Director of FP&A & Strategic Finance (REQ915)

Director of FP&A & Strategic Finance

Maryland Heights, MO

Position Summary:

The Director of FP&A & Strategic Finance is a high-impact leader and trusted partner to the Chief Financial Officer, executive team and operating leaders. The position owns the enterprise planning and performance-management rhythm while elevating Finance from a reporting function to a proactive value-creation partner. This leader will connect commercial, operational and financial data; frame the critical trade-offs; and translate insight into measurable actions that improve contribution margin, EBITDA, cash flow, working capital and asset utilization. This role will also help shape Spartech's next chapter of operational and commercial growth by providing the financial insight, scenario rigor and investment discipline needed to scale capabilities, expand attractive markets and convert strategic opportunities into sustainable enterprise value.

The successful candidate will be equally comfortable building a rigorous model, challenging assumptions with senior leaders, improving a recurring process, and coaching a team. The role requires manufacturing fluency, executive presence, strong systems and analytics capability, and a bias for practical action.

THE MANDATE: Create one trusted performance view, strengthen forecasting and SIOP, make strategic choices decision-ready, and reinvest time saved through automation into further margin improvement and business partnering.

Requirements

Key Responsibilities
Enterprise Planning, Forecasting & Performance Management

• Lead the annual budget, long-range planning, rolling forecast and monthly outlook processes, including clear calendars, ownership, assumptions, scenario ranges and executive-level outputs.
• Own consolidated P&L forecasting and performance reporting, with disciplined analysis of revenue, volume, mix, contribution margin, operating expenses, EBITDA, cash flow and working capital.
• Drive high-quality variance and root-cause analysis that goes beyond surface-level P&L and balance-sheet impacts to uncover hidden-factory and companywide costs, working-capital requirements and the full cash-to-serve economics of customer, product and service decisions; quantify the financial impact, identify leading indicators and establish accountable corrective actions.
• Establish and maintain enterprise KPIs, scorecards and bridges that connect operational drivers to financial outcomes and track progress against commitments.

SIOP, Commercial Finance & Business Partnership

• Provide financial leadership to the SIOP process, ensuring demand, production, inventory and financial views reconcile to a credible, actionable enterprise plan.
• Partner with Sales & Marketing and R&D on customer volume and margin forecasts, pipeline conversion, wins and losses, pricing, refinement of product and customer profitability costing, and commercial resource allocation.
• In collaboration with Product Management, Commercial, Technology and other functions, serve as a thought and validation leader in quantifying and communicating the differentiated value proposition of Spartech products and services in the marketplace, supporting value-based pricing and decision-making beyond a cost-plus approach.
• Partner with Operations, Supply Chain and Manufacturing Finance to connect forecast changes to production, inventory positioning, uptime, yield, scrap, material usage, capacity and asset-utilization decisions.
• Frame and quantify trade-offs involving service, delivery, quality, expedite cost, inventory, contribution margin and cash flow so leaders can act quickly and transparently.

Strategic Finance & Enterprise Value Creation

• Lead financial modeling, scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis for growth initiatives, turnaround plans, footprint and portfolio decisions, productivity programs, restructuring actions and other enterprise priorities. Partner with other groups and functions as appropriate regarding underlying inputs, assumptions, underlying
• Develop fact-based paths to break-even and sustainable profitability for underperforming products, facilities or business areas, and monitor execution against the approved plan.
• Assess capital expenditures and new product development opportunities through standardized business cases, ROI, cash payback, risk analysis and post-investment performance reviews.
• Support mergers, acquisitions and divestitures as applicable, including valuation, financial due diligence, synergy assessment, integration planning and performance tracking.
• Partner with the CFO and leadership team on ad hoc analyses, board and shareholder questions, financing-related materials and other high-priority strategic projects.

Reporting, Analytics & Technology Enablement

• Own and continuously improve executive, board, lender and management reporting packages, ensuring consistent definitions, clear visual communication, concise commentary and decision-focused insights.
• Build a modern, scalable analytics foundation and trusted source of financial and operating data across ERP, profitability, commercial and operational data sets, working in direct partnership with Operational Analytics Leader to improve data fidelity, analytical depth and product-level visibility into net-cash-to-EBITDA conversion.
• Lead development and adoption of standardized dashboards and reporting tools, including executive P&L, daily sales, profitability, SIOP, plant KPIs and controllable-spend reporting.
• Automate recurring reporting and analysis, strengthen controls and data governance, reduce manual reconciliation and enable appropriate self-service analytics.
• Develop strong working knowledge of SAP / ERP and related data flows, including product costing, COPA and the connection from transactional data to profitability and management reporting.

