Senior Finance Business Partner- Operations

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Full Time Ashland, MA, US

Salary Range: $ To $ Annually

At Kidde Fenwal, our purpose is to protect lives, assets, and critical operations through reliable, innovative safety and control solutions. We are committed to engineering excellence, operational integrity, and continuous improvement in everything we do.

As we continue to grow in a complex, data-driven manufacturing environment, we are strengthening our Finance organization to improve speed, accuracy, and insight. This role is central to improving financial visibility, decision-making, and accountability across the Operations organization.

The Senior Finance Business Partner – Operations will serve as the primary finance business partner to the Vice President of Operations and the broader Operations organization. Reporting directly to the Vice President of Operations, with a dotted-line relationship to the Chief Financial Officer, this role will provide financial planning, analysis, reporting, and decision support across manufacturing, supply chain, procurement, engineering, quality, logistics, and capital investment activities.

This individual will lead the annual operating plan and forecasting processes for Operations, support capital planning and expenditure tracking, develop financial business cases, and provide analysis related to make-versus-buy decisions, manufacturing footprint, productivity, sourcing, capacity, inventory, and other operational initiatives.

This is a high-visibility individual contributor role requiring a self-sufficient finance professional who can work through fragmented or difficult-to-access data and develop practical reporting and analytical solutions in an environment where systems and processes are evolving. The successful candidate will combine strong financial and analytical skills with manufacturing acumen, business judgment, and the confidence to challenge assumptions and provide clear recommendations to operational leadership.

• Serve as the primary finance advisor to the Vice President of Operations and Operations leadership team.
• Provide financial guidance across manufacturing, supply chain, procurement, engineering, quality, and logistics.
• Translate operational decisions into impacts on revenue, gross margin, EBITDA, cash flow, inventory, and working capital.
• Identify financial and operational risks and opportunities and recommend actions to improve performance.
• Challenge assumptions and promote accountability for operating commitments and financial targets.
• Build strong relationships with operational leaders and serve as a trusted, objective financial advisor.

• Lead the annual operating plan, periodic forecasts, and long-range planning processes for Operations.
• Develop driver-based forecasts using volume, labor, material, overhead, productivity, capacity, sourcing, and inventory assumptions.
• Partner with Operations leaders to establish clear assumptions, targets, and forecast ownership.
• Analyze performance against budget, forecast, prior year, and operational targets.
• Communicate variances, risks, opportunities, and forecast changes in clear business terms.
• Ensure operational assumptions are aligned with broader company financial plans.

• Develop recurring reporting for manufacturing performance, productivity, labor, overhead, materials, inventory, working capital, and capital expenditures.
• Establish consistent metrics and reporting standards across facilities and operational functions.
• Connect operational KPIs to gross margin, cash flow, and overall financial performance.
• Support monthly and quarterly operating reviews with actionable insights and recommendations.
• Reconcile operational reporting to financial results and investigate material differences.
• Identify trends and underlying business drivers and translate findings into actionable recommendations.

• Develop business cases for make-versus-buy decisions, in sourcing, outsourcing, automation, capacity expansion, supplier changes, and manufacturing footprint initiatives.
• Build financial models addressing implementation costs, savings, margin impact, working capital, risks, sensitivities, and expected returns.
• Incorporate operational factors such as capacity, quality, lead times, logistics, tooling, labor availability, and execution risk.
• Present clear, fact-based recommendations to Operations and executive leadership.
• Track approved business cases against actual results and identify lessons learned.

• Coordinate the annual capital-planning process for Operations.
• Develop and review capital business cases, including payback, return on…