Commercial Finance Manager

Tootsie Roll Industries; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 130,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

A renowned confectionary company in Chicago seeks a Commercial Finance Manager to support sales and marketing teams. This role requires strong financial acumen and 5+ years of experience in finance. Key responsibilities include overseeing revenue forecasting, trade promotion analysis, and developing margin monitoring tools. The ideal candidate will have a bachelor’s degree, strong problem-solving skills, and the ability to communicate effectively across functions. The expected salary range is $130,000 to $170,000, reflecting expertise and experience.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years in sales/customer finance or marketing finance.
• Experience in profitability and pricing analysis.
• Process oriented with attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Lead financial advisor and analyst for marketing and sales teams.
• Partner with Sales and Marketing on revenue forecasting.
• Develop tools for customer and brand level margin monitoring.

Skills

Strong financial acumen

Problem-solving

Communication

Team commitment

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Finance, Accounting, or related field

MBA

Tools

Hyperion Cloud Financial Consolidation

Oracle EBS Software

Microsoft Office

Job description

Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc. (the “Company”) has been manufacturing iconic confectionary brands such as Tootsie Roll, Tootsie Pops, Blow Pops, Dots, Dubble Bubble, Junior Mints, Andes, and Charleston Chew for over 125 years. The Company is searching for a Commercial Finance Manager to join the finance team in support of the sales and marketing teams. The role will report to the Director of Finance but is expected to become a trusted financial advisor and resource to the Vice President of Marketing. This is an exciting time to join the team as this role presents the opportunity to build a new finance discipline. Business leaders are performing their own analysis and will find value in this role through thought leadership and deeper analytical insights.

The successful candidate will need a strong finance and accounting background, knowledge of best practices in terms of CPG pricing and promotion actions and revenue modeling with the ability to communicate within financial and non-financial audiences. It will be important to cultivate strong relationships with internal stakeholders to know what questions have not been asked and to collaborate with cross-functional teams. The candidate will leverage experience within brand and / or sales finance teams and the latest tools in the net revenue management space to optimize our processes.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES & HIGHLIGHTS

Net Revenue Management

Under the leadership of the Director of Finance and in service of the marketing and sales teams, assume the role as lead financial advisor and analyst helping dissect large data sets to distill actionable insights about SKU, brand, and customer level trends to help the Company maximize profitability.

Revenue Forecasting and Budgeting

• Partner with Sales, Marketing and Demand Planning on revenue forecasting and budgeting.
• Maintain, collect and reconcile revenue bridges across customer, brand, and seasonal lenses.
• Track and scorecard sales performance using Business Intelligence tools.

Trade Promotion

• Oversee the trade promotion accruals and assist in the annual trade rate setting process.
• Partner with the Trade Promotion Manager to review annual accrual forecasts from sales team and brokers.
• Perform, or assist with, analyses to quantify return on trade investment and optimization of trade spending.

Pricing and discounts

• Support the VP of Marketing with pricing analyses including price increase and weight decline at the customer/item level using elasticity and lift modeling; manage price list distribution and internally communicate price adjustments.
• Evaluate the gross list price to net waterfall to ensure pricing discipline.

Commercial Finance and Margin Analysis

Develop tools to monitor customer and brand level margins, monitor trends and identify opportunities.

• Prepare and analyze customer, brand and channel-level P&L statements; identify trends to inform profit opportunities, develop real-time tools for management to track performance, identify opportunities to improve commercial governance and controls (e.g. trade spend, financial transparency to customer concessions).
• Develop the source of truth for standard margin analysis by becoming a key partner during the marketing calendar to develop new produce and identify margin gaps over time; track margin performance trends, benchmark relative to other brands, leverage insights to ensure the business focuses on the largest opportunities using the latest decision frameworks.
• Review and redesign the process and tools used to determine unitary profit calculations in accordance with internally defined standard costing metrics; the process and calculations are used by marketing to make new item decisions and involve input from a variety of cross functional sources including operations, purchasing, and quality control.

Business Partnering

Provide traditional financial support to the Vice President of Marketing to budget and track related expense and develop tools that can be used more broadly to monitor SKU, brand and customer level KPI’s.

• Partner with the VP of Marketing to develop annual expense budgets and monitor variances to budget: significant marketing spend includes traditional advertising development and media buys, travel and entertainment, market research, and social media channel marketing.
• Expected to track and analyze drivers of sales-related spend such as broker commissions.
• Partner with marketing and plant managers to help quantify ROI for capital investment requests from a sales and margin perspective.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Finance, Accounting, or other business fields from a nationally recognized university, MBA preferred
• Minimum of 5 years in sales / customer finance and / or marketing / brand finance or operations, ideally within the CPG food industry
• Strong financial acumen with experience in doing profitability and pricing analysis
• Process oriented with a keen attention to detail
• Ability to develop strong cross-functional relationships

SOFTWARE / INFORMATION SYSTEMS

• Hyperion Cloud Financial Consolidation and Close reporting software
• Oracle EBS Software or similar large ERP system
• Microsoft Office (MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint)
• Deep experience with Business Intelligence tools and familiarity with Trade Promotion Management software

COMPETENCIES AND ABILITIES

• Problem Solving Ability to spot trends that may lead to actionable insights; analyze, distill, and communicate interpretive commentary on financial information and metrics.
• Communication Ability to clearly articulate issues, associated analysis and solutions clearly in both written and oral form and with both financial and non-financially savvy stakeholders
• Leadership Capable of taking the lead in the resolution of issues and gain the commitment of others without direct reporting responsibility
• Team Commitment Capable of gaining respect from others, to share ideas openly and to support team decisions; willingness to cross functional boundaries
• Collaboration Patience to understand current processes and practices coupled with the experience and persuasiveness to propose and implement best practices appropriate for the Company and culture

The expected base salary range for this position is $130,000 to $170,000. The actual compensation offered will be determined based on a range of factors including skills, abilities, and prior experience.