Senior Financial Analyst

Job Description

Provide financial analysis, forecasting, and business supporting the Global Supply Chain leadership team, including regular interaction with VP-level stakeholders. Reporting to the Finance Manager, Operations. This role supports financial planning, forecasting, reporting, and analysis for annual material and freight spend across multiple divisions, with direct impact on margin performance and operational decision-making. The role operates in a dynamic cost environment with significant exposure to commodity and transportation market volatility, requiring both financial rigor and the ability to translate complex cost drivers into executive-ready insights.


Leadership Scope: Individual contributor role with matrixed influence across plant controllers, commodity managers, and logistics leaders
Success in this position requires moving beyond variance reporting to identify root causes, provide actionable insights, and influence decisions related to material costs, freight spending, inventory, and margin performance.

Responsibilities

Business Partnership & Strategic Support

• Serve as a key finance business partner supporting Global Supply Chain leadership through planning, reporting, forecasting, and decision-support activities.
• Partner with sourcing, procurement, and logistics to provide financial analysis and recommendations supporting cost, pricing, carrier selection, and network optimization decisions.
• Monitor commodity market trends and support forecasting, budgeting, and financial analysis related to steel, aluminum, fuel, and other key cost drivers.

Financial Planning, Reporting & Analysis

• Develop detailed analyses of PPV, material usage variances, freight spending, scrap, inventory performance, and commodity impacts to identify risks and opportunities.
• Lead monthly accounting, accruals, and financial analysis for direct material purchases and freight spend.
• Prepare and manage annual budgets and forecasts for material commodities (steel, aluminum, resins, etc.) and multimodal transportation costs (truckload, LTL, intermodal, ocean, parcel).
• Provide management with clear material and freight economic reporting, including comparisons to prior periods, standards, and annual budgets.

Cost Management & Productivity

• Evaluate and quantify cost productivity initiatives through PPV analysis, trend identification, forecasting, and financial modeling.
• Coordinate and support the annual material standard cost setting process in collaboration with commodity managers, plant controllers, and finance leadership.
• Coordinate with third-party freight audit and pay providers to ensure accurate and timely freight accruals and recovery of billing errors.

Systems, Controls & Governance

• Ensure accurate financial reporting and support internal and external audit requests.
• Leverage Oracle ERP and Hyperion Essbase to enhance reporting transparency, forecast accuracy, and decision-making speed.

Support additional projects and ad hoc analyses as required.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting or Finance, or related field.
• 5+ years of experience in manufacturing finance, cost accounting, supply chain finance, FP&A, or related analytical roles.
• Direct experience with standard cost accounting, material cost analysis, and purchase price variance (PPV).
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills and strong analytical capabilities (complex modeling, large data sets, variance analytics).
• Proven ability to influence senior cross-functional stakeholders with data-backed recommendations.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.

Preferred

• MBA, CPA, or CMA.
• Direct exposure to direct materials procurement and/or multimodal transportation cost structures.
• Experience with Oracle ERP and Hyperion Essbase (or equivalent EPM/consolidation tools).
• Multi-site or multi-divisional manufacturing finance experience.
• Familiarity with commodity indices, hedging concepts, and freight rate benchmarking.

Behavioral Competencies

• Comfort challenging senior operations and supply chain leaders with data-driven perspectives.
• Ability to translate complex cost drivers into concise, executive-ready narratives.
• Bias for action, ownership mindset, and continuous improvement orientation.

Work Conditions

• Primarily office-based with on-site work arrangement.
• Standard business hours, with occasional overtime during month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close cycles.
• Travel: up to 20%, primarily domestic to manufacturing plants, distribution centers, and supplier locations.