Regional Business Controller

Job Title: Regional Business Controller (FP&A)
Reports to: Regional Finance Officer, KSB North America
Location: Richmond, VA

OVERVIEW:

The Regional Business Controller (FP&A) is a senior Finance business partner responsible for FP&A, business-performance management, management accounting, profitability, and decision support across North America. Reporting directly to the Regional CFO North America, the role partners with the Regional President, Managing Directors, and management teams to turn financial and operational information into forward-looking insight, challenge assumptions, identify risks and opportunities, and drive measurable performance improvement.

The role complements the Regional Financial Controller: that role focuses on financial integrity, reporting governance, accounting coordination, tax, audit, and controls; the Regional Business Controller (FP&A) focuses on planning, business performance, management accounting, profitability, operational Finance, and value creation.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead the business-performance side of the North America forecast, budget, and long-range planning processes and develop realistic, transparent, and actionable outlooks.

• Challenge commercial, operational, and financial assumptions; identify risks, opportunities, sensitivities, and trends; and translate them into scenarios and management actions.

• Analyze actual performance versus budget, forecast, prior year, and strategic expectations, including key drivers, cash-flow implications, and impact on the outlook.

• Partner with the Regional Financial Controller on planning and reporting cycles: the Financial Controller coordinates process, consolidation, deadlines, quality, and Group submission requirements; the Business Controller owns business challenge, assumptions, interpretation, and performance follow-up.

Business Performance and Management Partnership

• Act as a key Finance business partner to the Regional CFO, Regional President, Managing Directors, and management teams across North America.

• Provide clear answers to the core management questions: what is happening, why it is happening, what is likely to happen next, and what management should do.

• Identify underperformance, performance gaps, and value-creation opportunities; work with management to define corrective actions, measurable targets, responsibilities, and timelines. Business management remains accountable for execution, while the Business Controller challenges and tracks progress and financial impact.

• Support business plans, investment cases, restructuring and footprint proposals, pricing, capacity, make-or-buy, working-capital, cash-flow, and other strategic initiatives with fact-based financial and sensitivity analysis.

• Partner with Operations, Sales, Service, Product Management, Engineering, Supply Chain, and Finance as appropriate to connect financial performance with operational and commercial drivers.

Management Accounting, Profitability and Operational Finance

• Strengthen management accounting maturity across the Region where it improves business transparency and decision-making.

• Analyze and improve cost-center structures, cost allocations, labor and machine rates, overhead absorption, standard costs, and related management-accounting concepts in cooperation with local Finance teams.

• Develop and challenge product, project, customer, market, and service profitability analyses, including contribution-margin and mix effects.

• Analyze manufacturing and operational performance, including productivity, utilization, inventory, absorption, variances, and other relevant cost and performance drivers.

• Promote consistent definitions and comparable performance measures while recognizing differences in business models, ERP systems, and local operating environments.

Regional Performance Reporting, Analytics and Process Improvement

• Develop and continuously improve regional management reporting, KPIs, dashboards, analytical tools, and decision-support processes, ensuring reporting is concise, relevant, forward-looking, and focused on material business drivers.

• Prepare recurring and ad hoc analyses for regional performance reviews and management decisions, including bridges, trends, scenarios, sensitivities, and root-cause analysis.

• Work hands-on with Excel, ERP data, reporting systems, BI tools, and other available data sources to build and improve analyses and management information.

• Where appropriate, collaborate with available Finance analytics, digital, and IT resources to improve data extraction, automation, visualization, reporting efficiency, and data quality while retaining ownership of financial interpretation and business application.

• Identify opportunities to simplify and standardize recurring FP&A and business-controlling processes and support ERP, planning, reporting, and Finance-system improvements from a business-performance perspective.

Regional Finance Collaboration

• Work closely with local controllers and Finance teams across North America while respecting legal-entity responsibilities and formal local reporting lines.

• Translate KSB Group controlling and management-accounting principles into practical, decision-useful regional solutions, balancing consistency with different business models, ERP environments, and local requirements.

• Share methods, benchmarks, and good practices across companies and help raise the quality and consistency of business controlling and FP&A throughout the Region.

• Coordinate with the Regional Financial Controller on topics that cross business performance, financial reporting, accounting governance, or regional Finance processes.

• Support special regional Finance and business-performance projects as assigned by the Regional CFO.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Education & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Economics, or a related field required; Master's degree or recognized professional Finance/accounting qualification preferred.

• Minimum eight years of progressive experience in FP&A, business controlling, management accounting, operational Finance, commercial Finance, or related areas; international industrial or manufacturing experience strongly preferred.

• Demonstrated experience partnering with senior business leaders, challenging assumptions, diagnosing performance issues, and converting financial analysis into management action.

• Strong experience with forecasting, budgeting, scenario analysis, management reporting, profitability analysis, cash flow, and manufacturing or operational Finance.

• Experience working across multiple legal entities or business units in a matrixed organization is strongly preferred.

Technical & Professional Skills

• Strong analytical and financial-modeling capability with a practical understanding of business drivers and value creation.

• Strong knowledge of management accounting, cost accounting, contribution-margin concepts, operational performance measurement, and financial planning.

• Advanced Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint skills; hands-on experience with ERP, BI, planning, and reporting systems. SAP and Power BI experience are beneficial.

• Ability to work effectively with imperfect or heterogeneous ERP and data environments and develop practical analyses and reporting solutions.

• Ability to influence and constructively challenge senior leaders without direct authority while building trust across different companies, functions, and cultures.

• Strong communication and presentation skills with the ability to convert complex financial analysis into concise conclusions and recommended actions.

• High degree of initiative, curiosity, commercial judgment, accountability, and ability to independently manage multiple priorities.

Salary Range: $130,000 - $190,000