Finance Manager Supply Chain - Aerospace Manufacturing

Supply Chain Finance Manager

Los Angeles / South Bay, CA (Onsite) | ~10% Travel 

A rapidly growing aerospace and defense manufacturer and systems integrator, supporting U.S. and allied defense programs across multiple platforms, is establishing its first-ever dedicated Supply Chain Finance function. This is a newly created role — there is no existing process to inherit, and the individuals who historically covered pieces of this work have since retired. You will build the budgeting, forecasting, cost estimating, and performance-management infrastructure for Supply Chain from the ground up.

The company is in a significant growth phase: expanding its physical footprint, carrying a strong backlog, and tracking several major new program awards — including a large-scale missile defense program with a leading prime contractor and a new directed-energy product line — that are expected to drive additional headcount and scope in this function in the near term.

Key Responsibilities

Budgeting, Forecasting & Long-Range Planning

• Lead annual budgeting for the Supply Chain organization, covering both contract-side and overhead expenses.
• Build out Estimate-at-Completion (EAC) forecasting methodology for supply chain costs — this process does not yet exist and needs to be designed from scratch.
• Develop long-range headcount and workforce planning models for the organization, tied to the budget.
• Establish performance reporting that measures actuals against budget and forecast.

Material Cost Estimating

• Serve as the Supply Chain focal point for material cost estimating, partnering with a broader cross-functional estimating group.
• Support modernization of a currently manual estimating process, including evaluation of dedicated cost-estimating tools.
• Help close the gap between proposal-stage cost and quote inputs and what buyers ultimately execute post-award, so proposed and actual costs stay connected.

Buyer & Supplier Cost Performance

• Analyze buyer performance against negotiated cost and quantity, by commodity.
• Evaluate the cost impact of shipping terms, expedited orders, and other landed-cost drivers on total cost of goods.
• Partner with buyers to move beyond reliance on historical PO pricing alone, incorporating quantity-based pricing relationships (learning and improvement curves) and appropriate competitive quoting practices.
• Build accountability frameworks for buyer cost performance in partnership with Supply Chain leadership, without directly managing procurement staff.

ERP Transition Support

Support the organization's upcoming migration to a current, DoD-compliant ERP environment, including data validation and reporting continuity throughout the transition.

Reporting, Tools & Process Improvement

• Build and improve cost and performance dashboards and reporting, with an emphasis on better automation (current environment is SAP and Excel; Power BI and Power Query are available but underused).
• Bring advanced Excel modeling skills — this is not an entry-level formula role; macro or VBA experience is a plus.
• Help identify where AI-assisted tools can reduce manual reporting effort.
• Apply Lean/Six Sigma methods to streamline supply chain finance processes.

Compliance & Risk Awareness

• Support the organization's readiness for cost and pricing compliance (TINA, CPSR, FAR, DFARS) — not mandatory, but a meaningful plus given an upcoming compliance review.
• Maintain awareness of evolving cost/pricing thresholds, including the current TINA certified cost and pricing data threshold ($10 million).
• Partner with the company's separate compliance and export-control function on ITAR and related matters as needed.
• Nice to have: a broader awareness of geopolitical and macroeconomic factors affecting materials and supply availability.

Qualifications and Skills

Required

• 5–8+ years of progressive finance experience in supply chain finance, operational finance, or cost accounting.
• Aerospace & Defense industry experience.
• Genuine, hands-on fluency with Bills of Material (BOM) — how they drive supply chain requirements, feed proposal pricing, and connect to purchase orders and buyer workflows. This is a real working knowledge, not textbook familiarity.
• Strong analytical and financial modeling skills; advanced Excel required.
• A true business-partner mindset: proven ability to build trust and credibility within an operations organization that may initially be cautious about finance involvement. This is a partnership role, not an audit or enforcement function.
• Material cost estimating experience.
• Lean/Six Sigma experience or certification.
• Familiarity with TINA, CPSR, FAR, DFARS.
• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Supply Chain Management, Business Administration, or a related field.

Preferred

• Experience with SAP; SAP HANA and business intelligence platforms a plus.
• Experience supporting a live ERP migration (e.g., SAP ECC to S/4HANA) a plus.
• VBA or macro development experience.
• MBA or relevant advanced certification.
• A broader, geopolitically-informed view of supply chain risk.