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Chief Financial Officer
On-Site | Upper Midwest | Mapleton/Fargo ND area
Revenue Range: $22MM– $30MM | Structural Steel Fabrication & Robotics-Driven Manufacturing

Company Overview

We are a privately held, founder-led structural steel and advanced fabrication business integrating robotics and automated production systems into a growing industrial platform. Historically reaching $30MM+ in annual revenue, the business is currently operating in the $16–20MM range and entering a critical phase of operational refinement, financial infrastructure development, and executive succession planning.

Ownership intends to transition out of day-to-day leadership within the next 24 months. This hire will architect and execute that transition.

Position Summary

This is not a traditional CFO role. It is an enterprise-level operator embedded within a manufacturing environment.

We are seeking a financially rigorous, operationally fluent executive who can simultaneously:

• Build modern financial infrastructure
• Implement real-time job costing and production visibility
• Drive budgeting, forecasting, and margin discipline
• Professionalize accounting and payroll processes
• Integrate financial oversight with shop-floor operations
• Reduce founder dependency
• Ultimately assume day-to-day enterprise leadership

The ideal candidate understands that EBITDA is built on the shop floor, not in spreadsheets.

Core Mandate (First 24 Months)

Financial Architecture & Control

• Own full-cycle financial reporting (monthly, quarterly, annual)
• Lead audit, tax, and external advisory relationships
• Strengthen internal controls and close process discipline
• Overhaul transactional accounting and payroll accuracy
• Establish KPI-driven financial dashboards

FP&A Infrastructure

• Design and implement formal annual budgeting processes
• Build rolling forecasts and variance analytics
• Develop margin-by-job profitability models
• Create scenario planning tied to backlog, steel pricing, labor efficiency, and automation ROI

Job Costing & Operational Integration

• Implement ground-up job costing architecture
• Integrate labor, material, overhead, and equipment allocation visibility
• Connect costing to production scheduling and throughput analysis
• Drive margin accountability at the project manager level
• Improve working capital velocity and WIP visibility

Operational Leadership

• Translate robotics and automation investments into measurable ROI
• Partner with production leadership on capacity optimization
• Align financial targets with throughput and utilization metrics
• Implement cost accounting rigor within a custom fabrication environment
• Build a scalable organizational structure across finance and operations

Succession & Enterprise Transition

• Develop second-layer leadership
• Create documented processes across finance and operations
• Reduce key-person risk
• Position the business for ownership transition (internal succession or transaction readiness)

Candidate Profile

We are seeking a builder, not a maintainer.

Required Experience

• 10–15+ years progressive leadership in manufacturing, fabrication, or industrial environments
• Proven implementation of job costing systems in project-based or custom manufacturing
• Demonstrated FP&A buildout experience (budgeting, forecasting, variance discipline)
• Strong cost accounting expertise
• Experience in founder-led or closely held businesses
• Track record of operational partnership — not back-office isolation

Highly Valued

• Experience in structural steel, metal fabrication, or industrial production
• ERP implementation or upgrade exposure
• Exposure to automation/robotics ROI modeling
• Prior involvement in succession planning or business transition

Leadership Attributes

• Financially disciplined yet operationally curious
• Comfortable on the shop floor and in executive meetings
• Structured, calm, process-oriented
• Culturally intelligent — capable of earning trust in a founder-led environment
• Decisive without ego

Why This Role Is Different

This is an opportunity to:

• Architect financial and operational infrastructure from the ground up
• Influence enterprise direction in real time
• Transition into full operational leadership
• Shape the next chapter of a technically innovative manufacturing platform

If you are a technically capable, operationally credible executive who thrives in building structure where it does not yet exist — this role offers rare enterprise-level impact.