Job Overview

BASIC SUMMARY:

The Head of Planning and Forecasting will own full P&L forecasting responsibilities within the FP&A CoE. This individual will be required to translate sales, volume, price, mix, and customer trends into clear financial outlooks and risks / opportunities. Drive visibility into cost performance and spend trends to support proactive management and accountability. Enable standardized, scalable forecasting processes across functions through common assumptions, templates, and governance. Partner with Commercial and BU finance teams to improve forecast accuracy, consistency, and decision-readiness.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Duty

% of Time Spent (no less than 10%)

Develop and maintain revenue and expense Plan and forecast inputs, including volume, price, mix, customer, and pipeline assumptions and expense categories, headcount, vendor spend, and functional investments

30%

Partner with Commercial BPs and BU Finance to collect, challenge, and align revenue drivers across forecast cycles and function leaders and BU Finance to gather, challenge, and align cost assumptions across forecast cycles

20%

Analyze revenue and cost performance versus budget, forecast, and prior periods, identifying key drivers, risks, and opportunities as well as cost actions, investment choices, productivity initiatives, and functional priorities

15%

Support scenario modeling for growth, pricing, customer demand, and commercial initiatives

15%

Prepare clear revenue and cost narratives and inputs for forecast reviews, management reporting, and leadership discussions

10%

Support adoption of AI-enabled business revenue and expense forecasting, predictive analytics, and planning automation

10%

PRIMARY COLLABORATORS:

Stakeholder

Reason for interaction

VP FP&A

Direct Supervisor

Commercial Leadership

Key input data to Planning and Forecasting

Commercial Business Partners

Strategic pathways and resulting modeling

BU Finance Leadership

Key partners to forecasts

Job Qualifications

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS:

• Education: Bachelor's degree (BA/BS) or equivalent in Finance or related discipline
• Experience: 10 years in business finance or FP&A organization
• Certification/Licensure:
• Other: Global public company experience

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Strong commercial and FP&A acumen with understanding of revenue, expense and margin drivers
• Ability to translate business drivers into credible financial Plans, forecasts and actionable insights
• Analytical mindset with strong attention to forecast accuracy, assumptions, and data quality
• Strong collaboration skills across Commercial, BU Finance, and central FP&A teams
• Data and systems fluency, including planning tools, reporting platforms, and spreadsheet modeling

WORKPLACE REQUIREMENTS:

• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk, hear and type at a computer.

Compensation Data

The hiring range for this position in the US is $170,000/yr - $210,000/yr. Please note that salaries vary within the range based on factors including, but not limited to, experience, skills, education, certifications, location and any collective agreements, if applicable. Remote candidates located outside the US should be aware that the relevant pay range varies based on country and location.

About Corporate Functions
The Corporate Functions provide operational support across Charles River in areas such as Human Resources, Finance, IT, Legal, Sales, Quality Assurance, Marketing, and Corporate Development. They partner with their colleagues across the company to develop and drive strategies and to set global standards. The functions are essential to providing a bridge between strategic vision and operational readiness, to ensure ongoing functional innovation and capability improvement.

About Charles River
Charles River is an early-stage contract research organization (CRO). We have built upon our foundation of laboratory animal medicine and science to develop a diverse portfolio of discovery and safety assessment services, both Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) and non-GLP, to support clients from target identification through preclinical development. Charles River also provides a suite of products and services to support our clients' clinical laboratory testing needs and manufacturing activities. Utilizing this broad portfolio of products and services enables our clients to create a more flexible drug development model, which reduces their costs, enhances their productivity and effectiveness to increase speed to market.

With over 20,000 employees within 110 facilities in over 20 countries around the globe, we are strategically positioned to coordinate worldwide resources and apply multidisciplinary perspectives in resolving our client's unique challenges. Our client base includes global pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, government agencies and hospitals and academic institutions around the world.

At Charles River, we are passionate about our role in improving the quality of people's lives. Our mission, our excellent science and our strong sense of purpose guide us in all that we do, and we approach each day with the knowledge that our work helps to improve the health and well-being of many across the globe. We have proudly worked on 80% of the drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the past five years.

We're committed to providing benefits that elevate your quality of life. Based on your position these may include: bonus/incentives based on performance, 401K, paid time off, stock purchase program, Health and wellness coverage, employee and family wellbeing support programs, and work life balance flexibility.