Finance Manager job

OrganizationSilverleaf Academy Ltd

LocationSilverleaf Academy Network, Arusha, Tanzania

PositionFinance Manager

Role type: Executive Leadership | Full-time

Contract duration: 2 years (renewable)

Reports toMD

Direct reportsFinance Associates

Organization overview

Silverleaf Academy is a fast-growing education platform building a scalable network of high-quality, affordable private schools across Tanzania, serving lower-middle-income families. Silverleaf exists to demonstrate that excellent education, grounded in strong learning outcomes, inclusive practice, and whole-child development, can be delivered sustainably at scale.

Silverleaf has built a strong reputation for disciplined execution, data-informed leadership, and a distinctive school culture, delivering solid academic outcomes with a sharp focus on foundational literacy, numeracy, and life skills, supported by technology-enabled learning and continuous improvement.

We are now entering a pivotal scale phase, targeting growth from 5 to 30 schools over a 5-year horizon beginning in 2026. This expansion includes entry into multiple regions, the launch of Secondary education and a Teacher Training College, and rapid enrollment growth from 1,200 to over 10,000 learners. This scale introduces increasing complexity across capital planning, governance, and risk management and demands a finance leader who is a true strategic architect.

Role overview

The Finance Manager is a core member of Silverleaf's Executive Leadership Team and the organisation's principal architect of financial strategy, long-term financial sustainability, and enterprise-wide performance. This is not a traditional accounting or compliance role. It is a strategy-led finance leadership position for an individual who combines the analytical rigour of a Finance Manager with the commercial instinct of a growth investor.

As Silverleaf blends philanthropic funding, equity and debt financing to fuel its expansion, the Finance Manager must be deeply fluent in capital structure strategy — including but not limited to the implications of each financing instrument on growth objectives, investor dilution, governance rights, and long-term organisational ownership. The right candidate will help Silverleaf raise capital smartly, not just adequately.

The Finance Manager will ensure that financial insight drives operational decision-making at every level: translating complex data into clear strategy, trade-offs, and recommendations that enable Silverleaf to scale responsibly while protecting quality, impact, and the mission.

Key responsibilities

• Enterprise financial strategy & scale architecture

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Lead the refinement of Silverleaf's 10-year financial forecasting and expansion model, ensuring its alignment with the Board-approved growth plan.

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Lead the development and maintenance of dynamic organisation-wide and discrete multi-scenario financial models (base, upside, downside, stress) to support leadership and Board-level decisions.

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Translate the expansion strategy into a clear multi-year capital funding strategy, developing the most efficient capital structure for each discrete operating asset (e.g., school) and the collective organization (e.g., parent company).

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Advise the MD and Board on the appropriate pace of operational growth, taking into consideration all forms of risk (e.g. macroeconomic, operational, regulatory, etc.). In connection with this duty, the Finance Manager will lead the creation and presentation of risk-adjusted scenario planning.

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Lead the financial aspects of all activities associated with Silver Leaf’s pre and post-merger acquisition strategy (e.g., financing analysis, capital deployment, etc.).

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Facilitate, along with the leadership team, a pricing strategy for each product offering (e.g., academic services/tuition, busing, food services, boarding, etc.) that helps to ensure the school's service offerings are viable (i.e., meet the target profitability) on a standalone basis.

• Capital strategy, fundraising & shareholding dilution management

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Design and actively manage Silverleaf's capital structure strategy across the various forms of capital types (e.g., philanthropic grants, debt, equity) utilised by the Organization.

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Analyse and define the long-term implications of each capital raise on (among other things) shareholder ownership and dilution, as well as governance rights and composition, ensuring the MD, Board and current shareholders understand (with full clarity) the shareholder-oriented implications associated with every proposed funding round and acquisition.

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Develop and maintain an up-to-date and forward-looking cap table that reflects current ownership holdings as well as prospective dilution scenarios for future financing rounds.

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Advise on the optimal financing sequencing; in particular, when and to what degree the Organization and its underlying assets should take on the right proportion of grant, equity, and debt funding and relatedly how best to structure financing across those various financial instruments in a way that preserves the Organization’s mission while in balance, maximising shareholder returns and rights.

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Partner with the MD on developing and maintaining investor and lender relationships, negotiating term sheets, due diligence management, and closing processes.

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