Our client, located in Yorktown Heights, NY is seeking an accomplished Chief Financial Officer with deep construction-industry experience and a strong accounting foundation. This is a senior financial leadership role for a CFO who is equally comfortable overseeing company strategy and getting into the details of the accounting operation. The successful candidate will take ownership of the integrity of the company's financial reporting, accounting processes, job costing, cash flow, internal controls, and project financial performance while serving as a key financial partner to ownership and senior leadership.
The ideal candidate will have progressed through accounting and controllership-oriented roles and will bring hands-on expertise in construction accounting. While the CFO will contribute to planning, profitability, banking, risk management, and long-term decision-making, the primary emphasis of the position is maintaining a disciplined, accurate, timely, and well-controlled accounting and finance function.
Key Responsibilities
Accounting Leadership and Financial Reporting
- Direct all accounting functions and maintain overall responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, and timeliness of the company’s financial records.
- Own the monthly, quarterly, and year-end close process, ensuring accounts are reconciled and financial statements are produced accurately and on schedule.
- Oversee general ledger activity, journal entries, accruals, prepaids, fixed assets, intercompany transactions, and account reconciliations.
- Review balance sheet and income statement accounts and investigate variances, unusual activity, and accounting discrepancies.
- Establish and enforce accounting policies, procedures, close schedules, and documentation standards.
- Maintain a strong system of internal controls designed to safeguard company assets and ensure the integrity of financial information.
- Coordinate year-end financial statement preparation, external audits/reviews, tax work, and requests from outside accountants and advisors.
Construction and Project Accounting
- Provide direct oversight of construction accounting, including job costing, work-in-progress (WIP) reporting, percentage-of-completion accounting, contract accounting, and project profitability.
- Ensure labor, materials, subcontractor costs, equipment, overhead, and other project costs are properly captured and allocated to jobs.
- Review project budgets, committed costs, actual costs, estimated costs to complete, and gross profit projections with project management.
- Oversee AIA/progress billing, retainage, change orders, contract values, vendor payments, lien releases, and project-related receivables and payables.
- Analyze job-cost and WIP reports to identify margin erosion, cost overruns, billing issues, under/over billings, and other financial risks.
- Partner closely with project managers and operational leadership to improve the accuracy of project forecasts and financial accountability.
Cash Flow, Working Capital and Treasury
- Manage company-wide cash flow forecasting with particular attention to the timing of construction billings, collections, retainage, payroll, subcontractor payments, and major project expenditures.
- Oversee accounts receivable, accounts payable, collections, working capital, and vendor payment strategy.
- Manage banking relationships, credit facilities, borrowing availability, covenant compliance, and other treasury activities.
- Provide ownership with clear visibility into current liquidity, near-term cash requirements, and financial commitments.
Budgeting, Forecasting and Financial Analysis
- Lead the annual budgeting process and maintain rolling forecasts for revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, cash flow, and capital needs.
- Prepare meaningful financial analysis for ownership and senior leadership, translating accounting results into actionable business information.
- Analyze actual results against budget, forecast, and prior periods and explain significant variances.
- Develop and monitor key financial and operational metrics, including project margins, backlog, WIP, cash conversion, overhead, and profitability.
- Support pricing, capital expenditures, major contracts, investments, and other significant financial decisions with disciplined analysis.
Compliance, Payroll and Risk Management
- Ensure compliance with applicable accounting standards, tax requirements, construction-industry reporting requirements, and company policies.
- Maintain oversight of payroll accounting, including union labor rates, benefits, payroll reconciliations, and related liabilities.
- Coordinate insurance, bonding, audit, tax, and regulatory matters in partnership with external providers and advisors.
- Maintain appropriate financial controls around contracts, purchasing, disbursements, payroll, billing, and project accounting.
Leadership and Strategic Partnership
- Lead, develop, and hold accountable the accounting and finance team while remaining sufficiently hands-on to understand and improve day-to-day processes.
- Serve as the senior accounting and financial resource to ownership, providing clear, fact-based guidance on company performance and financial risk.
- Partner with operations and project management to strengthen financial discipline throughout the organization.
- Evaluate accounting systems, reporting tools, workflows, and staffing needs and implement improvements that increase accuracy, efficiency, and scalability.
- Contribute to long-term planning, profitability initiatives, growth opportunities, and other strategic matters as a member of the senior leadership team.
Qualifications And Experience
- Bachelor’s degree in Accounting required; Finance or a related discipline may be considered with substantial accounting experience. CPA and/or MBA preferred.
- 10+ years of progressive accounting and financial leadership experience, including significant experience as a Controller, VP of Finance, CFO, or comparable senior financial executive.
- Strong preference for a candidate whose career foundation is in accounting and who has personally overseen financial reporting, close, general ledger, reconciliations, controls, and audit processes.
- Substantial construction-industry experience with demonstrated expertise in job costing, WIP reporting, project accounting, retainage, progress/AIA billing, and construction financial reporting.
- Strong understanding of GAAP and the accounting implications of construction contracts and project-based operations.
- Demonstrated ability to manage cash flow, working capital, banking relationships, budgeting, forecasting, and financial analysis.
- Experience leading accounting teams while maintaining a hands-on approach to reviewing financial information and resolving accounting issues.
- Strong systems aptitude; experience with construction accounting/ERP platforms and advanced Excel skills required. QuickBooks, Yardi, or similar systems experience is valuable.
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to work effectively with ownership, project managers, operations personnel, banks, auditors, and outside advisors.
Preferred Profile
This opportunity is best suited for a construction finance executive who considers themselves an accountant first and a strategic CFO second: someone who can confidently advise ownership on the business while also ensuring that the books are right, the close is disciplined, project accounting is accurate, cash is controlled, and the financial reporting can be relied upon.
The compensation for this position ranges from $200,000.00 - $250,000.00. Actual compensation will be dependent upon the specific role, office location as well as the individual’s qualifications, experience, skills and certifications.
To all staffing agencies: PKF O’Connor Davies TalentConnect (“PKFOD TalentConnect”) will not be utilizing agencies to staff this position. Please do not forward resumes to PKFOD TalentConnect recruiters, partners and/or employees at any of our locations regarding this position. Please be reminded, PKFOD TalentConnect is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes. All unsolicited resumes will become the property of PKFOD TalentConnect.
