Senior Manager/Director, Operations & Project Controlling

PROTEROS biostructures GmbH; München; Presencial; EUR 90.000 - 120.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

PROTEROS biostructures GmbH is seeking a senior finance professional to own and develop the project controlling framework across the portfolio. You will lead budgeting, forecasting, cost tracking, and margin analysis, partnering with Project Management and Scientific Operations to monitor progress against budget and timelines.

Identify at-risk projects and push for action to improve margins and delivery. You will establish financial ownership, drive fully loaded costing methodologies, and

Formación

• Significant experience in project controlling, operational controlling, FP&A, or finance business partnering in a project-based environment.
• Proven track record establishing or improving project controlling processes and frameworks.
• Strong experience with project budgeting, forecasting, cost-to-complete analysis, and margin management.
• Experience developing fully loaded costing methodologies and project profitability analysis.
• Ability to translate operational activity into financial outcomes and work with cross-functional teams.

Responsabilidades

• Own and develop the company’s project controlling framework, providing consistent financial visibility across the project portfolio.
• Establish processes for project budgeting, forecasting, cost tracking, margin analysis, and variance management.
• Develop a standardized approach to monitoring project financial performance from project initiation through completion.
• Partner with Project Management and Scientific Operations to monitor project progress against budget, timeline, resource plan, and expected financial outcome.
• Identify projects at risk of cost overruns, margin erosion, or delivery delays and ensure these risks are visible to management.
• Provide independent Finance challenge to project assumptions, resource requirements, timelines, and expected costs.
• Establish clear financial ownership and accountability for project performance across Business Units and Project Management.
• Lead the implementation of project margin analysis and develop methodology for calculating fully loaded project costs.
• Ensure project margins reflect the full economic cost of delivering projects, including personnel, resources, facilities, and overheads.
• Develop appropriate cost rates and allocation methodologies in partnership with Finance and operational stakeholders.
• Establish consistent definitions and methodologies for project revenue, direct costs, indirect costs, contribution/margin, and project profitability.
• Continuously improve the accuracy and relevance of project cost and margin reporting.
• Act as the key Finance Business Partner to Scientific Operations, Business Unit leadership, and Project Management on project economics and operational performance.
• Work closely with project teams to understand the operational drivers behind financial performance.
• Translate project status, resource utilization, scope changes, and delivery risks into financial implications.
• Participate in project and operational review meetings, providing a financial perspective on project performance.
• Challenge project teams constructively where assumptions, resource requirements, or delivery expectations are inconsistent with financial targets.
• Support project managers and operational leaders in identifying corrective actions to improve project delivery, cost efficiency, and margins.
• Build strong relationships with scientific and operational stakeholders while maintaining appropriate Finance independence and control.
• Develop regular project cost-to-complete forecasts and monitor actual costs against budget and forecast with variance analysis.
• Identify the operational drivers of material variances and track changes in project scope and timelines.
• Establish early-warning indicators for projects with cost or margin pressure and improve forecasting accuracy through historical analysis.
• Provide portfolio-level analysis of project performance and opportunities for operational improvement.
• Design and implement a scalable project controlling process with governance, responsibilities, reporting cadence, and standardized methodologies.
• Establish appropriate controls to ensure project financial data is complete, accurate, and timely.
• Define interfaces between Finance, Business Units, Scientific Operations, Project Management, and other functions.
• Improve the integration of operational and financial data to reduce manual reporting and improve transparency.
• Develop and maintain project controlling tools and models, including Excel-based models.
• Identify opportunities to automate reporting and establish project financial KPIs and performance standards.

Conocimientos

Project controlling

Financial modelling

Excel

ERP systems

FP&A

Business partnering

Herramientas

ERP systems

Forecasting tools

Descripción del empleo

• Own and develop the company’s project controlling framework, providing consistent financial visibility across the project portfolio.
• Establish processes for project budgeting, forecasting, cost tracking, margin analysis, and variance management.
• Develop a standardized approach to monitoring project financial performance from project initiation through completion.
• Partner with Project Management and Scientific Operations to monitor project progress against budget, timeline, resource plan, and expected financial outcome.
• Identify projects at risk of cost overruns, margin erosion, or delivery delays and ensure these risks are visible to management.
• Provide independent Finance challenge to project assumptions, resource requirements, timelines, and expected costs.
• Establish clear financial ownership and accountability for project performance across Business Units and Project Management.

