Administration Operations Manager

Role overview:

GiveDirectly Malawi has grown steadily since its introduction in 2019 and in 2025 launched our most ambitious program and research agenda yet, delivering funds across an entire district alongside the largest-ever randomized trial on unconditional cash. 

The Admin. Operations Manager runs the administrative engine of the country office. They are accountable for the functions every team depends on but few see: vendor and casual labour payments, petty cash, office premises and security oversight, field and office assets management, transport and logistics, visitor coordination, and regulatory compliance. When these work, programs move. When they slip, the cost lands on recipients, staff and vendors alike.

The Admin. Operations Manager  is a people manager first. They lead a cross-site team of associates and support staff, and they are expected to build capability, not just allocate tasks. They work in close partnership with the Procurement & Warehousing Manager, with Finance on payments and reconciliations, and with the Programs team on the logistics that field operations require. They advise the Operations Director and Country Director on administrative planning, budget and process improvement.

Responsibilities:

Payments, petty cash and expense management

• Own the end-to-end payment cycle for vendors, contractors and casual labour: validate invoice and timesheet authenticity, match each to goods or services actually received, assemble the full documentation pack, check the ledger for duplicates, and submit through the agreed payment request workflow.
• Hold the team to a standing target of no overdue supplier invoices.
• Apply the correct withholding and statutory tax treatment to each payment, and share filing proof with the payments team.
• Follow payments through to settlement with Finance, maintain the payables tracker, and reconcile vendor accounts and payment discrepancies.
• Run the petty cash cycle end to end — float request, retirement with receipts and memo, review and complete documentation — and produce the month-end cash count certificate.
• Train staff across the country office on the payment and expense systems and on documenting expenditure correctly.

Office premises, facilities and security

• Oversee upkeep of the country and field offices, liaising with landlords on maintenance, and maintain the utilities, connectivity and supplies the office needs to operate without interruption.
• Scope and secure field office locations as programs require, furnish them to standard within the agreed lead time, and manage relocation and closure.
• Manage office access and guard services, holding providers to the agreed scope of service.
• Act as the office focal point for day-to-day safety and security practice, and escalate incidents in line with policy.
• Provide and maintain a safe work environment, including adequate first aid facilities and protective equipment for field staff, as per GD standards or national regulations.

Office and field asset management

• Maintain a complete register of office and field assets — equipment, furniture, IT hardware and general supplies — updated monthly with new purchases, movements and disposals, with all assets tagged, allocated and tracked.
• Conduct quarterly asset verification against the register and report exceptions.
• Enforce staff protocols on handling and safe storage of GD property, and recover and reallocate assets when staff exit or projects close.
• Forecast asset replacement, run the annual disposal cycle, and manage disposal of obsolete, damaged, lost or stolen assets with the required documentation and approvals.
• Procure and maintain insurance coverage for office assets and vehicles, and manage claims.

Transport, logistics and visitor coordination

• Oversee the office vehicle fleet and the Logistics Officers who operate it, including scheduling, maintenance, fuel management and cost control against the field transport budget.
• Coordinate staff travel — flights, accommodation and ground transport — and oversee logistics for high-priority visitors.
• Lead on visas and permits for GiveDirectly visitors and employees, and prepare supporting and invitation letters for visa applications.
• Coordinate transport of materials and staff to field locations.
• Support office functions and team events, including retreats and field-site logistics.

Team leadership and capability building

• Lead the administration team across the country office and every field base: coordination, prioritisation, coaching, and quality assurance of deliverables.
• Supervise office facilities and support staff — cleaners, catering staff and Logistics Officers — to maintain an orderly and functional office.
• Hire, onboard and performance-manage direct reports, including verifying timesheets, leave and attendance.
• Complete Quarterly Development Discussions (QDDs) for all direct reports on the global performance cycle, using them to set development goals and track progress.
• Ensure SOPs and templates are in place, understood and used consistently across all sites.
• Enable rapid scale-up: for each new field office, recruit and orient the Field Admin Associate, cleaners and transport support needed for the site to open on time.

Systems, risk and compliance

• Improve back-office systems — payments workflow, records, office administration — so they support delivery at scale rather than constraining it.
• Assess resource and capacity gaps across the administration function on an ongoing basis and plan ahead to fill them.
• Maintain compliance with GiveDirectly policy, donor requirements, the code of conduct and Malawian regulation, implementing preventive controls and fixing process weaknesses before they become findings.
• Build expertise within the team on the national and local regulatory environment and compliance requirements.
• Support Finance and Internal Audit through review processes, providing payment and asset documentation, reconciling discrepancies and closing out findings.
• Lead development of the annual administration budget under the guidance of the Operations Director, review actual against planned spend, and flag variances early.
• Advise the Operations Director and Country Director on administrative planning and process improvement.

Desired qualifications:

• 5-7 years of work experience in office administration, operations or business support roles, including experience owning a payments or financial administration function.
• Bachelors/Masters in business administration, management or a relevant field.
• Strong alignment with GD values, and active demonstration of our core competencies: emotional intelligence, problem solving, project management, follow-through, and fostering inclusivity.
• Experienced people manager with demonstrated ability to deliver results through others and set up strong management processes, ideally across multiple sites.
• Sound working knowledge of payment processing, invoice validation, statutory tax treatment and basic financial controls.
• Exceptional ability to logic through complex operational questions & run robust analyses to inform management and programming decisions.
• Exceptional written & verbal communication skills to be deployed for a range of audiences (field teams, local and global leadership teams, regulatory authorities, service providers etc.).
• Excellent interpersonal skills and a collaborative management style.
• Enthusiasm for fast-paced environments, which may lack a pre-defined playbook for success and involve significant "learning by doing".
• Fluency in English and Chichewa, and willingness to travel to field sites within Malawi.