Senior Manager, Industrial Advisory - Inventory Cost & Domestic Content

Overview

The organization is seeking a Senior Manager to join its Industrial Advisory team. This team partners with manufacturing and distribution clients to address complex operational and financial challenges through data-driven insights and strategic advisory services.

In this role, you will collaborate with internal teams and work directly with clients to improve operational performance, evaluate capital investments, optimize profitability, and support better business decisions—especially around manufacturing cost accounting, inventory costing, and domestic content consulting.

Responsibilities

Inventory and Manufacturing Cost Advisory

• Lead consulting engagements involving inventory costing, product costing, manufacturing cost analysis, and related financial and operational processes.
• Assess client cost-accounting methodologies, systems, processes, controls, and data; identify opportunities to improve accuracy, efficiency, transparency, and management decision-making.
• Provide subject matter expertise in areas including:
  • Standard and actual costing
  • Inventory valuation
  • Bills of material and manufacturing routings
  • Direct material and direct labor costs
  • Manufacturing overhead and cost allocations
  • Purchase price, material, labor, and manufacturing variances
  • Inventory controls and cycle-counting programs
  • Product and component cost structures
  • ERP costing and material-flow processes
  • Cost and profitability reporting
• Work with clients and ERP/technology teams to evaluate and improve cost-accounting processes and system configurations, including material-flow logic and product-costing methodologies.
• Design and oversee analyses of manufacturing costs, purchasing activity, inventory, variances, product profitability, and other financial and operational information.
• Develop practical methodologies for complex costing situations when client systems or available data do not readily provide the information required.
• Document and analyze client processes, internal controls, data flows, and workflows; recommend improvements.

Domestic Content Cost Consulting

• Provide senior leadership for the cost-accounting and financial-data components of domestic content consulting engagements.
• Work with manufacturers, suppliers, and client teams to obtain detailed product, cost, and sourcing information needed to perform domestic content analyses.
• Evaluate and analyze bills of material, supplier information, purchasing records, labor and routing data, manufacturing overhead, inventory records, product costs, and other manufacturing information.
• Develop methodologies for identifying, categorizing, and calculating domestic and non-domestic manufacturing costs or content in accordance with the requirements applicable to each engagement.
• Identify gaps, inconsistencies, and limitations in manufacturer/supplier data and develop reasonable and supportable approaches to address issues.
• Assist clients in developing repeatable processes, controls, and documentation for collecting and maintaining information needed to support domestic content requirements.
• Coordinate with internal specialists across tax, incentives, government contracting, engineering, supply chain, legal, technology, and other areas as appropriate.
• Review analyses and supporting documentation to ensure conclusions are accurate, consistent, and defensible to client management and other stakeholders.

Engagement and Client Leadership

• Develop engagement approaches, work plans, staffing models, budgets, milestones, data requests, and deliverables.
• Manage multiple concurrent engagements while maintaining quality, timeliness, and engagement economics.
• Serve as a senior client contact; build trusted relationships with finance, accounting, operations, procurement, supply-chain, engineering, and executive leadership.
• Lead client interviews, working sessions, data discussions, executive presentations, and findings meetings.
• Translate complex manufacturing, accounting, and data issues into clear business implications and actionable recommendations.
• Exercise professional judgment when client data is incomplete, inconsistent, or unavailable; guide teams in developing appropriate analytical approaches.
• Review team analyses and deliverables for technical accuracy, quality, clarity, and completeness.

Team Leadership and Practice Development

• Provide on-the-job coaching and technical guidance in manufacturing cost accounting, inventory costing, data analysis, and domestic content methodologies.
• Identify opportunities to expand services and deliver additional value to manufacturing and distribution clients.
• Demonstrate an entrepreneurial mindset by identifying emerging client needs and developing new service offerings and solutions.
• Participate in business-development activities, including prospect discussions, development of scopes of work, proposals, presentations, and fee estimates.
• Build relationships across the organization to bring the appropriate combination of technical and industry expertise to client engagements.
• Contribute to thought leadership, articles, presentations, and other market-development activities.
• Travel as needed to client offices and manufacturing facilities.

Requirements

• 4-year degree
• 8 years professional experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or above in accounting or finance
• 10+ years of experience in the accounting or finance department of manufacturing companies or consulting firms supporting inventory cost projects
• Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and/or Certified Management Accountant certifications
• Deep understanding of manufacturing cost-accounting concepts, including standard and actual costing, inventory valuation, bills of material, routings, material and labor costs, manufacturing overhead, allocations, and manufacturing variances
• Experience obtaining, validating, and analyzing detailed cost and operational data from manufacturing facilities, suppliers, or other third parties
• Experience designing, implementing, or improving cost-accounting processes and methodologies within manufacturing organizations
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, including the ability to develop practical solutions when available data is incomplete or inconsistent
• Experience building pro forma financial models incorporating income statements and cash flows to support business decisions
• Demonstrates an entrepreneurial mindset to identify client needs and build, plan, and manage services to support those needs
• Experience building processes within SAP or Oracle Finance and Inventory Management Platforms
• Prior experience with domestic content, manufacturing incentives, government contracting, tax incentives, country-of-origin analysis, or similar product-level cost and sourcing requirements is beneficial but not required

Compensation & Benefits

• The US National pay rate range for this job position is $179,850-$340,970.
• Actual compensation is influenced by a variety of relevant factors including, but not limited to, applicant’s skills, prior experience, qualifications, degrees, professional certifications, work arrangements, and geographic location.
• A comprehensive compensation and benefits package is offered to eligible employees.

Location

Work location status should be discussed with the organization’s talent acquisition professional to understand the requirements for an opportunity you are exploring.