Project Margin & Costing

• Lead the implementation of project margin analysis, providing management with a clear understanding of the profitability of individual projects.
• Develop and maintain a methodology for calculating fully loaded project costs, including appropriate allocation of direct and indirect costs.
• Ensure project margins reflect the full economic cost of delivering projects, including relevant personnel, laboratory/scientific resources, facilities, equipment, and other operational overheads.
• Develop appropriate cost rates and allocation methodologies in partnership with Finance and operational stakeholders.
• Establish consistent definitions and methodologies for project revenue, direct costs, indirect costs, contribution/margin, and project profitability.
• Continuously improve the accuracy and relevance of project cost and margin reporting.

Business Partnering with Operations & Project Management

• Act as the key Finance Business Partner to Scientific Operations, Business Unit leadership, and Project Management on project economics and operational performance.
• Work closely with project teams to understand the operational drivers behind financial performance.
• Translate project status, resource utilization, scope changes, and delivery risks into financial implications.
• Participate in project and operational review meetings, providing a financial perspective on project performance.
• Challenge project teams constructively where assumptions, resource requirements, or delivery expectations are inconsistent with financial targets.
• Support project managers and operational leaders in identifying corrective actions to improve project delivery, cost efficiency, and margins.
• Build strong relationships with scientific and operational stakeholders while maintaining appropriate Finance independence and control.

Project Forecasting & Variance Analysis

• Develop regular project cost-to-complete forecasts, incorporating actual costs, project progress, remaining activities, resource requirements, and expected completion dates.
• Monitor actual project costs against budget and forecast and provide detailed variance analysis.
• Identify the operational drivers of material variances rather than simply reporting financial deviations.
• Track changes in project scope, timelines, resource requirements, and other factors that may affect project economics.
• Establish early-warning indicators for projects experiencing cost or margin pressure.
• Improve forecasting accuracy through systematic analysis of historical project performance and operational drivers.
• Provide portfolio-level analysis of project performance, identifying trends, recurring issues, and opportunities for operational improvement.

Process Development & Controls

• Design and implement a scalable project controlling process, including governance, responsibilities, reporting cadence, and standardized methodologies.
• Establish appropriate controls to ensure project financial data is complete, accurate, and timely.
• Define clear interfaces between Finance, Business Units, Scientific Operations, Project Management, and other relevant functions.
• Improve the integration of operational and financial data to reduce reliance on manual reporting and improve transparency.
• Develop and maintain project controlling tools and models, including Excel-based models where appropriate.
• Identify opportunities to automate and improve project reporting and analysis as the organization and project portfolio scale.
• Establish consistent project financial KPIs and performance standards across the organization.

Planning & Strategic Support

• Support the annual budgeting and forecasting process with detailed project-level operational and cost assumptions.
• Provide input into resource planning and capacity decisions by translating expected project activity into financial requirements.
• Support investment and resource allocation decisions through project economics and scenario analysis.
• Analyze historical project performance to improve future pricing, costing, resource planning, and operational decision-making.
• Work closely with the Sales & Revenue Controller to connect commercial assumptions, project delivery, and financial performance, ensuring consistency between revenue forecasts and project cost forecasts.

Your profile

Experience

• Significant experience in project controlling, operational controlling, FP&A, or finance business partnering in a project-based, services, R&D, contract research, engineering, or similarly complex environment.
• Proven experience establishing or improving project controlling processes and frameworks.
• Strong experience with project budgeting, forecasting, cost-to-complete analysis, variance analysis, and project margin management.
• Experience developing fully loaded costing methodologies and project profitability analysis.
• Demonstrated ability to work closely with operational and project teams and translate operational activity into financial outcomes.
• Experience working with resource-intensive projects where personnel capacity and utilization are significant cost drivers.
• Strong Excel and financial modelling skills.
• Experience with ERP, project management, resource planning, or other operational data systems would be advantageous.

Skills & Attributes

• Strong project controlling and financial modelling expertise with excellent attention to detail.
• Commercially and operationally minded, with a strong understanding of the drivers of project profitability.
• Confident challenging project managers, scientific leaders, and Business Unit leadership in a constructive and collaborative manner.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with non-financial stakeholders.
• Highly analytical, structured, and pragmatic.
• Comfortable building processes and frameworks in an environment where systems and processes are still developing.
• Hands-on and entrepreneurial, with the ability to operate independently and take ownership of a critical business process.
• Able to communicate complex financial information clearly to senior management.

Why us?

• An industry leader at an inflection point, with considerable growth and expanding capabilities ahead.
• An organization positioned for disruptive changes in the CRO market.
• Detail oriented with strong organizational skills.
• An innovative field of work in an exciting industry.
• A long-term, responsible position in a healthy, growing and future-oriented company.
• Comprehensive onboarding to prepare you optimally for your area of responsibility.
• Multicultural teams and an open corporate culture.