Finance Manager, Food & Beverage

About Zep Inc.

Zep Inc. is a leading manufacturer of cleaning solutions for businesses and consumers with operations across the U.S, Canada, and Europe. Our purpose is to make the planet cleaner, safer, and more productive. To fulfill our purpose, we focus on understanding and solving cleaning needs for consumers, as well as business customers across a variety of segments including transportation, industrial, institutional, and food & beverage. We also have a strong presence in the consumer-packaged goods (CPG) segment, where we develop products to help consumers and businesses maintain a clean and safe environment. Our products can be found online and at retail shelves at outlets like Home Depot, Amazon, Lowe’s, Ace Hardware, Grainger, HD Supply, Walmart, and many others. We market our products under well recognized and established brand names, such as Zep®, Enforcer®, Misty®, TimeMist®, TimeWick, and Country Vet®. Zep was founded in 1937 and is headquartered in Atlanta, GA. In 2021, Zep became the official cleaning partner of Atlanta United FC.

Job Description:

The Finance Manager, FP&A is the dedicated finance partner to Zep's Food & Beverage business. The role owns the F&B budget, rolling forecasts and monthly performance reporting, and turns results into clear, actionable insight for the VP of Finance and F&B leadership.

This is a hands-on individual contributor role. You will build the models, run the analysis and present the story behind the numbers. The right person is equally comfortable in a detailed Excel model and in a conversation with a commercial or operations leader.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Planning and forecasting

• Lead the Food & Beverage annual budget: build the templates and model, coordinate inputs from F&B commercial and operations leaders, and roll it into the company consolidation
• Own the F&B rolling forecast for revenue, gross profit, operating expenses and EBITDA
• Maintain driver-based models linking volume, price, mix and cost assumptions to financial outcomes
• Support the long-range plan and scenario analysis for strategic initiatives

Performance reporting and analysis

• Prepare monthly management reporting packages, including actual vs. budget vs. forecast variance analysis
• Ownership of the P&L
• Explain the drivers behind F&B results, especially gross margin by customer, channel and product line, plus SG&A and working capital trends
• Build and maintain KPI dashboards for leadership and business partners
• Contribute to board and executive presentation materials

Business Partnering

• Serve as the go-to finance partner for the F&B leadership team across sales, operations and supply chain, helping leaders manage to budget
• Evaluate F&B business cases, key account deals, capital requests and pricing or cost-saving initiatives with ROI and payback analysis
• Respond to ad hoc analytical requests from the VP of Finance and executive team
• Work directly with Pricing & Master Data teams to develop optimal pricing and profit realization

Process and Systems

• Improve FP&A processes, templates and timelines to shorten cycle times and reduce manual work
• Partner with Accounting on accruals, allocations and close timing so reporting stays accurate and consistent
• Help define and maintain data sources and reporting tools used for planning

EDUCATION AND REQUIREMENTS

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics or a related field
• 5+ years of progressive experience in FP&A, corporate finance or business unit finance
• Hands-on ownership of budgeting and forecasting cycles, including building models from scratch
• Advanced Excel skills (complex formulas, lookups, pivot tables, scenario modeling)
• Experience with an ERP (e.g., SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards) and a planning or BI tool (e.g., Adaptive, Anaplan, Power BI, Tableau)
• Strong grasp of P&L, balance sheet and cash flow relationships

Preferred

• Experience supporting a Food & Beverage, CPG, specialty chemicals or other manufacturing business
• Background in gross margin analysis: price/volume/mix, standard costing and manufacturing variances
• Exposure to key account or channel profitability analysis
• MBA, CPA or CFA (or progress toward one)
• Experience at a private equity-backed company

Skills and competencies

• Analytical rigor: builds accurate, auditable models and spots the story in the data quickly
• Business acumen: understands how F&B customers, pricing, raw material costs and plant performance flow through the P&L
• Communication: explains complex results simply, in writing and in front of senior leaders
• Influence without authority: challenges assumptions and drives accountability with business partners
• Ownership: manages multiple deadlines through budget and close cycles with minimal supervision
• Continuous improvement: looks for ways to automate, simplify and speed up reporting

What success looks like in the first year

• F&B budget and forecasts delivered on time, with forecast accuracy leadership trusts
• Monthly F&B reporting package that explains margin and cost drivers clearly, not just the variances
• F&B leaders using finance as a regular input to pricing, customer and cost decisions
• At least one FP&A process meaningfully automated or streamlined

Thank you for your interest and consideration in a career with Zep!

www.zep.com

Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants are eligible for consideration for employment without regard to disability, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by law.

Our Values

At Zep, we have developed a set of values focused on bringing even greater cohesion to our workplace. As part of this plan, we introduced a values framework called S.P.E.E.D. to align with our purpose of making the planet cleaner, safer, and more productive.

• Stewardship: We continuously improve the safety of our people and products, and we protect the planet by innovating solutions to reduce our environmental impact.

• Passion for Problem Solving: We listen to our customers and actively work to find solutions for unique situations. We think creatively to innovate and seize opportunities that will drive growth and make all our customers’ and consumers’ lives better.

• Empowerment: We encourage and lead our people to be accountable by equipping them to make decisions and own the outcome

• Expertise: We create innovative solutions and partnerships that are relevant to service our communities and customers.

• Doing the Right Thing: We expect our people to understand ethical boundaries and be inclusive of other backgrounds, ideas, and perspectives. Demonstrating honesty, respect and integrity in all actions is always expected.

Zep is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants are eligible for consideration for employment without regard to disability, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by law.