Forward Deployed Operator - Finance (Business Controller)

About the role

Onodrim is building Europe's largest defence and industrial platform. We acquire specialist manufacturers in critical defence and dual-use supply chains, then invest behind their growth with capital, technology and operating know-how.

Forward Deployed Operators are Onodrim's people on the ground. You'll embed inside the companies we acquire – plants, lines and the offices that run them – and own one part of making them grow. For this role, that part is the finance.

The manufacturers we buy are often decades old and owner-run, with a bookkeeper, an external accountant, a chart of accounts that has grown by accretion, limited cash management and product costs recalculations. The Forward Deployed Operator for Finance walks in after an acquisition and builds the real picture: what each product actually costs, where cash is tied up in inventory and receivables, what the plant's numbers look like against budget and prior years, and what it would take to close the books in days rather than weeks. Then you fix what matters, with the company's own people, bring the company into the group's reporting, and stay until it sticks.

This is not a head-office finance job. One week you'll be rebuilding the costing model with the production planner; the next, setting up a monthly close with the bookkeeper and mapping the ledger to the group chart of accounts; the next, building the business case for a capex decision with the Production Engineering Operator and the plant director. It is what a finance lead does for a company, done repeatedly across our portfolio.

What you'll do

• Diagnose the finance function. In the first weeks on site, rebuild the P&L, balance sheet and cash position from the ledger, assess the people, processes and tools, and find where the numbers are wrong, late or missing.
• Get product costs right. Build or rebuild product and process costing with production – materials, labour, overhead, scrap, capacity – so the company knows what it makes money on and prices accordingly.
• Release working capital. Analyse inventory, receivables and payables; set targets with the plant and procurement; put the routines in place to hold them.
• Stand up the close. Design and run a fast, reliable month-end close – reconciliations, accruals, inventory valuation, intercompany – and get it to the group's cadence within the first quarter.
• Build the reporting. Set up monthly management reporting and KPIs for the company's leadership; analyse results against budget and prior periods and explain the variances in plain terms.
• Forecast cash and results. Build and maintain rolling cash and P&L forecasts and the scenarios behind capacity, hiring and capex decisions.
• Connect to the group. Map the ledger to the group chart of accounts, apply group accounting policies and IFRS adjustments locally.
• Upgrade the systems. Assess the ERP, accounting and reporting tools in use; fix configuration, replace spreadsheets where it pays, and work with the Software Engineering Operator on the data behind the numbers.
• Be the finance partner on site. Build business cases with the other Forward Deployed Operators and the plant director – automation, capacity, pricing, make-or-buy – and make sure operational changes show up in the numbers.
• Handle local compliance. Coordinate statutory accounts, tax filings, audit and bank reporting with local advisors so nothing slips during integration.
• Support financial diligence. Before we buy, assess the target's quality of earnings, working capital, costing and finance capability, and feed it into the deal and the integration plan.
• Build local capability. Leave each company with a working finance function – routines, tools and a capable owner – and bring what you learn back to Onodrim's finance playbook.

Requirements

What you'll bring

• A degree in finance, accounting, economics, business or a closely related discipline.
• 5+ years in finance, including at least 2 years as a financial controller, plant controller or finance business partner inside a manufacturing or industrial company – you have worked with inventory valuation, product costing and a shop floor, not only with a head-office ledger.
• A professional accounting qualification (ACA, ACCA, CPA, RA, RC or equivalent) or equivalent demonstrated depth in accounting.
• Hands-on experience with month-end close, management reporting and cash forecasting in a company where you built or substantially rebuilt them.
• Working knowledge of IFRS and of at least one European local GAAP, and experience bringing a subsidiary into group reporting.
• Strong analytical skills: comfortable rebuilding a P&L from a ledger export in Excel, modelling a costing or working-capital change, and presenting it to a managing director in numbers.
• Practical experience with ERP and accounting systems – configuring, cleaning up or implementing them, not only using them.
• Credibility across the whole organisation – you can work with a bookkeeper on reconciliations in the morning and challenge the owner-manager's pricing in the afternoon.
• A hands-on approach: comfortable doing the detailed work yourself at a company with no finance team to delegate to.
• Clear, direct communication in English, written and spoken, with the ability to explain finance to non-financial people.
• Willingness to travel extensively and spend extended periods on site at portfolio companies across Europe.
• Right to work in the UK, Switzerland or the EU.

Nice to have

• We operate our business in English; knowledge of a European language other than English is beneficial.
• Experience with post-merger integration on the finance side – opening balance sheets, policy harmonisation, chart-of-accounts migration – in a PE-backed or acquisitive group.
• Time in a Big Four or similar audit or transaction-services practice, including financial due diligence.
• Exposure to defence or other regulated industries where contract accounting, government pricing rules and export control shape the numbers.
• Experience with standard costing, variance analysis and inventory systems in a make-to-order or low-volume, high-mix manufacturer.
• Familiarity with modern data and BI tooling, and with using LLM-based tools to get analysis done faster.
• Time in a start-up or small team where you did whatever the company needed.
• Clearance in at least one of our operating countries.