Financial Analyst

We are looking for a Financial Analyst to support planning, forecasting, and performance evaluation for a manufacturing and distribution business. This role will turn operational and financial data into practical recommendations that strengthen profitability, improve visibility into costs, and guide business decisions across customer programs and internal operations. The ideal candidate brings strong analytical ability, comfort working with cross-functional partners, and experience in environments where product cost, freight, and margin performance are critical.

Applicants can apply by sending your resume to Joe Ciavardini via LinkedIn or email me at joe.ciavardini@roberthalf

Responsibilities:

• Build annual financial plans and maintain recurring forecasts that reflect expected sales activity, production demand, material spending, labor needs, overhead, and transportation costs.
• Create and refine profitability analyses at both the business and customer level to identify opportunities for margin improvement and support growth strategies.
• Evaluate product cost performance by reviewing raw materials, workforce expense, factory overhead, scrap, yield, and other manufacturing cost drivers.
• Compare standard costing results with actual outcomes, investigate variances, and communicate the financial impact to finance and operations stakeholders.
• Monitor gross margin trends across products, customers, and sales channels, and provide insights that inform pricing and commercial decisions.
• Partner with purchasing and operations teams to assess inventory levels, turnover, lead times, freight expense, tariffs, duties, and working capital implications.
• Support sourcing and production decisions by analyzing vendor options, make-versus-buy scenarios, and the financial tradeoffs tied to supply chain strategies.
• Prepare monthly management reports covering plant results, distribution performance, and other key operating indicators, and present findings to leadership.
• Contribute to capital investment analysis for equipment, molds, tooling, and machinery while also improving cost models, reporting automation, and costing system data such as bills of materials and routings.
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related business discipline.
• Experience in financial planning, forecasting, or analytical roles within a manufacturing, distribution, or product-based environment.
• Strong understanding of cost of goods sold, standard costing, gross margin measurement, and manufacturing variance analysis.
• Ability to build budgets, forecasting models, and profitability analyses using large and detailed data sets.
• Knowledge of operational cost factors such as raw materials, labor, freight, inventory, and tariff-related impacts.
• Proficiency in management reporting and presenting financial insights to cross-functional leaders.
• Strong analytical, quantitative, and data mining skills with a high level of accuracy and attention to detail.