Transportation Finance Manager

This is where your work makes a difference.At Baxter, we believe every person—regardless of who they are or where they are from—deserves a chance to live a healthy life. It was our founding belief in 1931 and continues to be our guiding principle. We are redefining healthcare delivery to make a greater impact today, tomorrow, and beyond.Our Baxter colleagues are united by our Mission to Save and Sustain Lives. Together, our community is driven by a culture of courage, trust, and collaboration. Every individual is empowered to take ownership and make a meaningful impact. We strive for efficient and effective operations, and we hold each other accountable for delivering exceptional results.Here, you will find more than just a job—you will find purpose and pride. Your role at Baxter The Transportation Performance Manager plays a critical role in enabling Baxter’s healthcare supply chain by providing end-to-end financial visibility, analytical insight, and disciplined cost management across a $300M+ transportation portfolio. This role serves as the primary link between fulfillment operations, freight payment, and finance—translating complex operational, commercial, and macroeconomic inputs into clear financial insight, risk identification, and actionable opportunities. Partnering closely with fulfillment and finance leadership, the Transportation Performance Manager helps ensure continuity of supply while driving sound, data-driven decisions that balance service, cost, and risk. Success in this role requires strong transportation domain knowledge, advanced financial and analytical capability, and the ability to operate effectively in complex and sometimes ambiguous environments. The individual must be able to synthesize large datasets into meaningful narratives and confidently communicate insights to senior leadership. What you'll be doing Transportation Performance Management Provide clear, accurate visibility into $300M+ of transportation spend across modes, regions, and programs. Track, forecast, and report freight costs while ensuring strong alignment between operational activity and financial outcomes. Analyze key freight cost drivers, including rates, accessorials, volume shifts, mode changes, service failures, fuel impacts, and network changes. Partner with fulfillment leadership to understand operational decisions and their financial implications, while identifying opportunities for efficiency and cost improvement. Support the development, validation, and tracking of transportation cost-saving initiatives to ensure benefits are clearly defined and realized. Serve as a liaison with finance to ensure transportation performance is clearly reflected in the P&L, including gap analysis and corrective actions as needed. ​Freight Pay, Accruals & Financial Controls Own and manage freight accrual data from systems such as Trax / D2L, leveraging analytical models and dashboards. Oversee freight pay and accrual processes, including month-end close support, variance analysis, and true-up activities. Audit freight invoices to ensure accuracy, adherence to contracted rates, and timely resolution of discrepancies. Collaborate with finance to strengthen controls that ensure financial accuracy, audit readiness, and compliance with internal policies. Identify and address root causes of accrual inaccuracies, including late invoices, duplicate payments, and other cost leakage risks. Analytics & Decision Support Develop analytical models and tools to support freight spend analysis, forecasting, and scenario modeling. Translate complex and incomplete datasets into actionable insights for fulfillment and finance leadership. Produce recurring and ad hoc reporting with clear narratives explaining trends, risks, and mitigation actions. Support business cases for network, sourcing, or operational changes by quantifying cost, service, and risk trade-offs. Cross-Functional Partnership & Continuous Improvement Act as a key connector across fulfillment, finance, planning, commercial, and customer service teams. Influence stakeholders to adopt financially sound operational decisions, balancing cost and service in line with Baxter’s fulfillment strategy. Drive continuous improvement initiatives related to freight spend transparency, process efficiency, and data quality. Create and document standard processes, assumptions, and financial playbooks for transportation management. What you'll bring Bachelor’s degree in finance, business, supply chain, analytics, or a related field. 7+ years of experience in transportation, supply chain finance, logistics analytics, or freight audit and payment. Advanced Excel skills; Tableau or Power BI experience preferred. Strong executive communication, analytical, and cross-functional leadership skills. We understand compensation is an important factor as you consider the next step in your career. At Baxter, we are committed to equitable pay for all employees, and we strive to be more transparent with our pay practices. The estimated base salary for this position is $96,000-$132,000 annually. The estimated range is meant to reflect an anticipated salary range for the position. We may pay more or less than of the anticipated range based upon market data and other factors, all of which are subject to change. Individual pay is based on upon location, skills and expertise, experience, and other relevant factors. This position may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses. For questions about this, our pay philosophy, and available benefits, please speak to the recruiter if you decide to apply and are selected for an interview. Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa at this time.US Benefits at Baxter (except for Puerto Rico)This is where your well-being matters. Baxter offers comprehensive compensation and benefits packages for eligible roles. Our health and well-being benefits include medical and dental coverage that start on day one, as well as insurance coverage for basic life, accident, short-term and long-term disability, and business travel accident insurance. Financial and retirement benefits include the Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP), with the ability to purchase company stock at a discount, and the 401(k) Retirement Savings Plan (RSP), with options for employee contributions and company matching. We also offer Flexible Spending Accounts, educational assistance programs, and time-off benefits such as paid holidays, paid time off ranging from 20 to 35 days based on length of service, family and medical leaves of absence, and paid parental leave. Additional benefits include commuting benefits, the Employee Discount Program, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP), and childcare benefits. Join us and enjoy the competitive compensation and benefits we offer to our employees. For additional information regarding Baxter US Benefits, please speak with your recruiter or visit our Benefits site: Benefits | BaxterEqual Employment OpportunityBaxter is an equal opportunity employer. Baxter evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, protected veteran status, disability/handicap status or any other legally protected characteristic.Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is IllegalReasonable AccommodationsBaxter is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities globally. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or interview process, please click on the link here and let us know the nature of your request along with your contact information.Recruitment Fraud NoticeBaxter has discovered incidents of employment scams, where fraudulent parties pose as Baxter employees, recruiters, or other agents, and engage with online job seekers in an attempt to steal personal and/or financial information. To learn how you can protect yourself, review our Recruitment Fraud Notice.SummaryLocation: Deerfield, IllinoisType: Full time