Finance Director - Fabrication & Manufacturing

Job Summary

The Finance Director - Fabrication & Manufacturing is the senior financial business partner to the Senior Vice President of Manufacturing and is responsible for establishing the financial foundation, operating discipline, and decision-support structure required to operate Loenbro Fabrication & Manufacturing (F&M) as a centralized, stand-alone profit and loss business.

A primary initial responsibility will be to work across Manufacturing, Operations, Corporate Finance, Accounting, Project Controls, Estimating, Supply Chain, and other key stakeholders to carve out the current fabrication and manufacturing cost structure from the broader operating businesses. The Director will establish transparent and repeatable methods for revenue recognition, direct and indirect cost assignment, overhead allocation and absorption, intercompany/interdivision charging, facility economics, project and product profitability, forecasting, and management reporting.

This role extends beyond traditional finance and reporting. The Finance Director will be a strategic partner in executing Loenbro's manufacturing transformation and growth strategy, providing financial analysis for capacity expansion, capital deployment, productization, external-market growth, facility rationalization, strategic partnerships, acquisitions, and other investments. The position will create the KPI framework and financial visibility necessary to understand utilization, margin, cash generation, return on invested capital, and the true economics of Loenbro's manufacturing network.

As Loenbro develops additional centralized or new business lines within Operations, this position is expected to have the potential to expand beyond Fabrication & Manufacturing and provide financial leadership, governance, and business-building support for those emerging operations. The successful candidate will therefore combine strong FP&A and accounting fundamentals with operational finance, commercial judgment, manufacturing and project-costing knowledge, capital allocation discipline, and a builder mentality.

Essential Job Responsibilities

Stand-Alone P&L Development & Financial Structure

• Partner with the SVP of Manufacturing, Corporate Finance, Accounting, Operations, and other stakeholders to establish Fabrication & Manufacturing as a centralized, stand-alone P&L business.
• Lead the financial carve-out and baseline assessment of existing F&M operations, including revenue, direct labor, materials, equipment, facilities, supervision, shared services, and indirect costs.
• Establish consistent methodologies for cost allocation, intercompany/interdivision charges, transfer pricing, overhead recovery, shared-service allocations, and treatment of idle capacity and unabsorbed overhead.
• Develop cost-center, profit-center, project, facility, customer, and product-level structures that provide clear visibility into performance across the manufacturing network.
• Create appropriate financial separation and reporting for internal Loenbro work and external third-party revenue while preserving transparency into enterprise value creation.
• Partner with Accounting to ensure the F&M financial model complies with corporate policies, internal controls, revenue-recognition requirements, and period-close standards.
• Build a scalable financial structure capable of supporting future facilities, products, acquisitions, and new operating business lines.

Financial Planning, Analysis & Forecasting

• Own budgeting, forecasting, long-range planning, and financial analysis for Fabrication & Manufacturing.
• Develop integrated financial models linking backlog, probability-weighted pipeline, shop loading, labor requirements, facility capacity, revenue, margin, overhead absorption, cash flow, and capital needs.
• Implement rolling forecasts and scenario models that allow leadership to anticipate underutilization, capacity constraints, margin risk, and investment requirements.
• Provide timely variance analysis and executive-level insights explaining performance versus budget, forecast, estimate, and strategic plan.
• Develop business cases for new products, customers, markets, facilities, technologies, and manufacturing initiatives.
• Support multi-year strategic planning and quantify the financial implications of Loenbro's transition from project-specific fabrication toward scalable manufacturing.

Cost Transparency & Operational Finance

• Establish a clear understanding of the true cost to operate each fabrication and manufacturing facility and major production capability.
• Develop standardized costing methodologies across mechanical/pipe fabrication, electrical prefab, modular assembly, and future manufactured product lines.
• Provide visibility into labor productivity, burden rates, material performance, equipment costs, freight and logistics, facility costs, rework, scrap, quality costs, and other major cost drivers.
• Partner with Operations and Project Controls to improve project-level cost forecasting, estimate-at-completion accuracy, change management, and margin protection.
• Create estimate-to-actual feedback loops that improve future estimating, pricing, production planning, and execution.
• Identify margin leakage, structural inefficiencies, underutilized assets, and opportunities to improve cost competitiveness across the network.
• Support make-versus-buy, internal-versus-external sourcing, hub-versus-spoke allocation, and capacity decisions using fact-based financial analysis.

KPI Development & Performance Management

• Develop and maintain an integrated F&M scorecard combining financial and operational KPIs that support accountability and timely decision-making.
• Establish measures for revenue, gross margin, EBITDA contribution, backlog, pipeline conversion, facility utilization, labor utilization, shop loading, direct versus indirect labor, productivity, overhead absorption, and unabsorbed overhead.
• Track revenue and margin per direct labor hour, estimate versus actual performance, project margin erosion, material variance, rework/cost of poor quality, working capital, cash conversion, and return on invested capital.
• Develop visibility into internal versus external revenue mix, customer and market concentration, product/program profitability, facility economics, and capital productivity.
• Lead recurring financial and business-performance reviews with F&M leadership and provide concise actions, trends, risks, and opportunities rather than historical reporting alone.
• Ensure KPI definitions and data sources are standardized across facilities so performance can be compared consistently across the enterprise network.

