Ethical Apparel Africa Jobs

Ethical Apparel Africa is a UK limited company that provides consultancy and sourcing support to apparel brands wanting to grow their Africa manufacturing base with social and environmental impact. EAA provides intensive capacity building to factories to develop them technically and ethically to international export standards. Our goal is to create a network of exceptional factories that deliver quality, cost competitive product while empowering employees across the African continent.

Ethical Apparel Africa is a social enterprise working to dispel the myth that it’s impossible to manufacture cost-competitive, quality clothing while also achieving high ethical standards. We work at the frontier of apparel manufacturing in West and East Africa, providing capacity building to factories to develop them technically and ethically to international export standards. Our clients are international brands interested in growing a manufacturing base in Africa with social and environmental impact.

Job Description

Job Title: Operations Associate

Position overview:

We have a great opportunity for someone with passion and desire to make a difference in clothing manufacturing to join us as an Operations Associate. This is the perfect role for someone wanting to broaden and challenge their skills by helping to develop the apparel industry on a new continent. This person would join a dynamic, fast-growing team bringing diverse experience from around the world.

Operations Associate role:

This person will work in direct report to the Head of West Africa Operations and will be expected to steadily increase their areas of responsibility and capability to contribute to the business. This individual will follow a ‘graduate program’ that gives sequential exposure across many different parts of the business. This is therefore an ideal job for someone at the start of their career with 1-3 years of experience.

Responsibilities

Job responsibilities for this role will change and expand over time. In the early stages (first 6-12 months) the Operations Associate will be accountable for the following:

• Manage monthly financial processes, including checking and coding monthly expenses and preparing reports comparing budgeted expenses to actual
• Manage and optimize local business expenses (petty cash) including couriers to clients, raw material procurement, etc. Make and account for monthly payments that must be completed in local currency such as drivers salaries
• Deeply understand the logic of organization of the EAA team “drive” (cloud server) and ensure that this logic is understood and followed across the organization; Flag when ‘out of system’ documents or folders are created and resolve to ensure consistency in our information systems
• Manage all logistics processes within EAA to coordinate timely shipments of finished garments by air and sea, including — liaising with EAA technical team and factory to receive packing information, working with account management team to understand deadlines, communicating this information to logistics providers, and ensuring Free-Zone processes are followed. This responsibility requires frequent and proactive chasing to ensure all parties are aligned and working towards timely delivery.
• Manage administrative needs across the business including — guiding team members with process and materials to procure visas, supporting EAA to find and book the most cost effective international travel options, supporting team members to use company insurance to claim for medical expenses
• Negotiation of terms and costs with local partners such as DHL, raw material providers, and service providers to ensure best rates / terms for EAA
• Lead team efforts to improve our work environment and methods — e.g. office space set-up, transport methods, internet usage — to make them more time effective, cost effective, convenient, and productive for everyone involved; Proactively seek feedback from team members on how we can improve
• Lead onboarding of new team members and interns, including — orientation to Accra, cultural orientation, creation of email address, explanation of team cloud server/drive
• Contribute to the development of an entrepreneurial, passionate, high energy, can-do culture within EAA; act as a resource for team members to resolve challenges and constantly endeavor to strengthen morale and team spirit

As the Operations Associate masters the above tasks, EAA’s management is committed to continually developing this individual’s skills so they can contribute in additional areas of the business. Depending on the individual’s skills and strengths, these areas could include the following

• Manage EAA’s full book keeping processes for Ghana including loading of expenses into our online accounting system, reconciliation of costs, and verification of cost codes
• Oversight of tax and accounts auditing process for EAA Ghana branch of the business (completed by external accountants) to ensure situation is well executed and optimized
• Analysis of financial outcomes across the business including profitability on specific client accounts and cost / benefit of specific investments
• Support completion of quarterly reports for important EAA contract with USAID; Attend meetings between EAA and USAID and support the positive development of this relationship
• Support creation of new tools in excel to improve our information systems

Required Skills or Experience

The ideal candidate will be a person with a strong desire to learn and contribute within a dynamic, entrepreneurial environment. We are looking for someone with

• Demonstrated strength in financial management / systems and quantitative analysis
• Some degree of background or training in accounting
• Strong working knowledge of and comfort with excel; preference for background in financial modeling
• Proactive approach to learning, ability to think critically to identify improvement areas, and drive to independently own and execute on deliverables
• Fluency in English; preference for fluency in French
• Passion for working in an enterprise with a social mission
• Evidence of the following characteristics
  • Self aware and puts others before themselves
  • Flexible, resilient and adaptable
  • Tenacious, persistent and resourceful
  • Poised, professional presence
  • Active listener
  • Fun to work with
  • Full of integrity
  • Ability to multi-task and thrive in a fast-paced environment

How to Apply

Please send a specific cover letter and resume to [email protected] using the reference “OPs ASSOCIATE” as the object of your email.

Only complete applications with correct reference will be considered and reviewed on a rolling basis.