Senior Manager, Category Finance

Job Description

A growing, private equity-backed consumer products company is seeking a Senior Manager of Category Finance to join its Chicago-based finance team.

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This is not a traditional corporate FP&A role. The Senior Manager will serve as a strategic finance partner to Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Growth Management, helping the business make stronger decisions across pricing, innovation, customer investment, portfolio strategy, and profitable growth.

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The ideal candidate has owned the financial performance of a brand, category, or customer portfolio within a CPG organization and can translate financial and commercial data into clear recommendations and measurable business actions.

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Senior Manager, Category Finance Responsibilities:

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• Own financial planning, forecasting, and performance management across brands, categories, customers, and channels
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• Partner with Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Growth Management on pricing, trade investment, promotions, and margin improvement opportunities
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• Own gross-to-net forecasting and analysis, including trade spend, customer deductions, pricing, promotions, and other commercial investments
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• Analyze category and customer performance across volume, price, mix, distribution, consumption, and profitability
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• Develop customer, category, SKU, and channel-level P&Ls to improve visibility into commercial performance
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• Evaluate innovation and new-product opportunities, including pricing, volume assumptions, costs, investment requirements, and expected returns
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• Lead pre- and post-event analysis of promotions and customer investments to improve effectiveness and ROI
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• Identify opportunities across SKU rationalization, portfolio mix, pricing, cost management, and resource allocation
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• Lead annual planning, rolling forecasts, and risk and opportunity reviews
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• Present financial performance, business drivers, and recommendations during executive and cross-functional business reviews
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• Bring structure to fragmented data and evolving processes by building practical reporting and decision-support tools
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• Operate comfortably between strategy and execution, independently working through ambiguity and delivering timely recommendations to leadership
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• Build scalable financial models, reporting, and processes within a lean, fast-moving organization
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Senior Manager, Category Finance Qualifications:

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• 7+ years of progressive finance experience, including direct experience within CPG, food, beverage, or another branded consumer-products business
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• Direct experience in Category Finance, Brand Finance, Sales Finance, Customer Finance, or Commercial Finance
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• Experience owning or supporting a category, brand, customer, or business-unit P&L
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• Strong understanding of pricing, trade investment, gross-to-net, promotional effectiveness, customer profitability, and revenue growth drivers
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• Experience partnering directly with Sales, Marketing, Revenue Growth Management, and cross-functional leadership
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• Experience evaluating innovation, new-product launches, or SKU-level profitability
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• Demonstrated ability to turn financial analysis into commercial recommendations and measurable business actions
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• Builder mentality with the ability to create structure, improve processes, and operate effectively with imperfect data
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• Advanced financial modeling, forecasting, and Excel capabilities
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• Experience with Power BI, Tableau, or similar reporting tools is preferred
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• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related discipline
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This is a highly visible, hands-on role for someone who wants to help build the commercial finance function, work directly with senior leadership, and influence how a growing consumer business invests, innovates, and expands profitability.

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**The expected base salary range for this position is $139,499-$175,000, plus an annual bonus. Final compensation will be determined based on experience, qualifications, and overall fit for the role.**

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