Finance Manager
Vadigran is a family-owned company with over 60 years of history and is currently undergoing a transformation to expand its reach globally. The company aims to shift from a production and distribution company that supplies retailers with commodity pet products to a mission and brand-driven organization that helps consumers sustainably care for their pets. Transparency, creativity, and autonomy are the core values of Vadigran, while gossip, ego, and bureaucracy are strongly discouraged. The company has a production facility in Lennik and a distribution centre in Ghislenghien, where they offer a range of high-quality pet products for different pets. Vadigran's dedication to sustainability and pet care has made it a trusted and popular choice for pet owners. They offer nutritious and delicious pet food, supplements, and accessories.
Your responsibilities
You will be responsible for the finance department in all its aspects. This includes general accounting, credit control, reporting and legal. You will lead your team of two accounting managers and a credit controller. You have a team, but we are an SME company, so you will be expected to do operational work on topics like monthly/annual closing, VAT, legal research or company setup.
Next to ensuring your finance department runs smoothly, you will also be a business partner to the executive team to improve overall business performance. You will be responsible for setting up the budgeting processes, cash flow management and general business intelligence. Based on your data gathering, you will proactively approach department heads to suggest improvements that help the business and bottom line.
You will also set up the financial architecture of the different entities to increase visibility on performance while decreasing complexity. You will use the transformation to a new ERP system to rethink the way of working.
You will report to the CEO and be expected to take a leading role in the transformational journey your team, the company and the culture are going through.
Your priorities for the first year
Optimize workflow of the finance department
- Set up meeting structure
- Set up digital processes between finance and other departments
- Decrease closing time from 20 to 5 days
- Key user for new ERP
- Coach your team
- Follow treasury management processes, ensure compliance with ALM & controlling and treasury management
Refine financial reporting to support the drumbeat of:
- Rolling budget
- P&L reporting
- Cash planning
- S&OP
Business partnering
- Set up a company process for continuous improvements
- Prepare and participate in monthly performance reviews of each department
- Write and update multiyear financial business plans to support and implement new strategic direction
- Scenario planning for large projects like new production facilities or new logistics network
The challenge
Vadigran has big international growth ambitions. It will be your job to analyze opportunities and risks and help the organisation cope with the effects of implementing a new business model.
Being a 60-year-old company has its advantages and disadvantages. The good news is that they don’t have to start from scratch, the bad news is that they can’t start from scratch. The biggest challenge is probably to keep the as-is running smoothly while transforming its strategy, organisation and processes.
You will need to show strong decision-making skills, be able to adjust to changing circumstances and be able to communicate and convey difficult managerial and financial information. Combining strategic & change management to implement future-proof processes while being in control of the company's overall financial health.
Your profile
To succeed in this role, you'll need the following skills:
- Relevant financial experience in a similar business model (consumer goods, production, distribution)
- Excellent analytical skills supported by strong knowledge of excel and other BI tools
- Strong knowledge of business principles
- Not afraid to challenge senior management
- Willingness to combine operational, project and strategic work
- Familiarity with different costing methods (standard costing, marginal costing) and ability to manage and organize these within the entire company
- Familiar with consolidation
- Experience with process improvement methodology
- Ability to turn strategy into tactical business plans
- High level of emotional maturity & reliability
- People coaching skills
- Fluent in Dutch, French and English
- Result-driven with a winning attitude for the whole and not the self
- You are an intrapreneur; you don’t wait for orders - you take action
