Operations Finance Director

Operations Finance Director

System One is partnering with a client seeking an Operations Finance Director who will be 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.

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

• Own and govern the enterprise operations planning framework, including annual budgets, rolling forecasts, outlooks, and long range 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 operations related cost, productivity, and capacity assumptions used in enterprise and business unit forecasts.

• 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 plant level 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.

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

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

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

• 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 COO ready enterprise performance deck with results vs plan/forecast, cross plant 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 highest impact 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 cost transformation value pipeline, and post investment 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.

• 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.
• 15+ years of progressive experience in operations finance, manufacturing finance, FP&A, or enterprise business partnering roles.
• Demonstrated experience leading multi site or enterprise level 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.

• 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 enterprise level financial outcomes and external commitments.
• Executive level 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 trade off 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.