Director of Accounting

At Kelso Industries, 5,000+ employees across 40+ companies work together to deliver exceptional HVAC, mechanical, plumbing, refrigeration, and electrical solutions nationwide. Join us to grow your career, make an impact, and be part of a team where innovation, excellence, and safety come first.

Kelso Industries is a nationwide, private equity backed platform of mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC operating companies on a path to becoming a public company. We are seeking a Director of Accounting Operations to own the global month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close for the Kelso enterprise. This leader will design the close, reconciliation, and internal control framework that allows Kelso to produce accurate, auditable consolidated results on a public-company timeline, and will build the team that runs it.

This is a builder role, not a maintenance role. Kelso is not looking for someone to run an established close. The processes, standards, controls, and team this role requires are being built now, while the company continues to grow through acquisition. The right candidate has built a public-company-ready accounting operations function before, is energized by designing something that does not yet exist, and will leave behind infrastructure that scales well beyond the IPO.

• Lead the end-to-end global month-end, quarter-end, and year-end close for the Kelso enterprise, including the close calendar, task ownership, dependencies, and daily status reporting to finance leadership.
• Establish a close process that supports public-company reporting timelines, including a defined days-to-close target, a quarterly close calendar aligned to Form 10-Q and Form 10-K filing deadlines, and hard-close discipline at every entity.
• Oversee the consolidation close in Net Suite One World, including intercompany reconciliation and eliminations, period lock discipline, and subsidiary-level close status across the enterprise.
• Establish enterprise review and approval standards for journal entries, accruals, intercompany activity, and balance sheet reconciliations; directly review designated material or high-risk items before consolidation and ensure documentation meets external audit standards.
• Deliver a consolidated trial balance and supporting schedules to the technical accounting and financial reporting team that are complete, reconciled, and ready for SEC reporting.

• Design and maintain the enterprise close checklist in Flo Qast across all entities, with standardized tasks, due dates, dependencies, and clearly defined preparer and reviewer responsibilities. Establish the enterprise reconciliation standard, including templates, support requirements, account risk tiering, review evidence, and sign-off expectations, and achieve full reconciliation coverage across every balance sheet account.
• Design, document, and operate the record-to-report control environment in preparation for SOX 404, including key controls over the close, journal entries, account reconciliations, intercompany, and consolidation, as well as the completeness and accuracy of information produced by the entity (IPE).
• Write the accounting operations policies, close procedures, and desk-level documentation required of a public company.
• Define and report close quality metrics by entity, including days to close, reconciliation coverage, on-time sign-off, cutoff accuracy, post-close adjustments, and open item aging.
• Build a repeatable integration playbook that moves newly acquired operating companies onto Net Suite and the global close standard on a defined timeline.
• Lead the accounting integration of each newly acquired operating company, bringing local accounting teams onto the Kelso close standard, including the close calendar, Flo Qast checklist, reconciliation standard, and close controls, and training them to execute a compliant close from their first month under Kelso ownership.
• Communicate close performance, emerging risks, key judgments, and remediation priorities clearly and concisely to finance leadership and other stakeholders.

• Partner with the Corporate Controller and the business systems team to automate the close, including automated journal entries, bank reconciliation matching, and Net Suite and Flo Qast configuration.
• Deploy AI tools and…