FP&A Manager

Kidde-Fenwal LLC•Ashland, MA

About The Position

The FP&A Manager is a key member of the finance leadership team in a PE-backed engineered manufacturing company, responsible for managing liquidity, driving working capital efficiency, overseeing OPEX, and delivering data-driven insights that support value creation. This position drives liquidity management, working capital efficiency, and operating expense discipline to support enterprise value creation, partnering closely with Operations and Procurement to optimize inventory management and ensure alignment between financial and operational objectives. The role combines rigorous financial planning with hands-on operational partnership, ensuring tight alignment between production, supply chain, and financial goals to maximize cash flow and profitability. The FP&A Manager will enhance business visibility into cash flow and OPEX spending by establishing performance KPIs, tracking results, and providing proactive guidance to improve liquidity, cost efficiency, and profitability across the enterprise. This individual manages, assesses and trains the existing team to build up a functional team. The FP&A Manager, together with the team, will also support the FP&A director in external reporting.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in finance, accounting, economics, or related field; MBA, CPA, or CMA preferred.
8 to 10 years of progressive FP&A experience, with direct exposure to PE-backed manufacturing or industrial companies. Proven track record of building up a functional team that thrives in a fast-paced environment.
Strong knowledge of manufacturing finance, including cost, OPEX, production cycles, and supply chain drivers.
Advanced Excel and financial modeling skills; experience with ERP systems (JDE, Oracle, NetSuite, or similar).
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, able to interact effectively with other finance leaders, various functions within the company and other external parties.
Proactive, hands-on, and results-oriented, with a strong ability for execution in a fast-paced environment.
Proven ability to thrive in a performance-driven and highly analytical environment.

Nice To Haves

Responsibilities

Develop and maintain detailed weekly, monthly, and quarterly cash flow forecasts with precision expected in a PE-owned environment.
Monitor liquidity and funding needs to support production schedules, capital investments, and growth initiatives.
Partner with Accounting and other functions to ensure accurate reporting and proactive management of cash requirements.
Support CFO and PE stakeholders with scenario modeling, cash bridge analyses, and liquidity risk assessments.
Drive continuous improvement in the cash conversion cycle (CCC) by optimizing receivables, payables, and inventory performance.
Collaborate with Operations and Procurement to establish best practices in order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, and inventory management, ensuring optimal working capital utilization.
Lead initiatives to unlock working capital and improve free cash flow, in line with PE performance metrics.
Report and analyze working capital KPIs, providing actionable recommendations for improvement.
Assist the preparation of reports to the investors and lenders, assist in the monthly operations review and board meeting presentation.
Monitor OPEX across departments and manufacturing sites, ensuring alignment with budgets and cost-efficiency targets.
Proactively lead periodic reviews with various functions to ensure the business understands cost drivers and improvement opportunities.
Identify and explain variances versus forecast and prior year, with a focus on operational levers and cost savings.
Support the annual operating plan, reforecast cycles, and board reporting requirements.
Evaluate the current FP&A team structure, skills, and workload to ensure alignment with business needs
Provide coaching, development, and clear direction to strengthen team capabilities and performance
Team up with the director to build an effective, collaborative FP&A team that delivers timely, high-quality financial insights