Senior Director, FP&A

Company Description

Simple Mills is on a mission to transform the way food is made, creating nourishing products with astounding ingredients and amazing taste. Founded in 2012 by Katlin Smith, our brand has redefined center-aisle grocery by delivering better-for-you products made with unique, nutrient-dense ingredients. Today, we’re a category leader and the #1 natural brand in multiple segments, with distribution in over 30,000 stores nationwide.

Now, as part of Flowers Foods, we’re entering an exciting new phase of growth—expanding our reach, accelerating innovation, and amplifying brand awareness, all while preserving the integrity of what makes Simple Mills special. Our commitment to using simple, high-quality ingredients ensures that every bite is both delicious and nutritious. Whether it’s watermelon seed flour in our cookies or butternut squash in our crackers, we craft our products with innovative, wholesome ingredients that deliver extraordinary taste.

Our work has been recognized by Fast Company as a Brand That Matters and a Most Innovative Company, and has been featured in Vogue, Forbes, Women’s Health, and NPR’s How I Built This. In 2024, Inc. named us one of its Best Workplaces, reflecting our dedication to fostering an inspiring and inclusive environment where passionate individuals can make a difference.

Join us as we shape the future of food. Learn more at www.simplemills.com.

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or related field required; MBA, CPA, or advanced finance credential preferred.
• 12+ years of progressive finance experience, ideally within CPG, food & beverage, manufacturing, retail, or related consumer industries.
• Significant FP&A, strategic finance, business planning, commercial finance, or corporate finance experience.
• Strong understanding of forecasting, annual planning, long-range planning, financial reporting, performance management, and business analytics.
• Proven ability to partner with senior business leaders and influence enterprise decisions through financial insight and sound judgment.
• Experience supporting executive leadership teams, Board reporting, and strategic decision-making.
• Strong financial modeling and scenario analysis capabilities.
• Ability to challenge assumptions and bring structure to decisions while maintaining strong cross-functional partnerships.
• Experience leading and developing finance talent.
• Strong executive presence and communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex analysis into clear recommendations.
• Strong Excel and financial systems capabilities; ERP, planning platforms, Power BI, or business intelligence experience preferred.
• Agile and adaptable leader comfortable operating through ambiguity, competing priorities, and increasing organizational complexity.
• Strong business judgment with the ability to balance growth, profitability, capability building, and enterprise priorities.

The Senior Director, FP&A is a senior finance leadership role responsible for strengthening enterprise planning, improving business performance visibility, and helping guide strategic decision-making across Simple Mills.

Serving as a key finance partner across the organization, this individual will lead annual planning, long-range planning, forecasting, performance management, and executive reporting while helping connect strategy, operating performance, and financial outcomes. The role requires a commercially minded finance leader with strong analytical rigor, executive presence, and the ability to challenge and support business leaders in equal measure.

As Simple Mills continues to evolve, this leader will help strengthen FP&A capability, build greater visibility into business performance, improve planning discipline, and advance how financial insights support decision-making across the organization. The ideal candidate is a strong business partner who can connect details to bigger-picture business outcomes, lead through ambiguity, and bring structure to a fast-moving and increasingly complex business environment.

• Serve as a key finance partner to the senior leadership team, providing financial insight, challenge, and decision support across Commercial, Marketing, Operations, Supply Chain, Innovation, and People.

• Lead annual operating planning, forecast development, long-range planning, and enterprise performance management processes.

• Translate business strategies into financial plans that align resources, investments, and priorities to company objectives.

• Connect financial performance to broader business outcomes, ensuring leaders understand the key drivers of growth, profitability, cash flow, and return on investment.

• Partner with functional leaders to identify risks, opportunities, and performance gaps, ensuring plans are financially grounded and tied to business objectives.

• Balance strategic leadership with hands-on analysis and execution in a fast-moving, scaling business environment.

• Lead consolidated forecasting across revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, capital investments, working capital, and cash flow.
• Own the company’s Annual Operating Plan, rolling forecast process, and long-range planning process.
• Partner cross-functionally to ensure planning assumptions are aligned, transparent, realistic, and financially sound.
• Monitor forecast accuracy, identify key drivers of variance, and recommend corrective actions as needed.
• Lead reporting and analysis of business performance versus forecast, plan, and prior year.
• Develop tools and routines that help leaders proactively manage performance and understand the financial implications of business decisions.
• Support senior leadership with concise, enterprise-level insights tied to growth, profitability, resource allocation, and risk management.

• Lead preparation of monthly, quarterly, and annual reporting packages for executive leadership and the Board of Directors.
• Own development of financial scorecards, KPIs, dashboards, and business performance reporting.
• Translate complex financial and operating performance into clear recommendations and actionable insights.
• Partner closely with Accounting to ensure consistency between actual results, forecasts, and management reporting.
• Improve visibility into business drivers across revenue, profitability, working capital, operations, supply chain, and organizational investments.
• Strengthen performance management by creating greater transparency, accountability, and consistency across the organization.

Lead financial evaluation of strategic initiatives, investment decisions, profitability improvement opportunities, and resource allocation priorities.

• Partner with leaders across the business to evaluate growth opportunities, operating initiatives, capability investments, and organizational decisions.
• Support scenario modeling related to revenue growth, margin opportunities, cost structure changes, supply chain initiatives, and enterprise investments.
• Challenge business assumptions when needed to ensure decisions are supported by realistic financial expectations and clear success metrics.
• Help leadership prioritize opportunities based on expected financial return, strategic fit, execution risk, and enterprise impact.
• Build stronger connections between strategy, operating performance, and financial outcomes.

• Lead and develop FP&A talent as the function continues to evolve, building capability in forecasting, modeling, analysis, communication, and business partnership.

• Improve FP&A processes, reporting, tools, systems, and planning routines to increase visibility, consistency, and speed of decision-making.
• Partner with Finance, IT, Operations, Commercial teams, and other functional leaders to strengthen reporting, forecasting, analytics, and planning capabilities.
• Drive process improvement, automation, and system enhancements that improve efficiency and scalability.
• Build credibility across the organization by bringing practical recommendations, financial discipline, and strong business judgment.
• Help shape future-state FP&A capabilities that support the company’s next phase of growth.
• Performs other projects as assigned 

At Simple Mills, we’re not just building a brand, we’re leading a movement that’s transforming how food is made and enjoyed. If you’re passionate about purpose-driven work and crave a role where you can have a meaningful impact, this is your chance to be part of something bigger.

Our work model is role-dependent and team focused. With remote, hybrid, or in-office positions, each role is classified by what best supports the needs of the team.

• This position will be hybrid: a balance of in-person and virtual work. Hybrid employees will work from our Chicago, IL office at least once per week. When working remotely, employees must work from a designated location in the United States (the new hire’s permanent residence, as documented in our HR System, Rippling) with sufficient internet access to support video conferencing. Safety protocols in accordance with CDC recommendations are followed.

At Simple Mills, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect and inclusion. Equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and teammates without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, past or present military service, physical or mental disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. All aspects of employment are decided on the basis of business need, job requirements, and individual qualifications. #LI-DNI

Simple Mills is committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Simple Mills will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact careers@simplemills.com.