WaterAid is exclusively partnering with Robertson Bell in their search for a Senior Finance Business Partner to join their high-performing team on a permanent basis, in this newly revamped role. WaterAid is the largest international not-for-profit organisation, focussed solely on making sustainable clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene normal for everyone, everywhere.
This role will be a key strategic advisor and responsible for high-level planning conversations to WaterAid UKs largest income generating Directorate: Communications and Fundraising. As the Senior Finance Business Partner, you will be responsible for helping shape the strategic direction of fundraising team. This is a high-profile role, enabling Water Aid UK’s senior leadership to deliver and support the delivery of WaterAid’s ambitious programmatic activity.
The organisation:
Collaboration is at the heart of everything WaterAid does. They work in alliances. Over the next decade, together they will reach hundreds of millions more people so that whole communities can live healthy lives and build better futures. Together with their supporters and partners around the world – from the smallest neighbourhood groups to the largest multinationals – they have reached close to 30 million people with clear water and 30 million with decent toilets. Good hygiene is now a part of everyday life for 27.8 million people.
To make lasting change happen on a massive scale they show decision makers how it can and should be done by influencing them to act. WaterAid link policy makers with communities and local partners and change attitudes and behaviours. They persuade governments, donors and financial institutions to invest in basic services and rally support from people and organisations around the world. They will keep working towards their mission until they are no longer needed.
The key duties of the Senior Finance Business Partner are as follows:
- Owning relationships with key senior stakeholders within the Communications and Fundraising Directorate.
- Regularly engaging on strategic long-term decision making and providing relevant financial data to key decision makers.
- Work with the directorate to build realistic and detailed financial plans.
- Own directorate specific timelines for delivering financial forecasts and budgets.
- Work with Head of Management Accounting to build a consolidated picture for WaterAid UKs performance for the Executive Director Team.
- Collaborate on the building and maintenance of automated reporting for directorate on PowerBI.
- Regularly engage with budget holders to ensure that spending and income is on track against plans.
- Ensure CRM data is complete and accurately reflected in the month end close position.
- Oversee the monthly recording of both unrestricted and restricted income streams.
The successful candidate will have:
- Completed a professional accounting qualification or be part-qualified with relevant professional experience.
- Experience of strategic partnering senior stakeholders (ideally at Executive Director level) along with senior leadership teams.
- Ability to analyse large quantities of data with a view to identifying trends and key drivers.
- Adaptability to build effective working relationships with both finance and non-finance colleagues and work in a collaborative way.
- Excellent communication skills, both oral and written.
- Experience of managing finances within a fundraising directorate (Desirable).
- Knowledge of international development issues and the sector (Desirable).
Please note that this role required a minimum of 40% of working time to spent face-to-face in their Canary Wharf offices.
The deadline for applications is on Sunday 20th July, with first stage interviews due to take place the week commencing 28th July. CVs will be under continuous review in advance of this date so submit your application today via Robertson Bell to ensure you don’t miss out!
Our vision is a world where everyone, everywhere has sustainable and safe water, sanitation and hygiene.





About Reprieve
Reprieve works with the most disenfranchised people in society. Our aim is simple: to consign the death penalty and abuses carried out in the name of “counter-terrorism” or “national security” to history, drawing public and political attention to these past harms with a view to preventing them from occurring again. In our view, you can best judge a society by how it treats prisoners, criminal defendants, and the far-flung targets of an ever-changing counter-terror policy. To us, the rule of law means little if we selectively apply it to people we agree with. It is for all of us. Liberty is always eroded at the margins. Reprieve’s staff is made up of courageous and committed human rights defenders.
Founded in 1999, we provide free legal and investigative support to people facing the death penalty and those victimised by states’ abusive counterterror policies – rendition, torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killing. We fight our clients’ cases in courts around the world; investigate their mistreatment; and advocate on their behalf, encouraging public and political debate of human rights issues. Reprieve’s main office is in Aldgate, London, UK. Reprieve also supports full-time Fellows, who work as lawyers, investigators and campaigners in the countries in which we work. We work closely with a number of partner organisations in jurisdictions all over the world, who provide access to clients, expertise, knowledge and guidance on specific issues or regions. We work in cooperation with relevant government officials, individual lawyers and human rights defenders, as well as individual, corporate and foundation funders to further the cause of our shared goals.
Reprieve works in close partnership with its independent sibling organisation Reprieve US. This collaboration is mutually beneficial to both Reprieve and Reprieve US as it enables each organisation to work more effectively and take advantage of the strategic locations to increase the impact of our work.
Reprieve is an equal opportunity employer and we particularly welcome applicants from Black and minority ethnic communities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and those with disabilities. Reprieve is committed to fighting racism and advancing racial justice, both in our work and within Reprieve. For more information, please see our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Statement. You can also read more about our recruitment process.
About the Role
The MENA Death Penalty Caseworker will undertake a range of activities in support of Reprieve’s work on cases of individuals on death row or at risk of the death penalty across the MENA region, including casework and investigations into individual cases and the broader death penalty landscape, support to Reprieve clients, and support to partner organisations and lawyers in the MENA region and beyond. The MENA Death Penalty Caseworker is an integral member of the MENA Team, and will work closely with the Media, Campaigns and Digital, and UK and US Policy teams, and the Directors and Deputy Directors. You will share our commitment to fighting against racism and advancing racial justice, and understand our responsibility to do our work in a way that does not compound racist structures.
Background on MENA Death Penalty Work
Several countries in the MENA region consistently rank amongst the highest executing states in the world. Reprieve is one of few international organisations working on combatting the use of the death penalty in the region, working with partners primarily on Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, and monitoring the use of the death penalty across the wider region. The MENA team’s work is diverse and constantly evolving to shape, respond to, and anticipate changes in the domestic and regional death penalty landscape. Our strategy in any given jurisdiction is developed in collaboration with – and informed by – our partners and fellows. Direct casework on strategic cases is core to our work in all regions, and includes legal, political and advocacy strategies as appropriate. We look in particular to find and develop cases and narratives which have the potential to change the landscape and benefit as many individuals or classes of individuals as possible. We also undertake and assist with longer term thematic projects and engage with regional and international mechanisms and organs where it is strategic to do so.
This is a full-time position on a one-year fixed term contract, to cover parental leave, based on a minimum of 37.5 hours per week. Due to the global and sometimes urgent nature of Reprieve’s work, flexibility on working hours will sometimes be required.
The client requests no contact from agencies or media sales.