Operations Finance Director

Job Description:

The Operations Finance Director is the enterprise owner of operations finance performance, accountable for consolidated cost, margin, productivity, inventory, and working capital outcomes across the global manufacturing and supply chain network. Reporting directly to the Chief Financial Officer, this role serves as the senior finance leader for Manufacturing Operations, Global Supply Chain, and related operational functions, providing executive level financial leadership, governance, and decision support.

This role functions as the horizontal integrator between plant level execution, business unit P&L ownership, and enterprise financial commitments. The Operations Finance Director sets and governs the operations finance operating model, translating plant and network level drivers into enterprise results while balancing near term execution with long term strategic objectives.

As the functional head of the Plant Controller organization, the Operations Finance Director establishes performance standards, planning rhythms, analytical expectations, and talent strategies across all sites. While Business Unit Finance Directors retain P&L ownership and commercial accountability, this role owns the enterprise frameworks, assumptions, and controls used to manage operations related financial performance and capital allocation.

Primary Duties

Primary duties may include, but are not limited to:

Enterprise Operations Financial Ownership

• Own enterprisewide operations financial outcomes, including manufacturing cost, gross margin drivers, productivity, inventory, capacity utilization, overhead absorption, and working capital.
• Translate plantlevel and supply chain drivers into consolidated enterprise forecasts, sensitivities, and executiveready insights for the CFO and operating leadership.
• Clearly articulate material risks, opportunities, and tradeoffs, and escalate issues requiring executive or Boardlevel attention with recommended actions.

Planning, Forecasting, and Performance Governance

• Own and govern the enterprise operations planning framework, including annual budgets, rolling forecasts, outlooks, and longrange plans across all manufacturing sites and operational functions.
• Establish standard planning assumptions, templates, calendars, and methodologies to ensure consistency, comparability, and decision readiness across the network.
• Approve operationsrelated cost, productivity, and capacity assumptions used in enterprise and businessunit forecasts.

Plant Controller Functional Leadership

• Serve as the functional leader of the Plant Controller organization, accountable for talent decisions, performance expectations, capability development, and succession planning.
• Set minimum standards for plantlevel forecasting accuracy, variance analysis quality, and operational decision support; hold Plant Controllers accountable to those standards.
• Drive consistent best practices in cost accounting, inventory management, labor and overhead control, and operational analytics across sites.

Enterprise Analytics, KPIs, and Decision Support

• Own the enterprise operations KPI framework and performance dashboards, ensuring standard definitions, data integrity, and actionable insights across manufacturing and supply chain.
• Deliver CFOready operations performance reviews highlighting crossplant trends, systemic issues, corrective actions, and value creation opportunities.
• Provide executivelevel financial modeling and scenario analysis to support footprint optimization, make/buy decisions, capacity investments, and network design.

Capital Allocation and Cost Transformation

• Govern operationsrelated capital planning, prioritization, and ROI evaluation across the enterprise.
• Oversee capital project tracking and postinvestment performance reviews, ensuring accountability for value realization.
• Partner with operations leadership to define, track, and deliver enterprise costtransformation and productivity initiatives, maintaining a consolidated value pipeline.

Enterprise Integration and Controls Key

• Ensure strong alignment between operations finance, corporate FP&A, Accounting, and Cost Accounting, including reconciliation between management views, statutory results, and SOXcompliant processes.
• Own financial governance for operations, proactively identifying control gaps, data risks, and process weaknesses and driving timely remediation.
• Support CFOled initiatives including strategic planning, earnings preparation, investorgrade operations analytics, and enterprise standardization efforts.

Key Outputs / Deliverables

• Enterprise Operations Forecast Package (Monthly + rolling updates): Consolidated manufacturing and supply chain outlook including cost, productivity, margin drivers, inventory, capacity utilization, working capital, key assumptions, risks/opportunities, and scenario sensitivities.
• Operations Performance Review Materials (Monthly / QBR): CFO and COOready enterprise performance deck with results vs plan/forecast, crossplant drivers, systemic issues, forward implications, and recommended corrective actions.
• Standardized Operations Financial Outputs for enterprise cadence: Consolidated operations submissions in required formats and timelines, aligned with corporate FP&A and accounting views.
• Enterprise Operations Top Issues & Decision Log (ongoing): Prioritized view of highestimpact operational financial risks/opportunities, decision points, owners, escalation items, and actions.
• Operations Capital & Cost Transformation Materials (as needed): Enterprise capital prioritization cases, ROI and scenario analyses, productivity and costtransformation value pipeline, and postinvestment performance tracking.
• Operations Finance Governance & Capability Roadmap (annual / quarterly): Enterprise standards for planning assumptions, KPIs, analytics, and plant finance performance expectations, including development priorities for the Plant Controller organization.

Job Requirements

Education and Experience Requirements:

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, or a related discipline required. MBA or other advanced degree strongly preferred. CPA, CMA, or equivalent professional certification strongly preferred. This candidate should have 15+ years of progressive experience in operations finance, manufacturing finance, FP&A, or enterprise business partnering roles. Demonstrated experience leading multisite or enterpriselevel operations finance organizations, including direct leadership of other finance leaders (e.g., Plant Controllers). Proven track record of influencing complex operational, financial, and capital allocation decisions at the executive level.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:

• Deep expertise in manufacturing and supply chain financial drivers, including conversion cost, overhead behavior, labor efficiency, material usage, inventory, and working capital.
• Strong ability to connect granular operational detail to enterpriselevel financial outcomes and external commitments.
• Executivelevel communication and presence; ability to challenge, influence, and align senior leaders across functions.
• Demonstrated success building and governing standardized finance frameworks across multiple sites or regions.
• Advanced financial modeling and scenario analysis skills to support strategic tradeoff and capital decisions.
• High comfort operating in complex, matrixed environments with competing priorities and imperfect data.
• Strong systems orientation, including ERP environments (SAP preferred), reporting platforms, and digital analytics tools.

Essential Mental and Physical Functions:

• Frequent use of computer systems for financial analysis, modeling, reporting, and presentation preparation.
• Ability to sit for extended periods and work with detailed information.
• Occasional standing and walking for meetings, presentations, or site visits.
• Ability to manage multiple deadlines while maintaining accuracy under pressure.

Work Environment:

• Work performed primarily in an office environment with regular interaction across business units and functions.
• Periodic travel to manufacturing facilities and operating sites as required.
• Exposure to dust, noise, or temperature variations during site visits; compliance with all applicable safety policies during operational site engagements.

Disclaimer:

Please note this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at a time with or without notice. This job description is not an exhaustive list of all functions that the employee may be required to perform, and the employee may be required to perform additional functions. The company reserves the right to revise this job description at any time. The employee must be able to perform the essential functions of the position satisfactorily. If requested, reasonable accommodations may be made to enable employees with disabilities to perform the essential functions of the job, absent undue hardship.