Full Job Description
Position summary
The Finance Manager, FP&A is the dedicated finance partner to Zep's Professional business. The role owns the Professional budget, rolling forecasts and monthly performance reporting, and turns results into clear, actionable insight for the Finance leadership and Professional leadership.
This is a hands-on individual contributor role. You will build the models, run the analysis and present the story behind the numbers. The right person is equally comfortable in a detailed Excel model and in a conversation with a commercial or operations leader.
Key responsibilities
Planning and forecasting
• Lead the Professional annual budget: build the templates and model, coordinate inputs from Professional commercial and operations leaders, and roll it into the company consolidation
• Own the Professional rolling forecast for revenue, gross profit, operating expenses and EBITDA
• Maintain driver-based models linking volume, price, mix and cost assumptions to financial outcomes
• Support the long-range plan and scenario analysis for strategic initiatives
Performance reporting and analysis
• Prepare monthly management reporting packages, including actual vs. budget vs. forecast variance analysis
• Ownership of the P&L
• Explain the drivers behind Professional results, especially gross margin by customer, channel and product line, plus SG&A and working capital trends
• Build and maintain KPI dashboards for leadership and business partners
• Contribute to board and executive presentation materials
Business partnering
• Serve as the go-to finance partner for the Professional leadership team across sales, operations and supply chain, helping leaders manage to budget
• Evaluate Professional business cases, key account deals, capital requests and pricing or cost-saving initiatives with ROI and payback analysis
• Respond to ad hoc analytical requests from the VP of Finance and executive team
• Work directly with Pricing & Master Data teams to develop optimal pricing and profit realization
Process and systems
• Improve FP&A processes, templates and timelines to shorten cycle times and reduce manual work
• Partner with Accounting on accruals, allocations and close timing so reporting stays accurate and consistent
• Help define and maintain data sources and reporting tools used for planning
Qualifications
Required
• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics or a related field
• 5+ years of progressive experience in FP&A, corporate finance or business unit finance
• Hands-on ownership of budgeting and forecasting cycles, including building models from scratch
• Advanced Excel skills (complex formulas, lookups, pivot tables, scenario modeling)
• Experience with an ERP (e.g., SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards) and a planning or BI tool (e.g., Adaptive, Anaplan, Power BI, Tableau)
• Strong grasp of P&L, balance sheet and cash flow relationships
Preferred
• Experience supporting a Industrial, CPG, specialty chemicals or other manufacturing business
• Background in gross margin analysis: price/volume/mix, standard costing and manufacturing variances
• Exposure to key account or channel profitability analysis
• MBA, CPA or CFA (or progress toward one)
• Experience at a private equity-backed company
Skills and competencies
• Analytical rigor: builds accurate, auditable models and spots the story in the data quickly
• Business acumen: understands how Professional customers, pricing, raw material costs and plant performance flow through the P&L
• Communication: explains complex results simply, in writing and in front of senior leaders
• Influence without authority: challenges assumptions and drives accountability with business partners
• Ownership: manages multiple deadlines through budget and close cycles with minimal supervision
• Continuous improvement: looks for ways to automate, simplify and speed up reporting
What success looks like in the first year
• Professional budget and forecasts delivered on time, with forecast accuracy leadership trusts
• Monthly Professional reporting package that explains margin and cost drivers clearly, not just the variances
• Professional leaders using finance as a regular input to pricing, customer and cost decisions
• At least one FP&A process meaningfully automated or streamlined