Senior Financial Analyst - Kankakee, IL
Bilingual in Spanish
Hybrid remote - mostly remote and will only come to the office as needed
$125,000 base + 10% bonus + benefits
Overview
The Financial Analyst role at company is a key member of the Financial Planning and Analysis team, and core support as a business partner to company leadership team across all functions. This individual must possess an insatiable curiosity and “5 Why” mentality in how they approach gaining a superior understanding of the business dynamics at play, that influence and impact company’s business performance. This individual will be adept at synthesizing meaningful and actionable information out of vast amounts of data, leveraging data mining and analytics tools including Power BI, SAP Analytics Cloud, Tableau, SAS, and other similar data analytics tools. This individual must be astute at working in ambiguity while evolving the fact patterns to develop cohesive and relevant analysis that may at first, not be obvious. An acute awareness of confirmation bias tendencies and the ability to avoid this trap should be part of the individual’s DNA, along with the ability to work with speed and accuracy under pressure, with an ever-present sense of urgency as the norm.
PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES
- Lead monthly sales reporting, including building models – sales reporting, price/volume/mix analysis, and variance analysis and fulsome commentary of actual results to budget, prior year, and forecast.
- Utilize large financial datasets to build predictive models and lead data analysis and problem solving to root cause.
- Prepare key financial and operational analysis and reports by collecting, formatting, analyzing, and explaining data with the objective of creating actionable information and insights about the issues at hand.
- Automate financial data collection and manipulation into useful dashboards or reports to drive user independence and support analytical scalability as the Company grows.
- Support monthly reporting package including but not limited to Income Statement, Balance Sheet, and Statement of Cash Flows.
- Analyze & monitor current and past KPI’s related to all facets of the business (Safety, Operations, Commercial, Financial, ESG, HR).
- Work with leadership to evaluate initiatives and actions to improve business performance; assists with implementing and tracking actions over time.
- Drive continuous process improvements in reporting, forecasting, and budgeting activities leveraging technology and analytical tools including AI and machine learning, automation, and system enhancements.
- Support Director FP&A, CFO, CCO, and other company Leadership to improve business performance and operational awareness by analyzing results, monitoring variances, and recommending quantifiable actions to senior leadership.
- Collaborate with business leadership to share insights and drive improved business outcomes, partnering with cross-functional teams as required.
- Contributes to finance team effort by proactively identifying opportunities to drive enhancements into the finance and accounting function and other functions as appropriate.
- Identify, lead and or support special projects and initiatives, as needed, including ad-hoc quantitative analyses of information to identify and understand drivers and root causes of performance.
- Drive change where needed through a lens of continuous process improvement consider new ways to gather data and analyze business data and results.
- Adhere to all GMP Standards/Requirements.
- Other Duties as Assigned
EDUCATION
- Required: Bachelor’s degree in accounting/finance, liberal arts with emphasis on critical thinking, math, science or statistics, or engineering with a desire to pivot to finance and credible experience to support pivot.
- Focus: Analytically intensive math, statistics, engineering, science or other related fields requiring ability to frame abstract issues into problem statement, analyze and model data, and formulate insightful conclusions that support decision making.
EXPERIENCE
- 3-5 years hands-on analytical support experience, ideally in a manufacturing environment, but alternatively in a banking or other similar financial setting where exposure to different business models requiring financial scrutiny on business performance was required. Working in an environment any vertical where vast amounts of varying types of data are available to drive decision support.
KNOWLEDGE/SKILLS/ABILITIES
- Must have excellent communication skills, analytical skills and sound understanding of applied analytics in business (understanding of accounting, finance, applied in a commercial and operations environment).
- Must have strong skills in Microsoft Office Excel, including building and maintaining integrated financial models, building complex data lookups, pivot tables, etc., and Power Point (able to create presentations that convey critical analysis in a straightforward fashion).
- Must have experience with customer profitability reporting, business unit and segment profitability analysis in a manufacturing environment, including understanding of basic cost accounting-related concepts such as conversion costs, material margins, absorption.
- Experience with SQL, SAP (preferably S4/Hana) Analytics, SAC, Fiori, Power BI, Tableau, Think Cell, and other tools a plus.
- Self-starter with desire to constantly learn and develop new skills.
- Strong communicator with ability to simplify complex issues and effectively communicate results up and down the organizations including operations and other functions.
- Critical thinking skills with penchant for spotting the “unobvious” and challenging conventional wisdom or the most likely answer in a constructive and non-threatening way.
- Customer focused mindset with desire to over-deliver on commitments with a high sense of urgency.
- Willingness and desire to invest time learning the business and getting beyond the numbers.
- Ideally bilingual (Spanish/English) language.
