JOB TITLE: Director of Finance
Competency: Financial and Business & Strategic Leadership
Manager: President
HR Responsibility: Finance, IT, Legal, Compliance, Business Analysis
FLSA Status: Exempt
Summary:
The Director of Finance leads financial, legal, and risk-related activities for Lely North America across the U.S. and Canada. This role provides strategic and operational leadership for Finance, including direct oversight of Accounting and AR/AP, leadership of the Business Analyst function, and partnership with IT to support data-driven decisions and business performance. As a senior management team member, this role translates financial strategy into execution while ensuring strong financial stewardship, compliance, and organizational effectiveness. The Director of Finance builds and develops high-performing teams across Finance, Business Analysis, and related support functions, while delivering insights that support growth, efficiency, and long-term success.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Define and own the financial strategy for Lely North America, ensuring alignment with global priorities while shaping regional growth, profitability, and long-term value creation.
- Serve as a strategic advisor to the Board of Directors and executive leadership, delivering forward-looking financial insights, risk assessments, and performance narratives that inform critical business decisions and enterprise direction.
- Translate financial strategy into scalable operating frameworks, ensuring disciplined execution across forecasting, budgeting, tax strategy, treasury, and cash flow optimization, with clear visibility into financial performance, risk, and opportunity.
· · Drive enterprise-wide financial planning and analysis, proactively evaluating current and future business models, investments, and operational plans to optimize financial performance and mitigate risk.
- Lead the evolution of data-driven decision making, building a best-in-class Business Analysis function that delivers timely, accurate, and actionable insights aligned to strategic priorities and operational outcomes.
- Provide integrated leadership across Finance, Business Analysis, and IT capabilities, ensuring strong alignment, governance, and execution of financial and operational strategies across the organization.
- Build and lead a high-performing Finance organization, developing leadership capability and ensuring excellence in financial operations, including accounting integrity, controls, compliance, and reporting accuracy.
- Establish and maintain a robust financial governance and control environment, ensuring risk mitigation, regulatory compliance, and operational discipline across all financial processes.
- Provide strategic oversight of regional IT capabilities, partnering with global IT leadership to ensure technology investments, systems, and data infrastructure support scalability, efficiency, and business performance.
- Oversee legal and compliance strategy, ensuring appropriate risk management and governance through effective utilization of internal and external legal counsel across a broad range of business activities.
- Lead and manage key external partnerships, including banking institutions, tax advisors, legal firms, and investment partners, ensuring alignment with financial strategy and optimal value creation.
- Own and govern Service Level Agreements between Lely Group and Lely North America, ensuring financial transparency, accountability, and alignment on service delivery and cost structures.
- Shape and drive a culture of financial accountability and business partnership, influencing leaders across functions to make disciplined, insight-driven decisions that support enterprise performance.
Education and/or Experience
Bachelor’s degree in finance, economics, accounting, business, or a related field required, with 10+ years of experience as a Director of Finance or in a similar leadership role. Master of Business Administration or master’s degree in finance preferred. Certified Public Accountant (CPA) preferred.
Key Skills and Abilities:
- Inspires a OneLely team culture and engages individuals to do their best work toward shared goals.
- Embraces, supports, and exemplifies the Company’s mission and core values.
- Partners in leading organizational transition as a leader, change agent, and motivator, engaging teams in new ways of working as an independent entity.
- Demonstrated ability to define and execute financial strategy that drives business growth, profitability, and long-term value
- Experience translating complex financial data into clear, actionable insights for non-financial leaders
- Proven success in shaping business decisions beyond finance (Sales, Operations, HR, etc.)
- Track record of leading through growth, transformation, or organizational change.
- Ability to drive scalable processes and data-driven decision making.
- Accomplished organizational, relational, and leadership skills.
- Polished interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to liaise effectively with all levels of management and the Board of Directors.
- Strategic, analytical, and effective at problem-solving, with the ability to make timely, well-informed decisions.
- Commitment to ethical conduct, working at the highest level of integrity and professionalism.
- Anticipates, understands, and responds to internal and external business needs within area of expertise.
- Practiced negotiation skills, effective at resolving challenges.
- Robust knowledge of financial analysis and forecasting.
- Strong multitasking, time management, organization, and attention to accuracy.
Who we are: Vision, Mission, and Core Values
Our Vision: A sustainable, profitable, and enjoyable future in farming
Our Mission: We create innovative solutions that help our customers excel in sustainable milk production to feed the world.
Our Core Values: Lely has 5 core values. Values that guide us in how we behave in dealing with others. On the work floor among colleagues, interacting with our customers, at meetings with our business partners, and when dealing with the press; independent of place and time we show our values through our actions.
Innovation: We change traditions by continuously seeking new ideas for positive change
Passion: We love what we do and are passionate to support our customers
Progress: We grow because our people are motivated to improve and move forward
Respect: Our focus is the well-being of people, animals, and the environment
Honesty: Being truthful and fair is essential in our way of working
Qualifications
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform essential functions.
Equal Opportunity Employer:
Lely provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.
This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training.
