Location: Huntsville, AL or Norcross, GA
Work Arrangement: Hybrid, In Office Tuesday through Thursday, Remote Monday and Friday
Employment Type: Direct Placement
Experience Level: Senior Leadership
Experience Required: 7+ Years, Including 3+ Years of People Leadership
Position Overview
We are recruiting a strategic, hands-on Senior Manager, Finance to help lead financial planning and analysis, forecasting, business partnership, and performance management across key operations.
This leader will serve as a trusted advisor to executive and functional stakeholders, translating financial and operational data into clear insights, decisions, and actions that improve profitability, resource allocation, and long-term growth.
The successful candidate will combine strong FP&A fundamentals with a builder mindset. This individual will strengthen planning disciplines, create scalable processes, reduce manual work through automation, and help shape a modern FP&A operating model.
This role is well suited for someone who performs effectively in a fast-paced, evolving environment, brings structure to ambiguity, and collaborates confidently across functions, geographies, and cultures.
Financial Planning, Forecasting & Decision Support
- Lead the annual operating plan, long-range plan, rolling forecasts, scenario analysis, and monthly business performance reviews.
- Develop integrated financial models covering operating expenses, workforce planning, capital expenditures, cash, and key operational drivers.
- Improve forecast accuracy through driver-based planning, clear assumptions, disciplined risk and opportunity tracking, and post-forecast performance reviews.
- Translate business dynamics into concise executive-level insights, recommendations, and decision alternatives.
- Partner with leaders to evaluate investments, product and customer opportunities, cost actions, and resource trade-offs.
Process Transformation, Automation & AI Enablement
- Assess current forecasting, budgeting, and reporting workflows and design standardized, scalable processes with clear ownership, controls, calendars, and service expectations.
- Automate manual data preparation, forecast consolidation, reporting, and variance analysis using appropriate planning, analytics, workflow, and integration tools.
- Apply experience with agentic AI, generative AI, machine learning, or intelligent automation to streamline planning activities, surface anomalies, generate first-draft variance narratives, and accelerate scenario analysis.
- Establish appropriate human review, data security, documentation, and control practices for AI-enabled finance processes.
- Define and track transformation outcomes such as planning cycle time, forecast accuracy, manual touchpoints, adoption, data quality, and decision speed.
Business Partnership & Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Serve as a finance business partner to Operations, Engineering, Supply Chain, Product Management, Corporate Accounting, Human Resources, and other functional leaders.
- Collaborate with international colleagues and teammates across time zones in a global, matrixed environment.
- Challenge assumptions constructively, influence without direct authority, and align stakeholders around fact-based decisions and enterprise priorities.
- Communicate complex financial and operational topics clearly to both finance and non-finance audiences.
Workforce Planning & Resource Allocation
- Partner with Human Resources and business leaders to connect workforce plans with financial plans, operating priorities, and productivity objectives.
- Develop headcount, compensation, recruiting, attrition, vacancy, and organizational scenario models.
- Improve visibility into workforce-related risks and opportunities.
- Enable disciplined resource allocation by linking roles, skills, capacity, and costs to strategic outcomes.
Performance Management, Governance & Leadership
- Lead monthly, quarterly, and annual performance reporting and identify trends, root causes, risks, opportunities, and corrective actions.
- Support executive presentations, Board materials, and management reviews with accurate, decision-oriented analysis.
- Partner with Accounting to ensure planning and reporting align with company policies, financial controls, accounting standards, and audit requirements.
- Lead, mentor, and develop finance professionals while fostering accountability, curiosity, inclusion, continuous learning, and operational excellence.
- Promote collaboration and consistent practices across global finance and business teams.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business Administration, Mathematics, or a related discipline.
- 7+ years of progressive experience in FP&A, corporate finance, operational finance, or related roles.
- 3+ years of people leadership experience.
- Demonstrated experience supporting a manufacturing, telecommunications, networking, technology, or similarly complex product-based business.
- Strong command of budgeting, forecasting, financial modeling, scenario planning, management reporting, and performance analysis.
- Proven track record of building or redesigning finance processes and reducing manual work through automation, analytics, or workflow improvement.
- Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel.
- Experience with business intelligence, enterprise resource planning, and financial planning platforms.
- Ability to operate effectively when priorities, inputs, or business conditions are evolving, including creating structure, clarifying assumptions, and moving decisions forward.
- Excellent executive communication, cross-functional collaboration, stakeholder influence, organizational, and problem-solving skills.
- Experience working across functions and with international colleagues in a global or matrixed organization.
Preferred Qualifications
- MBA, CPA, CMA, or another relevant advanced degree or professional certification.
- Direct experience in telecommunications or network equipment, including hardware, software, services, supply chain, and project-based models.
- Hands-on experience with SAP and SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC), including planning, forecasting, analytics, reporting, dashboards, or data integration.
- Practical experience using agentic AI, generative AI, machine learning, robotic process automation, or related capabilities in forecasting, budgeting, reporting, or decision support.
- Experience with workforce planning and associated systems, data, and governance.
- Experience supporting a publicly traded company and preparing executive or Board-level materials.
Leadership Profile
The ideal candidate brings a combination of strategic thinking, hands-on execution, and collaborative leadership.
- Builder: Creates scalable processes, standards, and capabilities rather than relying on workarounds.
- Change Leader: Brings others along, converts ideas into adoption, and balances speed with governance.
- Enterprise Thinker: Connects commercial, operational, people, and financial drivers to broader business strategy.
- Comfortable with Ambiguity: Makes progress with incomplete information while clearly communicating assumptions, risks, and decision points.
- Collaborative and Globally Minded: Builds trust across functions, organizational levels, cultures, and geographies.
- Hands-On and Outcomes Focused: Moves comfortably between strategic thinking, detailed analysis, and execution.
About the Opportunity
This direct placement opportunity offers a senior finance leader the chance to shape a modern FP&A organization while influencing financial planning, operational performance, resource allocation, and strategic decision-making.
The role combines traditional FP&A leadership with finance transformation, automation, analytics, and emerging AI capabilities. It provides significant exposure to executive and cross-functional stakeholders while supporting a complex, global, product-based business.
Candidates may be based in Huntsville, Alabama or Norcross, Georgia. The position follows a hybrid schedule with in-office work Tuesday through Thursday and remote work Monday and Friday.
