriate job with World Vision International, DRC as Finance & Admin Director. I led a change management process known as the ’90-day Break Through’ which drastically improved performance of the support services. I influenced management decision to merge different offices under one roof and introduced Supply Chain department to promote efficiency and effectiveness in procurement. I introduced quarterly field budget monitoring meetings as well as bi-annual joint meetings between programmes and support services; Involved in risk assessment - alerting management on potential risks and also improved audit ratings.
In July 2010, I took a 3-month break to concentrate on my MBA studies and then joined Oxfam GB – DRC in Dec/2010 as Finance and Systems Manager. I was SME on a project to generate donor reporting and partner advances monitoring directly from the financial system. I contextualized policies on emergency response for local context; restructured the finance department to strengthen field offices. Introducing bi-annual finance forum and regular training was extremely useful to improving the performance of the department. During that time I led the negotiation with local a provider to implement cash transfer programming during emergencies. I also held the position of Business Support Manager (Aug-Oct/2012) before the substantive post holder was recruited.
After 5.5 years in the DRC, I decided to move on in Sep/2013 and joined Plan International Sierra Leone in Oct/2013 until Mar/2017 when I took a sabbatical leave from full time employment.
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Education: |
After primary school education (1972 – 1978) and secondary School (1980 – 1984), I joined a tertiary institution (Uganda College of Commerce) in 1985 to study Business Administration in order to acquire practical skills to enable me find employment faster since my parents were financially constrained. I worked part-time during my college days and later formal employment in 1991. From my savings, I decided to pursue professional accountancy course (Accounts Technician Course) with Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPA-K). In 1999 I then joined the Association of Certified Chartered Accountant (ACCA) UK since it’s a global body compared to ICPA-K. I managed to complete the course in 5 years (duration is usually 10 years) and obtain membership in 2006 and Fellowship status (FCCA) in 2011. I was admitted to the Certified Public Accountants (CPA) Uganda membership as well as a member of the Auditor General Office of the government of Uganda in 2012.
In 2009, I enrolled for MBA with Oxford Brookes University, UK and was awarded the MBA in 2013. My project during the MBA studies was on establishing a Procurement and Supply Chain department in my organization; a project that was finally adopted by my employer. The consultancy for the award of the MBA was on Effective Budget management in INGOs. The consultancy was particularly useful to me as Country Finance Manager in a country with chronic insecurity. The MBA therefore, equipped me with critical skills in my career as the modules included Leadership development, Strategic Planning & Strategic thinking, Resource Acquisition, Planning & Management, Change Management and Human Resources development.
Over the years, I have aacquired additional skills through formal training and workshops such as a 5-day ‘Training of Finance Trainers’ organized by MANGO (UK) - Nairobi (2013), a training that has equipped me with immense skills that I now use in training finance and non-finance staff, including of partners. A 5-day Fraud Detection and Prevention training (Mozambique, 2009) was particularly helpful in strengthening controls in the organizations I worked for. Skills acquired from the Activity-based and Result- based budgeting workshop (Kampala, 2005) was extremely useful in effective budgeting for grants funded projects. Similarly, the foundational training in the grants management by SDF (Arusha, (2005), followed by training on Global Funds Financial Management (S.Africa – 2009) and ECHO/EC Budgeting and Financial Reporting (Nairobi, 2010) equipped me to better manage funding by key donors. The review and testing of the Cash Transfer and CaLP Manual (Oxfam, 2011) also equipped me to effectively manage cash transfer and voucher programming particularly in emergency responses.
I regularly update my skills through various Continuous Professional Development (CPD) online courses (www.accaglobalcpd.net) such as Leadership skills for Accountant, Activity based management, Fraud and
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Affiliations and Achievements: |
Volunteer work:
1. I’m a member of the Board in two national NGOs in Uganda, providing financial advice to the board and management and reviewing proposal budgets.
2. I was reappointed Club Treasurer for my Rotary Club in Uganda for 4 consecutive years (2004 – 2007).
3. Carried out a pro-bono Consultancy to review the financial systems of SADA Ghana, a government authority in 2015 (Comments from the Board below).
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From: mariama awumbila
Date: January 24, 2015 at 1:43:31 PM GMT
To: ausulley <
Subject: Re: Draft Report
Dear Charles,
Many thanks for this initiative and to Margaret for doing this pro bono. In a way I am not really surprised at the report. What is worrying is the depth of the issues unearthed. It looks like even basic financial procedures and structures are not in place or not working well.
Margaret has outlined a clear road map, but I would emphasize the point made by Adam on the need for oversight responsibility for the finance dept pending the appointment of a finance director. it would be useful to get a short term consultant with appropriate expertise to urgently work with the finance department to see to the implementation of these recommendations within a short time frame.
In the longer term, I suggest this type of audit of structures and processes are also carried out for other key departments of SADA such as the HR dept, IDPs etc.
On Jan 24, 2015, at 9:35 AM, ausulley wrote:
Charles
This is a situation we have always been dreading from the way things were going. But thanks to Margaret for letting us know the magnitude of the unknown.
The action steps are clear and the road map is set. My immediate comments are:
1. As much as possible let us ensure the proper handing over as recommended by Margaret is done. If not this could come back to hunt us.
2. Double the efforts to get a substantive Finance Director.
3. Also in the meantime immediate oversight responsibility for the Finance function is required.
BR
Adam
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