HEAD OF SERVICES

VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT@ MARY'S MEALS

POSITION: HEAD OF SERVICES

Location: Blantyre

JOB DESCRIPTION Mary’s Meals is a global movement supported by people from all walks of life and we are focused on one goal – that every child receives a nutritious daily meal in a place of education. We continue to change the lives of 3 million children who today will receive a Mary’s Meals. Mary’s Meals Malawi is our largest school feeding programme, and we work closely with schools and community volunteers who help prepare and serve the nutritious meals every school day.

Mary’s Meals Malawi is looking to recruit energetic and motivated individuals for the position of:

Head of Services: 2 Year FTC Based in Blantyre

Job purpose

Reporting to the Country Director, with a ‘dotted line’ to the MMI Director of Finance and Procurement, to provide effective and inspirational leadership of the Mary’s Meals Services team in Malawi. A hands-on and participative leader, coach and mentor who will lead and develop an internal team to support the following areas: Finance, security and risk management, procurement, governance and legal and IT. The role is accountable for ensuring that all finance and operations functions operate to the highest standards of effectiveness and to ensure robust systems, processes and controls are in place and adhered to diligently across the whole programme. As a key member of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) the role also has responsibility for ensuring that the wider programme strategy is implemented.

Qualifications, skills and experience

CCAB qualified, or equivalent, with a significant post qualification experience. Educated to degree level or equivalent level professional experience. Senior-level strategic thinker, with proven experience of developing and delivering strategy in a complex environment. Experience in leading finance and operations function and leading, engaging and motivating a team. Well-developed individual and team leadership, management and coaching skills with extensive experience of managing a team. Advanced and well-developed inter-personal skills, with solid track record in persuading and influencing others. Proven ability to lead a team to drive forward and consolidate change and influence behaviours Good skills in conflict resolution/ problem solving, teamwork, crisis management, influencing, collaborative relationship and coaching. Able to work well with people of different cultures and nationalities. Excellent Microsoft Office skills, particularly Word and Excel. Able to work on own initiative, prioritise work to deadlines and pay attention to detail. Excellent communication skills and the ability to effectively communicate complex ideas and information to a range of audiences and stakeholders. Extensive experience of budget and financial management and implementation of internal control frameworks. Able to apply judgement, creativity and flexibility to generate new and innovative ideas and approaches and to solve complex problems. Ability to identify, analyse and take action to effectively manage risk to meet strategic objectives. Experience working in a matrix structure. Experience of negotiating and influencing across all levels and building relationships and partnership. Strong track record of developing and implementing strategy and policy. Experience of managing conflict and sensitive issues and achieving positive outcomes. Experience of developing, monitoring and reporting against agreed strategy, delivering strategic priorities within strict timelines. Experience of working in a charity or not for profit organisation Mary’s Meals is a value driven organisation, we believe in the innate goodness of people, respect the dignity of every human being and family life and believe in good stewardship of the resources entrusted to us. In line with our values Mary’s Meals is fully committed to a culture of safeguarding. Our selection process therefore includes rigorous background checks to ensure our commitment to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults.

If you would like to join our global family and would relish the chance to make a difference to the lives of thousands of children across the world, we’d love to hear from you.

If this role sounds like a good fit, please apply via our Workable application link: Link

Hard copy applications will NOT be accepted. Deadline for receipt of applications is Wednesday 22nd April 2026.

Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted. For full job descriptions please visit www.marysmeals.org