Investor-Backed Specialty Manufacturing Platform
Madden Talent Partners is partnering with a national, multi-site specialty manufacturing platform to identify its next Chief Financial Officer.
Backed by an experienced investor focused on the building products industry, the company provides differentiated lamination, fabrication, finishing, and related manufacturing solutions to customers across North America. The business has built a national footprint while maintaining the entrepreneurial pace and operational complexity of a hands-on, custom manufacturing environment.
This is an important and highly visible leadership hire. The CFO will report directly to the CEO and work closely with the company’s operating leaders, board, and private equity partner. The organization is looking for a finance executive who wants to help shape the business; not simply report on it.
The right leader will bring strong financial discipline while also developing sharper forward-looking insights, identifying opportunities across the company’s plants and product lines, and translating the numbers into meaningful operating recommendations.
The Opportunity
The CFO will serve as a true financial and strategic partner to the CEO, leadership team, and private equity sponsor. This leader will have the opportunity to strengthen the company’s financial and operational capabilities while playing a central role in its continued growth and evolution.
Key priorities include:
- Strengthening strategic planning, budgeting, forecasting, cash-flow management, and scenario analysis
- Creating greater visibility into performance across plants, products, customers, margins, costs, capacity, and productivity
- Translating financial and operating data into practical recommendations that improve business performance
- Identifying trends, risks, and opportunities early and helping leadership determine the appropriate actions
- Owning the monthly close, management reporting, and financial review process
- Providing clear, credible reporting and forward-looking commentary to leadership, the board, and the private equity sponsor
- Maintaining strong accounting, controls, and financial reporting discipline
- Leading and developing a lean finance team while remaining comfortable working directly in the details
- Building an effective partnership between finance and the company’s operating leaders
What Success Looks Like
- The CEO, leadership team, and board have timely and accurate visibility into performance, cash flow, risks, and opportunities
- Forecasting and cash-flow planning become more reliable, proactive, and useful in guiding operating and investment decisions
- Plant-, product-, and customer-level analytics provide a clearer understanding of margin, cost, capacity, pricing, and productivity
- Finance moves beyond reporting historical results to explaining performance, identifying trends, and recommending what the business should do next
- The finance function maintains strong accounting and reporting discipline while becoming a practical, trusted partner to the operating team
- Company leadership and the private equity sponsor are aligned around financial performance, outlook, and priorities
The Ideal Background
The successful candidate will likely bring:
- Experience as a hands-on CFO, VP of Finance, or senior finance leader within a smaller or middle-market business
- A strong combination of FP&A, strategic planning, financial analysis, accounting, and controllership experience
- Manufacturing finance experience, ideally within a custom, multi-site, short-run, or diverse-product environment
- The ability to analyze performance at the plant, product, customer, and operational-resource levels
- Experience partnering with private equity sponsors, boards, lenders, or other highly engaged ownership groups
- Strong cash-flow forecasting, budgeting, and management-reporting capabilities
- The ability to lead a lean team without losing connection to the underlying financial details
- Executive presence without ego and the ability to communicate effectively with operators, executives, and investors
- A practical, curious, and commercially minded approach to finance
- Comfort operating through ambiguity, balancing competing priorities, and maintaining a constructive sense of urgency
Leadership Profile
This opportunity is well suited for a finance leader who is:
- Hands-on and resourceful
- Analytical and commercially minded
- Transparent, direct, and collaborative
- Calm under pressure and comfortable with accountability
- Curious about operations and motivated to understand root causes
- Energized by the opportunity to make a visible impact within a growing business
- Interested in building with the leadership team over a multi-year horizon
Location
The company is headquartered in Osseo, Wisconsin. Because of the hands-on and operational nature of the role, a consistent on-site leadership presence is important. Candidates who are based in the region or genuinely willing to relocate will receive priority consideration.
