Financial Controller - Manufacturing Firm - CA

Qualification: Chartered Accountant

Africa experience is must for this position

To serve as head financial controller across the company's multiple manufacturing divisions, with a primary mandate to install and run a rigorous physical auditing and loss-prevention regime across every division, and to give the business accurate, decision-ready financial control through disciplined budgeting, departmental cost control, and SKU-level costing analysis. The role exists to convert a multi-division operation with limited financial structure into one where every dollar of stock, spend, and asset value is tracked, verified, and explainable.

A. Physical Auditing & Loss Prevention: primary mandate

- Design, document, and run a scheduled physical audit cycle covering every division, store, procurement, garage, and spare-parts holding with both routine periodic counts and unannounced spot audits.

- Reconcile physical stock against book stock at each cycle; investigate, quantify, and report all variances, distinguishing between theft / shrinkage, production loss, and recording error.

- Build the control framework (segregation of duties, sign-off chains, gate and weighbridge controls, store-issue documentation) that closes the gaps loss typically passes through in an operating environment.

- Escalate material discrepancies directly to the MD/Chairman with a clear quantification of value at risk and recommended corrective action.

B. Budgeting & Financial Planning:

- Build and own the annual budget for every division, working with production and department heads to ground projections in operational reality.

- Produce rolling forecasts and projections (including for departmental expansion) and track actuals against budget with variance commentary.

- Build the financial models the business can pull on demand to support purchasing, sales, and capital decisions.

C. Costing & SKU Analysis:

- Build a SKU-level costing system across divisions and deliver a monthly cost analysis to the Sales and Procurement heads showing how unit costs are moving month-on-month and why.

- Develop accurate cost accounting (standard vs. actual, full absorption of overheads) so pricing, margin, and procurement decisions rest on real numbers.

- Surface the cost levers that matter input prices, yield, downtime, energy and flag emerging margin erosion early.

D. Departmental Cost Control:

- Audit and control spend in each support function garage, HR / manpower, spare parts against budget.

- Monitor and report manpower cost, overtime (local and expatriate), and headcount efficiency by department.

- Build and manage a spare-parts budget and consumption model for each division (critical to keeping a line running without over-stocking idle capital).

E. Asset Lifecycle Management:

- Maintain a complete fixed-asset register and manage the lifecycle of machinery capital cost, depreciation, maintenance spend, and replacement timing by department and key machine.

- Track total spend flowing into each department and each critical asset to inform repair-vs-replace decisions.

F. Treasury & Reporting:

- Manage invoicing and transfer pricing through parent / related companies.

- Support treasury, cash-flow planning, and financial projections.

- Prepare annual accounts for shareholders and provide regular productivity and sales-performance reporting by department.

- Lead a structured cost-cutting review across departments.

5. KEY SUCCESS FACTORS / PERFORMANCE INDICATORS:

- A documented physical audit cycle running on schedule across all divisions, with variance reports issued on time.

- Measurable reduction in unexplained stock variance / shrinkage over the first 12 months.

- Monthly SKU costing and departmental cost reports delivered reliably and used in pricing and procurement decisions.

- Divisional budgets built, tracked, and reported against with clear variance commentary.

- Spare-parts and asset spend brought under a controlled budget.

6. JOB COMPLEXITY (factors affecting the job & challenges):

- Operating with significant theft and security exposure, requiring physical controls as much as financial ones.

- Managing and developing a local finance team and enforcing controls across staff with varied training.

- High-pressure, high-workload, multi-division environment.

- Building SOPs and cost-accounting structure from a low base much of the control framework will need to be created, not merely maintained.