Position Summary

The Financial Controller will be responsible for the financial integrity, reporting, control environment and financial performance management of a large and complex protein/meat manufacturing business.

This is a senior finance leadership position with responsibility for the company's month-end close, financial reporting, management accounting, cost accounting, inventory, working capital, budgeting, forecasting, internal controls, audit and financial systems.

The successful candidate will have significant experience in a large-scale manufacturing, food, protein, meat, agriculture or consumer-products environment, with a strong understanding of the financial dynamics of a vertically integrated or processing-intensive business.

The role requires a commercially minded Controller who can go beyond producing accurate financial statements and provide management with a clear understanding of where the business is making or losing money and why.

Particular emphasis will be placed on:

• Manufacturing cost accounting
• Inventory valuation
• Raw-material and commodity costs
• Yield and production variances
• Labor and overhead absorption
• Plant performance
• Working capital
• Capital expenditure
• Financial controls
• Management reporting
• Forecasting and business partnering

The Financial Controller will be a key member of the senior finance leadership team and a critical business partner to Operations, Procurement, Sales, Supply Chain and Executive Management.

Key Responsibilities

1. Financial Control & Reporting

• Own the integrity and accuracy of the company's financial records.
• Lead the monthly, quarterly and annual financial close process.
• Ensure financial statements are accurate, timely and complete.
• Establish robust accounting policies and procedures.
• Review balance-sheet reconciliations.
• Ensure appropriate accruals and provisions are recorded.
• Manage accounting judgments and estimates.
• Ensure appropriate revenue, expense and inventory recognition.
• Identify and resolve accounting issues.
• Maintain strong financial discipline across the organization.
• Prepare financial reporting for senior management and the Board.

The Controller will establish a finance function that provides accurate numbers on time and explains what those numbers mean to the business.

2. Management Accounting

Develop a strong management-accounting framework that provides clear visibility into business performance.

Reporting should provide insight into:

• Revenue
• Gross margin
• Contribution margin
• EBITDA
• Cost per pound
• Cost per head, where applicable
• Raw-material costs
• Yield
• Labor efficiency
• Manufacturing overhead
• Freight
• Warehousing
• Inventory
• Working capital
• Plant performance
• Customer profitability
• Product profitability

The Controller should ensure that management understands the difference between:

What happened → Why it happened → What we are going to do about it.

3. Manufacturing & Cost Accounting

This is a critical element of the role.

Lead the company's manufacturing cost-accounting processes, including:

• Standard costing
• Actual costing
• Product costing
• Bill of materials
• Labor standards
• Manufacturing overhead
• Cost absorption
• Production variances
• Purchase-price variances
• Yield variances
• Labor variances
• Material usage variances
• Overhead variances
• Production efficiency
• Scrap and waste
• Rework
• Giveaway
• Inventory adjustments

Develop accurate manufacturing costs by:

• Plant
• Production line
• Product
• Customer
• SKU
• Process

Ensure management has a clear understanding of the true cost of producing each pound of product.

4. Protein & Meat Industry Cost Management

The Controller should have a strong understanding of the unique financial characteristics of protein businesses.

This includes:

Raw Material

• Live cattle / livestock costs, where applicable
• Carcass costs
• Boxed beef
• Beef trim
• Pork or poultry inputs, where applicable
• Frozen raw material
• Imported raw material
• Commodity price movements
• Purchase-price variances

Yield

• Live-to-carcass yield
• Carcass-to-fabrication yield
• Trim yield
• Processing yield
• Finished-product yield
• Giveaway
• Shrink
• Waste
• Rework

Manufacturing

• Direct labor
• Overtime
• Packaging
• Ingredients
• Utilities
• Maintenance
• Sanitation
• Freight
• Cold storage
• Refrigeration
• Waste disposal

The Controller should be able to explain how a change in raw-material cost, yield or labor efficiency flows directly through to gross margin and EBITDA.

5. Inventory Management

Own the financial control and reporting around a potentially complex inventory environment.

This may include:

• Live animals
• Raw meat
• Work in process
• Finished goods
• Packaging
• Ingredients
• Spare parts
• Frozen inventory
• Chilled inventory
• Customer-owned inventory

Responsibilities include:

• Establish robust inventory accounting procedures.
• Ensure accurate inventory valuation.
• Manage cycle-count programs.
• Support physical inventory counts.
• Investigate inventory variances.
• Monitor slow-moving and obsolete inventory.
• Review inventory reserves.
• Ensure appropriate treatment of damaged and aged product.
• Improve inventory accuracy.
• Work with Operations and Supply Chain to reduce inventory losses.

6. Yield & Margin Analysis

Establish a robust financial framework for understanding yield and manufacturing performance.

The Controller should provide regular reporting on:

• Raw-material yield
• Process yield
• Finished-product yield
• Giveaway
• Waste
• Rework
• Shrink
• Inventory adjustments

Translate operational performance into financial impact.

For example:

1% yield improvement × annual production volume × raw-material cost = quantified EBITDA opportunity.

This should become a core part of operational decision-making.

7. Plant Finance & Business Partnering

Develop strong relationships with Plant Managers, Operations Directors and Manufacturing leadership.

• Provide financial support to plant management.
• Establish plant-level P&Ls.
• Review plant performance regularly.
• Identify operational cost opportunities.
• Challenge assumptions and performance.
• Support productivity initiatives.
• Quantify operational improvement opportunities.
• Monitor labor efficiency.
• Analyze maintenance costs.
• Evaluate plant overhead.
• Support make-versus-buy decisions.
• Evaluate capital investment opportunities.

The Controller should be visible in the plants, not simply based at corporate headquarters.

8. Budgeting & Forecasting

Lead the annual budgeting and forecasting process.

Responsibilities include:

• Develop annual operating budgets.
• Establish financial targets.
• Coordinate plant budgets.
• Develop labor budgets.
• Develop overhead budgets.
• Forecast raw-material costs.
• Forecast manufacturing volumes.
• Forecast inventory.
• Forecast working capital.
• Prepare rolling forecasts.
• Analyze actual versus budget performance.
• Explain material variances.
• Identify emerging risks and opportunities.

The Controller should ensure that budgets are operationally realistic rather than simply financially convenient.

9. Commodity & Raw-Material Analysis

Partner closely with Procurement and Commercial leadership to understand commodity exposure.

Depending on the business, this may include:

• Cattle
• Beef
• Pork
• Poultry
• Grain/feed-related exposure
• Packaging
• Ingredients
• Energy

Responsibilities include:

• Analyze raw-material price movements.
• Monitor purchase-price variance.
• Evaluate commodity assumptions within budgets.
• Model margin sensitivity.
• Support pricing decisions.
• Identify commodity-driven margin risks.
• Support hedging analysis where applicable.

10. Working Capital & Cash Flow

Drive strong working-capital discipline across the business.

Key areas include:

Accounts Receivable

• DSO
• Customer credit
• Collections
• Bad-debt exposure

Inventory

• Inventory days
• Slow-moving inventory
• Excess inventory
• Finished-goods inventory

Accounts Payable

• Payment terms
• Supplier relationships
• DPO
• Cash-management opportunities

The Controller will work with the CFO to improve cash conversion and free cash flow.

11. Accounts Receivable & Accounts Payable

Provide leadership over transactional finance functions.

Ensure:

• Accurate invoicing
• Timely collections
• Accurate vendor payments
• Appropriate approval processes
• Vendor master-data controls
• Customer-credit controls
• Cash application
• Aging management
• Dispute resolution
• Payment controls

Develop appropriate KPIs and accountability for AP and AR teams.