Operations Finance Lead: Costing, Margins & Multi-Site FP&A

Destinus; Hengelo; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Destinus seeks an experienced Operations Finance Lead to own cost accounting, inventory economics and FP&A across multiple manufacturing sites. You will build and standardize processes, drive margin improvement and connect factory data to financial outcomes.

You will partner with Operations, Supply Chain and Engineering leadership to optimize key cost drivers, lead budgeting and long-range planning, and implement MES data flows for reliable costing and reporting.

Qualifications

• Solid experience in operations finance, manufacturing controlling, finance business partnering, cost accounting or FP&A.
• Proven experience owning or building product and standard costing frameworks, inventory accounting and manufacturing variance analysis.
• Strong understanding of operational finance, budgeting, forecasting, margin analysis and performance management.
• Experience building finance processes, controls and reporting structures rather than only operating within established frameworks.
• Strong understanding of internal controls and financial compliance within multi-entity or multi-jurisdiction organizations.
• Confidence working with large data sets, ERP systems such as Microsoft Dynamics and advanced Excel or equivalent financial tools.
• Experience with ERP or MES implementation, redesign or integration is a strong advantage.
• Ability to translate complex financial and operational information into clear recommendations for non-finance stakeholders.
• Experience coordinating finance activities across multiple sites or legal entities and managing or mentoring finance professionals.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to challenge, influence and collaborate effectively across Finance, Operations, Supply Chain and Engineering.

Responsibilities

• Own operations cost accounting across multiple manufacturing sites, including inventory accounting, cost of goods produced and sold, capitalization of labor and manufacturing overhead, and manufacturing-related month-end close activities.
• Take ownership of inventory economics, including variance capitalization, COGS release, excess and obsolete inventory and slow-moving stock exposure.
• Ensure manufacturing and inventory accounting is consistent across sites and legal entities and aligned with group accounting policies, IFRS and applicable local GAAP requirements.
• Own and continuously improve the product costing framework across products and sites, including BOMs, routings, labor and overhead rates.
• Drive cost and margin performance through variance analysis across purchase price, usage, mix, yield, labor efficiency and overhead absorption, identifying root causes and translating them into clear actions.
• Partner with Operations and Supply Chain to understand and optimize key cost drivers across materials, conversion, productivity, capacity and waste.
• Lead budgeting, forecasting and long-range planning for manufacturing and supply chain, connecting volumes, pricing, efficiency, capacity, headcount and capex assumptions to financial outcomes.
• Build rolling forecasts and analyze monthly performance, creating a clear bridge between operational results, margins, working capital and the P&L.
• Own operational KPIs with financial impact, including OTIF, yield, efficiency, days on hand and forecast accuracy.
• Build practical management reporting and dashboards that give operations and executive leadership clear visibility into cost, margin, inventory and working capital performance.
• Turn complex operational and financial data into actionable insights that support decisions around sourcing, pricing, investment and capacity.
• Design and standardize finance processes across sites for costing, forecasting, month-end close and reporting, replacing fragmented practices with scalable group-wide frameworks.
• Support MES implementation and ensure reliable manufacturing data flows into financial systems, working closely with Operations and IT to strengthen standard costing, inventory valuation, cost centers and BOM structures
• Establish strong internal controls over inventory, cost accounting and manufacturing transactions, maintaining clear segregation of duties and audit-ready documentation
• Define and roll out group-wide operations finance policies, templates and reporting calendars to create consistency across sites and legal entities
• Lead and coordinate operations finance across multiple manufacturing locations, developing site controllers and cost accountants while building a strong and consistent finance capability across the group
• Act as a trusted finance partner to Operations, Supply Chain and Engineering leadership, balancing the realities of individual sites with the financial discipline required at group level
• Support external audits, lender and investor processes and relevant multi-jurisdiction compliance requirements

Skills

Operations finance

Cost accounting

FP&A

Inventory accounting

Product costing

IFRS/GAAP

ERP systems

Advanced Excel

Cross-functional partnering

Leadership

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Finance/Accounting/Engineering

CPA/ACCA/CIMA qualification

Tools

Microsoft Dynamics

ERP/MES systems

Job description

Destinus seeks an experienced Operations Finance Lead to own cost accounting, inventory economics and FP&A across multiple manufacturing sites. You will build and standardize processes, drive margin improvement and connect factory data to financial outcomes.

You will partner with Operations, Supply Chain and Engineering leadership to optimize key cost drivers, lead budgeting and long-range planning, and implement MES data flows for reliable costing and reporting.