Production Finance Lead - Interim | Rochdale

An exciting opportunity to lead production reporting, manage a dedicated team, and drive operational performance at our state-of-the-art flagship slicing site and UK Head Office.

What you will be doing

You will lead a small operational finance team to translate complex production and financial data into clear, actionable insights that shape strategic site decisions and drive a culture of accountability. In this role, you will partner closely with operations and global support functions to strengthen financial governance and optimize site efficiency.

• Performance & Cost Control: Drive the production performance agenda by monitoring conversion costs, labour productivity, yield losses, and waste reduction against targets.
• Financial Planning: Own the budgeting, forecasting, and risk mitigation activities for all production operations.
• Business Partnering: Build and challenge robust business cases for operational and investment initiatives, ensuring realistic assumptions and decision-ready recommendations.
• Team Leadership: Manage and develop a small onsite team while reporting directly to the Head of Business Controlling.

What you will bring

We are seeking a resilient, commercially-minded finance professional who can balance technical rigor with the communication skills needed to influence behaviour across production environments. To be successful in this fast-paced manufacturing environment, you must bring a strong blend of financial expertise and collaborative leadership.

• Experience: 5+ years in a manufacturing operations finance-based role, ideally within FMCG, food, or a high-volume manufacturing environment, alongside proven experience in business partnering with cross-functional operational teams.
• Hard skills: CIMA/ACCA qualification, advanced Excel capabilities, a solid understanding of lean manufacturing principles, and experience utilizing ERP systems (ideally SAP/SAP BW/Power BI) for product costing and inventory management.
• Soft skills: A proven record of growing and developing a team, paired with strong stakeholder management skills and the resilience to navigate challenging conversations while holding colleagues accountable.

Why join us

This interim 9-month position offers a competitive salary alongside structured, balanced working hours: Monday to Thursday 08:00-16:30, and an early finish on Fridays at 15:00. You will step into a role with high autonomy, where your insights will directly influence behavior, shape cost-saving opportunities, and guide strategic choices at our premier facility.

Based at our flagship Rochdale site, you will enjoy a dynamic, modern workplace that serves as the heart of our UK business. This is an exceptional opportunity to stretch your capabilities, lead an established team, and leave a lasting impact on our financial discipline and continuous improvement journey.

About us

Danish Crown UK is a business built on trust, teamwork and ambition. We exist to deliver food that people believe in, and we know that takes strong leadership and collaborative cultures.

Our leadership principles guide us. We act for the good of the whole organisation. We hire brilliant people and help them grow. We are ambitious, curious and open to new ideas. We build trust by accepting mistakes as part of development. We believe real leadership is earned through example, not title.

Whoever joins us will help create a workplace where people feel safe to speak up, share ideas, challenge old ways of working and stretch themselves to achieve more. If that sounds like the environment where you thrive, we would love to hear from you.