Chief Financial Officer, PE-backed Vehicle Transportation Services Company

About the role

The Chief Financial Officer will bring a hands-on, builder’s orientation to establish a timely, reliable, and insight-rich finance function capable of absorbing acquisitions on repeat.

Core Profile

• Hands-On Operational Builder & Entrepreneurial Ownership: You will own the finance and accounting function as a working leader rather than a delegator.
• Accounting, Controllership & Financial Reporting Depth: You bring deep accounting and controllership expertise.
• Process Optimization & Post-Acquisition Systems Integration: You will treat process improvement as core to the role.
• Private Equity-Backed Finance Leadership: Experience as a finance leader within a private equity or sponsor-backed environment is strongly preferred.
• Strategic Business Partnership & Cultural Fit: You will be a trusted business partner who sees around corners.

Core Responsibilities & Scope of Work

• Finance & Accounting Operations:
  • Own the close: Establish a timely, accurate, and repeatable monthly, quarterly, and annual close.
  • Lead hands-on: Stand up and enforce standardized accounting procedures and internal controls.
  • Build the team: Assess, develop, and uplift the existing accounting staff and controller capability.
  • Ensure consolidation: Deliver accurate consolidated financial reporting across U.S. and Canadian, multi-entity operations.
• Financial Planning, Analysis & Reporting:
  • Tell the story: Own preparation of the monthly financial reporting and quarterly board and sponsor reporting packages.
  • Drive budgeting and forecasting: Lead the annual operating budget and short- and long-range (1-, 3-, and 5-year) planning and forecasting processes.
  • Surface the levers: Identify and quantify the pricing, cost, and operational levers.
  • Monitor performance: Conduct variance analysis against budget and forecast.
• Process Optimization & Systems:
  • Standardize for scale: Re-engineer manual, siloed processes into standardized, automated workflows.
  • Maximize the ERP: Get the most from the company’s cloud-based ERP platform.
  • Pursue continuous improvement: Champion a continuous-improvement mindset.
• M&A Integration & Growth:
  • Integrate post-close: Lead the people, process, and systems integration of acquired businesses.
  • Plan and de-risk: Build integration plans aligned to the growth strategy.
  • Support transactions: Contribute to diligence, transaction accounting, quality-of-earnings, net-working-capital, and opening-balance-sheet activity.
  • Monitor returns: Track post-acquisition financial performance.
• Treasury, Leadership & Governance:
  • Communicate proactively: Maintain a consistent, professional, open, transparent, proactive, and collaborative approach to communication.
  • Lead lender relationships: Manage banking relationships, covenant compliance, and disciplined cash-flow reporting.
  • Partner with leadership: Serve as the lead finance business partner.
  • Manage audit and compliance: Own external audit relationships and remediation.

Qualifications

• Fifteen or more years of progressive finance and accounting leadership.
• CPA and/or substantive controllership background is required.
• Demonstrated technical accounting and close-management depth.
• Experience leading the monthly close and compressing close cycle time within a multi-entity environment.
• Experience standardizing processes and leveraging a modern cloud ERP platform.
• Experience integrating acquired businesses post-close.
• Direct buy-side M&A experience (diligence, quality-of-earnings, transaction accounting, pro forma modeling) is a plus.
• Experience operating within a private equity- or sponsor-backed environment.
• Strong FP&A capability spanning budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and KPI-driven performance reporting.
• Experience supporting a business through a period of rapid, acquisition-driven growth.
• U.S. GAAP experience required; familiarity with Canadian Accounting Standards for Private Enterprises (ASPE) and/or IFRS and multi-currency operations a plus.
• Comfort operating in and earning credibility across a largely blue-collar, service-oriented workforce.
• Willingness to be on-site at company headquarters ~2-3 days per week initially, scaling back over time.