[Hiring] Finance Director @International Automotive Components

Role Description

As the Business Finance Director, your main role is to ensure that the company acquires profitable new business and that we properly track such expected profitability from business award to program launch. This is not a passive reporting role; it is a technical costing leadership position. You will lead the Cost Estimating group, the Program Management Finance lead, and the Commercial Finance lead. This is a key leadership role since it will have to bring to light with data those situations where we deviate from commercial, engineering, or operational assumptions.

Key Responsibilities

• Cost Estimating:
  • Cost Estimating Manager will directly report to you, which involves the responsibility of keeping the RFQ and ECN process on track.
  • Assess the workload of the costing team and recommend resource balancing to support fluctuating program demands.
  • Cost Estimating systems: currently, we use QMS for new quotes and CES for awarded business. However, these systems are old, need to be optimized, and ultimately replaced with more capable, less manual intensive, technology.
  • Quote modelling: critically review plant-provided costs and develop concerted cost models that are realistic, achievable, and do not cover inefficiencies that would put our company at a competitive disadvantage.
  • Gap Resolution: work directly with Commercial or Operations to troubleshoot and resolve price/costing discrepancies, ensuring the program remains at or above the awarded EBITDA.
  • Mentor staff to ensure they don't just "input data" administrators but truly understand the cost drivers in an automotive interior environment.
• Program Management Finance:
  • Program Finance Manager will directly report to you, which involves the responsibility of supporting program managers' financial needs.
  • Program Management financial template standardization, so all key metrics of program profitability can be tracked from award to post-launch by each manager.
  • Funding Oversight for Capital, ED&T, and launch cost to flag overspending and control the governance of funding reallocation when required.
  • Partner with Sales to ensure customer-funded expenditures (Tooling/Price) are protected.
• Commercial Finance:
  • Commercial Finance Manager will directly report to you, which involves the responsibility of supporting Business managers' financial needs and commercial roadmaps for both commercial recoveries and secured revenue forecasting.
  • Price determination modeling using best available information.
  • Arbitrage using data when gaps between competitive pricing and costing arise; recommending resolution to the ELT.

Qualifications

• Experience: 10+ years in Tier 1 Automotive Finance or Cost Engineering (Interiors/Seating preferred). Good track record on development and implementation of cost estimating/quoting/cost modelling tools.
• Subject Matter Expertise: Deep "shop-floor" understanding of manufacturing costs. You must be able to challenge a plant's cost assumptions with data-driven benchmarks.
• Leadership: Experience managing a distributed team and the ability to negotiate with General Managers and Plant Controllers.
• Analytical Skills: Advanced mastery of ECN impact tracking, PAR/CapEx management, and complex intercompany sales.