Capital Planning & Investment Analysis

• Lead financial analysis and business-case development for capital expenditures across the F&M network.
• Establish consistent CAPEX evaluation criteria including ROI, payback, NPV, capacity impact, labor savings, margin improvement, strategic value, and execution risk.
• Evaluate investments in facilities, automation, equipment, technology, tooling, material handling, testing capabilities, and manufacturing systems.
• Support facility expansion, consolidation, rationalization, greenfield development, and major capacity decisions.
• Develop post-investment reviews to measure actual performance against the approved business case and improve future capital-allocation decisions.
• Partner with leadership to prioritize capital across competing growth, productivity, maintenance, and strategic requirements.

Strategic Acquisitions, Partnerships & Growth

• Partner with the SVP of Manufacturing, Corporate Development, executive leadership, and ownership in evaluating acquisitions that support the F&M strategy.
• Assess historical financial performance, quality of earnings, backlog, customer concentration, margins, assets, working capital, CAPEX requirements, capacity, and growth potential of acquisition targets.
• Evaluate strategic fit, synergies, geographic expansion, customer access, workforce capability, manufacturing capacity, and integration requirements.
• Develop valuation models, investment cases, return scenarios, sensitivity analyses, and downside cases to support acquisition decisions.
• Support financial due diligence, transaction planning, integration, and post-close performance tracking against the original investment thesis.
• Evaluate strategic partnerships, joint ventures, licensing arrangements, alliances, and other inorganic growth opportunities from a financial and value-creation perspective.

Commercial, Pricing & Productization Support

• Partner with Business Development, Estimating, Operations, and Manufacturing leadership on pricing strategy and commercial decision-making.
• Develop financial frameworks for internal transfer pricing and external market pricing that preserve appropriate manufacturing margins and clearly communicate enterprise economics.
• Evaluate major bids, customer programs, framework agreements, long-term manufacturing commitments, and programmatic opportunities.
• Support productization by developing product-level cost models, target margins, pricing frameworks, investment cases, and volume/breakeven analyses.
• Provide financial analysis supporting growth in mission critical/data centers, power, semiconductor, advanced manufacturing, water/wastewater, energy transition, and other strategic markets.
• Evaluate the economics of standardized mechanical, electrical, skid, modular, and integrated M&E solutions, including the value of field-labor displacement and total-installed-cost improvement.
• Help establish hurdle rates and financial criteria for new products, markets, facilities, customers, and strategic initiatives.

Systems, Data & Financial Governance

• Partner with Operations, IT, Project Controls, Supply Chain, and Corporate Finance to establish the systems and data architecture required to operate a scalable manufacturing business.
• Support development and integration of ERP/MRP, project controls, shop-loading, forecasting, inventory, procurement, and management-reporting capabilities.
• Establish common financial master data, coding structures, definitions, and reporting standards across facilities.
• Drive automation of dashboards, forecasting, management reporting, and recurring financial analysis wherever practical.
• Ensure leadership has timely, reliable, decision-oriented information and clear ownership of source data and financial controls.

Leadership & Business Partnership

• Serve as a trusted financial advisor to the SVP of Manufacturing and the F&M leadership team, translating financial results into clear operational and strategic actions.
• Participate actively in strategic planning, operating reviews, commercial decisions, investment reviews, acquisition assessments, and business-performance discussions.
• Constructively challenge assumptions and ensure major operating, pricing, growth, and investment decisions are supported by disciplined analysis.
• Build financial acumen and ownership throughout the F&M leadership organization so operational leaders understand the financial consequences of their decisions.
• Develop and lead finance, FP&A, project-controls, or analytical resources as the business scales.
• Maintain strong functional alignment with Corporate Finance while providing the speed, transparency, and business-partner orientation required by a growing stand-alone operation.

Future Operations Finance Scope

• Support the establishment of financial frameworks and stand-alone P&Ls for additional centralized or emerging Operations business lines as assigned.
• Apply the F&M financial operating model to new businesses, including cost structure, reporting, KPI governance, forecasting, capital planning, and performance management.
• Support incubation, commercialization, acquisition, and integration of new service lines and operating platforms.
• Help build a scalable Operations finance organization capable of supporting multiple growth businesses while maintaining appropriate corporate governance and controls.

Key Performance Indicators

• Accuracy and timeliness of stand-alone F&M P&L reporting and forecasting.
• Visibility and consistency of facility, project, customer, and product-level profitability.
• Gross margin, EBITDA contribution, cash generation, and working-capital performance.
• Forecast accuracy tied to backlog, pipeline, shop loading, and capacity.
• Facility and labor utilization; overhead absorption and unabsorbed overhead.
• Estimate-to-actual performance and reduction in margin leakage.
• Revenue and margin per direct labor hour and other productivity economics.
• Internal versus external revenue mix and profitable external-market growth.
• CAPEX performance versus approved ROI, payback, and strategic objectives.
• Acquisition and investment performance versus approved business case.
• Quality, consistency, and adoption of F&M financial dashboards and KPI reporting.
• Timeliness and quality of decision support provided to Manufacturing and executive leadership.
• Financial readiness and scalability of new products, facilities, acquisitions, and future Operations business lines.

Key Qualifications