Director, FP&A

XNRGY Climate Systems•Mesa, AZ

About The Position

XNRGY Climate Systems is a rapidly growing North American manufacturer of custom air handling and liquid cooling systems for the data center and AI infrastructure markets. The company is scaling quickly to meet demand for thermal management solutions. Financial rigor is crucial for sustaining profitable growth. The Director, FP&A will be responsible for income statement and margin analysis across the commercial pipeline, from cost build in the quotation tool to delivered project margin. This role reports to the Senior Vice President, FP&A and sits at the intersection of Application Engineering, Strategic Sourcing, and Sales, with the authority to determine if a bid is not ready for submission. The role also owns the commercial aspects of the annual operating budget, including gross margin, pricing, and standard cost assumptions. This is a build mandate focused on designing governance frameworks, review cadences, and analytical standards from scratch, with a direct impact on the profitability of a scaling business.

Requirements

Five to eight or more years in commercial finance, product costing, manufacturing finance, or FP&A within an engineered-products, capital equipment, or industrial manufacturing environment.
Demonstrated ownership of cost estimating or quotation cost validation — building, challenging, and defending the cost assumptions behind customer pricing.
Strong command of manufacturing cost structure, including BOM-based costing, standard cost, purchase price variance, cost rollups, scrap and contingency factors, and absorption.
Experience analysing project or program margin across a lifecycle, including cost bridges that explain variance by driver.
Advanced Excel modelling and working ERP proficiency, including product master data and cost rollup logic. EPICOR experience preferred.
Experience owning the cost and margin assumptions within an annual operating budget, and running or supporting an annual standard cost roll.
Comfort querying source data directly is an advantage — SQL or an equivalent toolset — enabling independent interrogation of cost, purchasing, and quotation data. Cost judgment comes first; this distinguishes strong candidates rather than replacing costing depth.
Practical use of AI tooling to speed recurring cost analysis and documentation, together with the judgment to verify output before it reaches a customer quotation.
Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Engineering, Supply Chain, or a related field required; CPA, CMA, or CSCP a plus.
Analytically rigorous, with the instinct to interrogate a cost build to component level rather than accept the total.
Willing to challenge constructively and hold a position on a deadline without damaging the relationship.
A process owner by disposition, who understands that a governance gate nobody respects is worse than no gate at all.
Technically credible with engineers, and able to speak their language.
Inclined to automate recurring analysis rather than absorb it, while treating any automated or AI-generated output as a draft to be verified — not a result to be forwarded.

Nice To Haves

EPICOR experience preferred.
Engineered-to-order or configured-product experience, NPI and design-to-cost exposure, and cross-border freight and tariff analysis are each strongly advantageous.
CPA, CMA, or CSCP a plus.

Responsibilities

Own and administer formal finance review and sign-off of the pricing and quotation tool, establishing a scheduled, owned process in place of ad hoc review.
Define review thresholds, calendar, and turnaround standards in partnership with Sales and Operations, so that governance improves bid quality without becoming a constraint on bid timing.
Build and maintain the bid review standard covering direct material, labour, scrap factor, contingency, freight, tariff, subcontract, and overhead assumptions, validated against current supplier quotations.
Serve as the principal finance partner to Application Engineering on cost assumptions, unit economics, and sign-off, including normalised metrics that allow comparison across opportunities.
Challenge cost assumptions constructively and identify margin improvement opportunities before a quotation is submitted.
Reconcile awarded purchase orders and executed contracts back to the quotation tool to confirm that quoted and committed costs agree.
Own project-based margin analysis for major customer programs, tracking margin from quotation through production to delivery.
Develop cost bridges explaining margin movement by driver — supplier pricing, commodities, tariffs, freight, engineering change, volume, and manufacturing assumptions.
Quantify the cost and margin impact of customer- and engineering-driven scope changes, ensuring the increment is captured through change management and communicated to Sales so that customer pricing can be adjusted.
Identify emerging margin risk on live programs early enough for corrective action, with defined ownership and timing.
Conduct post-project reviews comparing estimated to actual cost and drive the findings into the next quotation cycle.
Own the gross margin, pricing, and product cost assumptions within the annual operating budget working to the budget calendar, templates, and submission standards set by FP&A.
Lead the annual standard cost exercise — material, labour, overhead, freight, and tariff assumptions — and quantify the P&L effect of the change before the plan is locked.
Build the budgeted margin view by product line, program, and site, including expected bid pipeline conversion and mix, and defend those assumptions through budget review.
Explain in-year gross margin variance against budget by driver, and feed the findings into the reforecast and the next quoting cycle.
Query ERP and quotation-tool data directly — SQL or an equivalent BI toolset — to build those libraries and to reconcile quoted cost against committed and actual cost, rather than depending on manual extracts for routine analysis.
Use AI tooling to accelerate recurring cost work such as supplier quotation comparison, benchmark refresh, and first-draft variance commentary, verifying every output before it informs a customer price.
Improve the automation and self-service capability of cost and margin reporting, so that routine commercial questions can be answered without a manual build each time.
Act as a trusted business partner to Sales, Sourcing, Engineering, and Operations, engaged early in the opportunity rather than late in escalation.
Support make-versus-buy, value engineering, and total cost of ownership analysis alongside Strategic Sourcing.
Develop and report KPIs monitoring quotation accuracy and margin performance.
Improve quotation tools, costing methodology, and estimating standards, promoting consistency across the organisation.

Benefits

Private-equity–backed
Hyper-growth
Advanced manufacturing operations
Scaling rapidly to meet unprecedented demand
Mission-critical thermal management
Dynamic segments of the critical infrastructure landscape
Engineering-led product development
Disciplined, capital-efficient operating model
Financial rigor around cash, capital allocation, margin, and working capital
Sustaining profitable growth
Delivering on commitments to the Board and investors
Holds the pen on income statement and margin analysis
Sits between Application Engineering, Strategic Sourcing, and Sales
Carries the standing to determine that a bid is not yet ready to be submitted
Owns the commercial half of the annual operating budget
Build mandate rather than a reporting seat
Design the governance framework, the review cadence, and the analytical standards from a blank sheet
Visible impact on the profitability of a rapidly scaling business
Trusted business partner
Engaged early in the opportunity rather than late in escalation
Support make-versus-buy, value engineering, and total cost of ownership analysis
Develop and report KPIs monitoring quotation accuracy and margin performance
Improve quotation tools, costing methodology, and estimating standards
Promoting consistency across the organisation
Established bid review as routine business practice
Narrowed the variance between quoted and delivered margin on major programs
Built a working cost library and benchmark set that measurably improved estimating accuracy against a defined baseline
Owned the margin and standard cost assumptions through a full annual budget cycle
Become sufficiently trusted by Sales and Engineering to be engaged early in the opportunity cycle
Commercially minded manufacturing finance professional
Combines detailed command of product cost with the credibility and composure to hold a position under commercial pressure
Equally comfortable interrogating a bill of materials and presenting a margin recommendation to senior leadership
Values Courage, Community, Climate, Customer, and Coherence
Be part of carving our footprint and joining a winning team!