Global Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Location: Ashland, MA
Reports To: CEO
About the Company
KiddeFenwal is a global leader in the design and manufacture of industrial and commercial fire suppression systems and safety controls. Our trusted brands—Kidde Fire Systems and Kidde Fire Protection—deliver certified fire detection, suppression, and control solutions across industrial, commercial, and marine sectors. Fenwal Controls supports OEM partners with gas ignition, temperature control, and overheat detection solutions.
Headquartered in Ashland, Massachusetts, we operate globally with facilities in the United States, United Kingdom and India.
The Position
As KiddeFenwal’s lead finance professional, the CFO will be a key part of the Company’s executive leadership team. The CFO will be responsible for KiddeFenwal’s overall financial leadership, and more specifically, he or she will work to enhance, develop and implement financial processes to improve and optimize the financial health of the Company.
The CFO will partner with the CEO, executive management team, and private equity sponsors in leading KiddeFenwal’s ongoing transformation and growth. He or she will bring value to business strategy and execution, aligning the Company’s financial and business objectives. Furthermore, the executive will be a key contributor to important strategic and operational decisions as KiddeFenwal executes its organic growth plan, which will be augmented by complementary acquisitions.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Partner
- Serve as a business partner and strategic advisor to the CEO, leadership team and private equity sponsor on a wide range of financial, strategic, operational, and organizational issues.
- Interface with peers to evaluate and advise on the financial impact of key initiatives related to cost reduction and revenue expansion synergy opportunities across the enterprise.
Management Reporting and Planning
- Develop and oversee strategic long-term planning, cost controls, business objectives and financial/accounting policies for the company.
- Further enhance KPIs for the financial function, focusing on the most critical drivers or performance.
- Potentially streamline the Company’s internal financial reporting packages.
- Maintain and enhance a reliable cash flow projection process and reporting mechanism which ensures adequate cash/working capital to meet operating needs.
- Develop and monitor a control system designed to protect Company assets and report accurate financial results
- Lead the Company’s annual budgeting process and overall financial modeling, planning and analysis functions.
Operational Finance
- Proactively provide the business with insightful, useful and succinct analysis to optimize decision-making, help to grow the business, and increase margins ultimately resulting in improved financial rigor and discipline across the company.
- Partner with commercial and operational finance leaders to provide relevant and timely analysis, benchmarks, pricing models, and business insights that inform business decisions and drive profitable growth.
- Develop and review financial forecasts (e.g., monthly, quarterly, remainder of year) with senior management to assure business performance in line with expectations and external guidance. Recommend actions for improvement as appropriate.
Team Leadership
- Recruit, develop, motivate and retain a highly effective global finance team capable of working closely alongside corporate and business unit leadership teams to help drive results.
- Develop the next generation of finance and accounting talent for the organization.
Stewardship
- Ensure the fiscal integrity of the business through enhancement and management of accounting systems, policy and controls.
- Manage the relationship with the company’s external auditors.
Acquisitions
- Support execution of acquisitions, focusing on financial/accounting due diligence and financing process.
- Play leadership role in acquisition integration.
Qualifications & Experience
We seek an analytical, hands-on, and operationally oriented financial leader who is well versed in creating value for the enterprise. He or she will possess exceptional intellect,
superior communication capabilities, business and finance acumen and leadership skills, along with high emotional intelligence. The CFO will drive the finance function to strengthen the Company’s operational performance and overall productivity. Ideal candidates will bring a proven track record of financial leadership in complex and industrial global manufacturing businesses. He or she will have hands-on expertise with executing multiple acquisitions, integrating acquisitions and driving deep operational improvements. He or she will serve as a key member of the senior management team and will be a leader in optimizing productivity, margin enhancement, and value creation.
- 15+ years of senior level finance leadership experience - Standalone CFO experience is strongly preferred; exceptional step-up candidates will be considered.
- Relevant sector experience at scale and in companies of comparable complexity - Experience in manufacturing at companies over $250 million in annual revenue is required.
- Experience in a global environment - Global experience is preferred. Ideally an individual who has operated businesses across regions and has overseen distributed teams.
- Private equity exposure - Experience in private equity environments is preferred. Experience interacting with and partnering with public debtholders is also preferred. Public company executive finance experience will also be considered.
- Experience with M&A - Experience leading significant acquisition integrations is highly desirable, and experience executing acquisitions is also preferred.
- Capital Structure - Experience managing the capital structure, making financing decisions and managing relationships with lenders, debt holders, and bankers.
- Education and Professional Credentials - The candidate will have an undergraduate degree in accounting, finance, economics or related; CPA and MBA are desired.
Critical Leadership Capabilities
Leading People
- Collaborates and openly debates with the team to manage projects, solve problems, discuss challenging issues, or learn more about critical issues as a group.
- Delegates roles thoughtfully to free self to work at a more strategic level, but possesses a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude and approach at critical times (particularly to set an example organizationally).
- Collaborates with each employee to establish clear, challenging performance goals and metrics for the year.
- Possesses strong project management skillset and demonstrated ability to train others to manage projects successfully across the organization.
- Designs a performance management process to monitor projects and deliver results that exceed expectations and meet deadlines.
- Periodically reviews team progress against plans, focuses attention beyond the project to the full year or more.
Collaborating and Influencing
- Possesses exceptional communication skills, where he or she can (a) thoughtfully structure his or her thoughts for multiple stakeholders (e.g., Board, lenders, auditors, employees, etc.), (b) actively listen to build understanding across these groups, and (c) develop and professionally deliver presentations and other written documents.
- Negotiates with a genuine give-and-take approach, where both parties act as true peers and decisions are shared.
- Spends time identifying all stakeholders necessary and meets or connects with all of them, neglecting no one to shape a collective consensus.
- Identifies opportunities to build relationships that will help others achieve their objectives and reaches out to those people or new people.
Driving Results
- Acts to surpass goals, seizing opportunities to push the envelope, and delivers outcomes on time.
- Sets continually higher goals that are ambitious but realistic for self and team, gearing such goals to organizational objectives.
- Focuses on new business opportunities that enable business development targets to be exceeded.
