Overview

A contract manufacturer in the beauty, personal care, and fragrance space is adding a Senior Operations Finance Manager in New Albany, OH. Because production runs as a process operation, the finance seat lives right next to the floor, where yield, scrap, and throughput are what actually move the P&L. The title may suggest otherwise, but this is an individual-contributor role carrying plant-controller-level scope: manufacturing controlling, standard costing, operational KPI reporting, and true business partnership with Operations, Engineering, and Procurement. The reporting line runs to the Director of Finance.

Role depth

The cost and operations finance picture for the manufacturing site belongs to you, and your job is turning it into decisions leadership can actually make. Expect your week to divide across the costing core, the planning cycle, the KPI reporting layer, and hands-on time with the plant.

• Run manufacturing controlling for the production operation
• Own and sharpen standard costing methodology, BOM structures, labor rates, and overhead allocation models
• Dig into variances spanning material usage, labor, yield, scrap, waste, and overhead absorption
• Keep inventory valuation and product costing accurate, and carry the inventory and manufacturing cost pieces of month-end close
• Drive the annual operating plan, budgets, and rolling forecasts on the Operations side
• Model scenarios behind capacity planning and capital investment choices
• Create and own dashboards and scorecards spanning OEE, labor efficiency, yield and waste, unit cost, throughput, inventory turns, capacity utilization, and scrap and rework
• Be the finance voice in daily, weekly, and monthly operational reviews
• Contribute to customer profitability analysis, new product launches, and ROI reviews on improvement initiatives
• Back continuous improvement efforts, then quantify and report what they actually saved
• Assist with cycle counts, the annual physical inventory, and audits touching manufacturing

In our words

The hiring team painted this as a seat with genuine ownership and nobody standing between you and the business. Nobody reports to you, which means your leverage comes from the credibility of your numbers and how visible you are with Operations, Plant Management, Engineering, and Procurement. Reporting infrastructure is actively being built out here — the ERP is being wired into Power BI — and whoever takes this seat defines what the manufacturing scorecard becomes instead of inheriting a version someone else designed.

Succeeding here calls for hands-on cost accounting depth: standard costing, BOMs, labor rates, overhead allocation, and variance analysis you perform yourself rather than sign off on. Add fluency in operational metrics and the ability to move people who do not report to you. Roughly seven to ten years in manufacturing finance is the realistic background. Time in CPG, personal care, cosmetics, or contract manufacturing is a real differentiator.

The hiring manager

Your manager would be the Director of Finance, himself fairly new to the organization and the main point of contact on this search. On the phone he comes across as practical and straightforward, candid about the pieces he is still figuring out, and genuinely willing to move his position when someone gives him a clear answer. Notably, he retained this search rather than running it contingent — a fair read on how much weight the seat is carrying. The CFO sits one level above him.

Direct reports

Nobody reports into this role. Your work happens laterally instead, across Operations, Plant Management, Engineering, and Procurement.

Software and ERP

Deacom is the ERP in place. Having used it is worth flagging, though it is not a gate — SAP, Oracle, NetSuite, or something comparable works fine. Since the group is connecting the ERP to Power BI and growing its reporting and automation footprint, exposure to Power BI or another BI tool is preferred. Strong Excel is assumed: pivot tables, advanced formulas, and real data analysis.

Travel and remote

Expect less than 10% travel.

Benefits

The base range runs $125,000 to $145,000, paired with a bonus targeted around 10%. The hiring manager is anticipating candidates toward the top of that band and will evaluate the right person individually. An MBA, CPA, or CMA is preferred — treated as a plus, not a hurdle. A second plant-facing finance position is currently being scoped, which tells you the function is on an upward trajectory.

Location

Sitting northeast of the Columbus metro, New Albany is a planned community with well-regarded schools and an easy drive into the city. Manufacturing runs deep across Ohio — Columbus, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Toledo all have it — so relocating here does not box in your next move. Central Ohio's cost of living also remains far more manageable than the coasts.