Leadership, Talent & Cross-Functional Influence

• Lead, develop and retain a high-performing FP&A team with clear accountabilities, development plans, cross-training and succession coverage for critical capabilities.
• Create a culture of intellectual curiosity, ownership, constructive challenge, speed, accuracy and continuous improvement.
• Build trusted partnerships across Commercial, Operations, Supply Chain, Accounting, IT, Human Resources and other functions, influencing outcomes without relying on formal authority.
• Communicate complex analyses in a concise, practical manner tailored to executives, finance professionals and non-financial leaders.
• Promote financial and data literacy through coaching, knowledge sharing and practical training in analytics, modeling and decision support.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance or Accounting, Economics or a related field.
• 10-15 years of total Finance or Accounting experience with at least 7-10 years of progressive FP&A, strategic finance, business finance or related experience, including meaningful leadership experience.
• Experience in a multi-site manufacturing, industrial or similarly complex operating environment.
• Demonstrated ownership of budgeting, forecasting, consolidated performance reporting, financial modeling and analytics-based decision support.
• Advanced Excel and financial-modeling capability, with experience working in large-scale ERP and business-intelligence environments.
• Strong knowledge of financial statements, management reporting, cash flow, working capital and core accounting concepts.
• Proven ability to influence senior leaders, challenge assumptions constructively and convert analysis into action.
• Clear, concise written and verbal communication skills, with the executive presence to present to leadership and governance stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• MBA, CPA, CMA or other relevant advanced degree or certification.
• Experience with SAP, COPA, Power BI, data lakes or comparable analytics and profitability platforms.
• Private equity-backed company experience, including board, lender or sponsor reporting, is a strong plus but is not required.
• Experience supporting SIOP, capital allocation, product and customer profitability, turnaround initiatives,

Leadership Profile

• Enterprise thinker - Connects commercial, operational and financial drivers and optimizes for total-company value.
• Hands-on strategist - Moves comfortably between executive-level framing and detailed model, data and process work.
• Talent multiplier - Develops people, raises standards, shares knowledge and reduces key-person dependency.
• Builder and improver - Creates scalable processes and tools while maintaining continuity and meeting deadlines.
• Constructive challenger - Tests assumptions, raises risks early and proposes practical alternatives.
• Action-oriented partner - Builds trust, clarifies decisions and follows through until benefits are realized.

Measures of Success

• Leadership uses Finance models, scenarios and reporting as primary decision inputs.
• Forecasts and SIOP outputs are credible, reconciled and drive production, inventory, volume, mix and working-capital actions.
• Variance reviews consistently identify root causes / "5 Whys," accountable actions and measurable financial impact.
• Strategic, capital and new-product decisions are supported by standardized, decision-ready business cases and post-decision tracking.
• Recurring reports are increasingly automated, data trust improves and analyst capacity shifts toward value-added business support.
• Data fidelity and analytical depth improve materially, including reliable product-level visibility into EBITDA-to-net-cash conversion and the full cash economics of serving customers.
• The team has clear development plans, strong coverage of critical capabilities and reduced single points of failure.

Work Environment & Expectations

This role operates in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment and requires regular collaboration across functions and locations. The position is expected to be hands-on, responsive to urgent business needs. This is primarily a remote opportunity with requirements to travel periodically to Spartech facilities and business meetings.

This description summarizes the primary responsibilities and qualifications of the position. It is not intended to be an exhaustive list, and responsibilities may evolve based on business needs.

Benefits

We offer competitive salary, incentives, and benefit programs. - Most Benefits Start Day ONE!

Benefits include:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision.
• Flexible Spending Accounts.
• Company paid Life & Long-term/Short-term disability programs.
• 401(k) with strong company match.
• 120 hours Paid Time Off (pro-rated based on hire date).
• 11 paid holidays.