Senior Manager, NPI & Strategic Initiatives

Intepros; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

IntePros is seeking an experienced finance professional to serve as Senior Manager, NPI & Strategic Initiatives within a growing Finance Operations organization. This role provides financial leadership, governance, and decision support for New Product Introductions (NPI), major customer awards, and other strategic initiatives across the organization.

The Senior Manager will work cross-functionally with Finance, Commercial, Operations, Technical Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, and program

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in finance, FP&A, or program finance with cross-functional exposure.
• Experience supporting complex, cross-functional programs in international or matrixed organizations.
• Strong financial modeling, business-case development, scenario analysis, and executive communication skills.
• Ability to connect operational milestones and risks with revenue, margin, cash, and investment outcomes.
• Proven ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive accountability without direct authority.
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, Engineering, Life Sciences, or related field.

Responsibilities

• Lead financial governance and performance support for selected New Product Introduction programs.
• Partner with program and operational leaders to ensure financial requirements are integrated into plans from award through launch and stabilization.
• Establish project coding, accounting treatment, baselines, and reporting for new programs.
• Create visibility into milestones, readiness, resources, investment requirements, revenue timing, margin, and cash implications.
• Monitor performance against financial expectations and identify risks, delays, or cost under-recovery.
• Provide financial challenge and quantify business impacts to support corrective actions and escalation.

Skills

Financial modeling

Cross-functional collaboration

Executive communication

Stakeholder influence

NPI experience

Education

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, Engineering, Life Sciences

Job description

IntePros is seeking an experienced finance professional to serve as Senior Manager, NPI & Strategic Initiatives within a growing Finance Operations organization. This position will provide financial leadership, governance, and decision support for New Product Introductions (NPI), major customer awards, and other strategic initiatives across the organization.

The Senior Manager will work cross-functionally with Finance, Commercial, Operations, Technical Operations, Quality, Supply Chain, and program teams to provide financial visibility from initial award and business case development through implementation, launch, revenue realization, and sustainable profitability.

This role will not replace operational or program ownership. Instead, it will provide financial rigor, cross-functional coordination, constructive challenge, and executive-level insight for high-priority growth programs.

A key focus will be establishing standardized financial processes, project coding, accounting methodologies, ERP requirements, and reporting frameworks that provide reliable program-level revenue, cost, margin, and P&L visibility.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead financial governance and performance support for selected New Product Introduction programs.
• Partner with program and operational leaders from award through launch and stabilization to ensure financial requirements are incorporated into program plans.
• Establish appropriate project coding, accounting treatment, financial baselines, and reporting requirements for new programs.
• Create consistent visibility into program milestones, readiness, resources, investment requirements, revenue timing, margin development, and cash implications.
• Monitor performance against approved financial expectations and identify delays, scope changes, cost under-recovery, and other emerging risks.
• Provide constructive financial challenge, quantify business impacts, and support corrective actions and escalation when needed.
• Prepare concise NPI performance reviews and executive updates, including key decisions, owners, risks, and follow-through.
• Ensure priority NPI programs maintain appropriate financial rigor, transparency, and accountability.

Strategic Initiatives & Value Realization

• Provide financial leadership for major customer awards, cross-functional programs, and other strategic initiatives.
• Develop and challenge business cases, financial models, scenario analyses, and investment evaluations.
• Evaluate assumptions, sensitivities, risks, expected returns, and potential financial outcomes.
• Establish financial baselines and track costs, timing, revenue, margin, and value realization against approved business cases.
• Identify value leakage, performance gaps, and changes to expected financial outcomes.
• Ensure financial risks and required actions are clearly communicated to accountable leaders.
• Support prioritization of initiatives based on strategic importance, customer commitments, execution capacity, and financial impact.
• Partner with Finance Operations leadership on value-creation initiatives and long-range planning priorities.
• Ensure strategic initiatives deliver against their approved financial and business objectives.

Award-to-Revenue & Program Profitability

• Maintain visibility into major customer awards, implementation status, expected revenue timing, and key dependencies.
• Partner with Finance leadership to assess revenue, contribution margin, capital, working capital, capacity, and resource requirements.
• Connect commercial assumptions with operational readiness and identify risks to launch timing, revenue conversion, and program profitability.
• Support initiatives designed to accelerate revenue realization, recover agreed costs, and protect customer program economics.
• Establish consistent program-level reporting that connects operational milestones to financial outcomes.
• Improve the speed, predictability, and profitability of converting awarded business into revenue.

NPI Finance Capability, Systems & Change Management

• Establish standardized NPI coding, project structures, and data requirements across business segments and ERP environments.
• Align NPI accounting methodologies with Finance and Accounting stakeholders, including revenue recognition, cost accounting, capitalization, accruals, and NPI-related fees.
• Define reporting requirements necessary to produce reliable program-level revenue, cost, margin, and P&L visibility.
• Partner with Accounting, Finance, Corporate FP&A, Business Process Optimization, and IT to implement ERP configurations, reporting solutions, and process controls.
• Lead Finance Operations change-management activities, including process adoption, training, governance, and consistent use of new standards.
• Develop practical interim reporting solutions while progressing toward a scalable, system-enabled NPI reporting model.
• Build the accounting, data, and systems foundation required for consistent NPI reporting, program profitability, and financial decision support.

What Success Looks Like

• Improved visibility, governance, and predictability across priority NPI and strategic programs.
• Earlier identification and resolution of financial, operational, and commercial risks.
• Improved conversion of awarded business into revenue and targeted profitability.
• Transparent delivery against approved business cases, including costs, timing, and value realization.
• Consistent, decision-oriented financial reporting and strong cross-functional collaboration.
• Improved accountability and follow-through across Finance, Commercial, Operations, and program teams.

Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive experience in finance, operational finance, commercial finance, FP&A, strategic finance, program finance, or a comparable discipline.
• Experience supporting complex, cross-functional programs within an international or matrixed organization.
• Strong financial modeling, business-case development, scenario analysis, and executive communication skills.
• Ability to connect operational milestones and risks with revenue, margin, cash, capital, and investment outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders, constructively challenge assumptions, and drive accountability without direct authority.
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, Engineering, Life Sciences, or a related field.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience within pharmaceutical, life sciences, contract development and manufacturing, or another complex, capital-intensive, regulated manufacturing environment.
• Experience with New Product Introduction (NPI), technology transfer, major customer programs, capital investment, project governance, or transformation initiatives.
• Professional finance certification, advanced degree, or relevant program-management qualification.
• Experience defining finance requirements for ERP systems, project coding, program-level P&L reporting, and financial process transformation.
• Experience developing standardized financial reporting and governance processes across multiple business units or sites.

The Ideal Candidate Will Be

• An Enterprise Integrator: Connects Commercial, Operations, program teams, and Finance around common objectives and outcomes.
• A Financial Leader: Brings financial rigor to program economics, investment decisions, and value realization.
• Execution-Focused: Translates financial insight into decisions, actions, ownership, and measurable results.
• A Trusted Partner: Comfortable challenging assumptions constructively while communicating with clarity and executive presence.
• A Hands-On Operator: Able to move effectively between detailed program analysis and broader enterprise-level recommendations.