Vice President, Finance

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

Commercial Finance and Sales Support

• Serve as the primary finance partner to Sales and commercial leadership.

• Support pricing, customer negotiations, contract economics, bids, promotions, and other commercial decisions.

• Own the customer and product profitability framework, ensuring consistent allocation of revenue, discounts, rebates, cost of goods sold, freight, service costs, and other direct and indirect costs.

• Deliver recurring customer- and product-level profitability reporting, identify margin leakage and improvement opportunities, and partner with Sales, Procurement, and Operations on corrective actions.

• Incorporate profitability and cost-to-serve analysis into pricing, portfolio management, customer negotiations, product rationalization, and resource-allocation decisions.

• Evaluate revenue growth opportunities using volume, price, mix, margin, and return considerations.

• Establish financial guardrails for pricing, discounting, rebates, commissions, and commercial terms.

• Lead revenue, gross-margin, and sales forecasting in partnership with commercial teams.

• Monitor commercial performance, identify variances and emerging risks, and recommend corrective actions.

• Improve pipeline visibility and connect sales activity to revenue, capacity, cash flow, and earnings forecasts.

• Support sales incentive design and measurement to ensure alignment with profitable growth objectives.

• Provide financial analysis for new products, customers, markets, and strategic partnerships.

Procurement and Supply Chain Finance

• Partner with Procurement to develop sourcing strategies, supplier economics, and cost-reduction initiatives.

• Evaluate supplier proposals, contract terms, total cost of ownership, and make-versus-buy decisions.

• Establish transparent measurement of purchase-price variance, material inflation, freight, duties, rebates, and realized savings.

• Support supplier negotiations through fact-based financial analysis and scenario modeling.

• Assess supplier concentration, commodity exposure, lead-time risk, and other financial or operational vulnerabilities.

• Ensure procurement savings are validated, tracked, and reflected in financial forecasts and results.

• Partner with Procurement and Operations to optimize inventory levels, payment terms, and working capital.

Operations Finance

• Function as a trusted finance partner to Operations leadership, with regular engagement at operating locations.

• Develop and maintain operational performance reporting, including productivity, labor, utilization, throughput, downtime, quality, and cost-to-serve.

• Improve visibility into unit economics, standard costs, overhead absorption, and operational variances.

• Partner with operational leaders to identify the root causes of performance gaps and translate findings into measurable action plans.

• Lead the financial evaluation and post-investment review of capital expenditures, automation, capacity expansion, and process-improvement initiatives.

• Support capacity planning, footprint decisions, and network optimization.

• Strengthen inventory management, including forecasting, reserves, obsolescence, cycle-count performance, and inventory turns.

• Promote consistent operational and financial metrics across sites, functions, and business units.

Planning, Analysis, and Performance Management

• Lead annual budgeting, periodic forecasting, and long-range planning for Sales, Procurement, and Operations.

• Integrate commercial demand, procurement assumptions, operating capacity, labor requirements, capital needs, and cash-flow implications into company forecasts.

• Develop driver-based financial models and scenario analyses to support timely decisions.

• Create clear management reporting that connects financial results with underlying commercial and operational drivers.

• Establish KPIs, targets, and accountability mechanisms across supported functions.

• Provide concise, decision-oriented reporting to executive leadership and the Board, as required.

• Identify risks and opportunities early and ensure they are reflected in forecasts and operating plans.

• Improve the speed, accuracy, and usefulness of financial data through stronger processes, systems, and analytical tools.

Leadership and Cross-Functional Partnership

• Build and lead a high-performing finance team with strong business-partnering and analytical capabilities.

• Develop finance talent through coaching, clear expectations, and exposure to commercial and operational decision-making.

• Create strong working relationships with Sales, Procurement, Operations, Accounting, and other functional leaders.

• Bring appropriate financial discipline to decisions while remaining practical, responsive, and solutions-oriented.

• Champion a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and fact-based decision-making.

• Support enterprise initiatives, acquisitions, integrations, and other strategic projects as needed.

• Partner with Accounting to ensure operational and commercial activity is accurately reflected in financial results and internal controls.

Qualifications and Educational Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, or a related field; MBA, CPA, CMA, or equivalent qualification preferred.

• Typically, 12 or more years of progressive finance experience, including significant leadership responsibility.

• Demonstrated experience supporting Sales, Procurement, Supply Chain, and Operations in a complex operating environment.

• Strong background in financial planning and analysis, pricing, customer and product profitability, cost accounting, operational finance, and working-capital management.

• Experience in manufacturing, distribution, logistics, business services, or another operationally intensive industry preferred. Food experience a plus.

• Proven ability to evaluate commercial contracts, sourcing decisions, capital investments, and operational improvement opportunities.

• Strong financial modeling, data analysis, forecasting, and performance-reporting capabilities.

• Experience improving finance processes, systems, reporting tools, and data quality.

• Track record of building teams and influencing senior leaders without relying solely on formal authority.