About the role
Your mission
Project Controlling & Financial Performance
* Own and develop the company’s project controlling framework, providing consistent financial visibility across the project portfolio. * Establish processes for project budgeting, forecasting, cost tracking, margin analysis, and variance management. * Develop a standardized approach to monitoring project financial performance from project initiation through completion. * Partner with Project Management and Scientific Operations to monitor project progress against budget, timeline, resource plan, and expected financial outcome. * Identify projects at risk of cost overruns, margin erosion, or delivery delays and ensure these risks are visible to management. * Provide independent Finance challenge to project assumptions, resource requirements, timelines, and expected costs. * Establish clear financial ownership and accountability for project performance across Business Units and Project Management.
Project Margin & Costing
* Lead the implementation of project margin analysis, providing management with a clear understanding of the profitability of individual projects. * Develop and maintain a methodology for calculating fully loaded project costs, including appropriate allocation of direct and indirect costs. * Ensure project margins reflect the full economic cost of delivering projects, including relevant personnel, laboratory/scientific resources, facilities, equipment, and other operational overheads. * Develop appropriate cost rates and allocation methodologies in partnership with Finance and operational stakeholders. * Establish consistent definitions and methodologies for project revenue, direct costs, indirect costs, contribution/margin, and project profitability. * Continuously improve the accuracy and relevance of project cost and margin reporting.
Business Partnering with Operations & Project Management
* Act as the key Finance Business Partner to Scientific Operations, Business Unit leadership, and Project Management on project economics and operational performance. * Work closely with project teams to understand the operational drivers behind financial performance. * Translate project status, resource utilization, scope changes, and delivery risks into financial implications. * Participate in project and operational review meetings, providing a financial perspective on project performance. * Challenge project teams constructively where assumptions, resource requirements, or delivery expectations are inconsistent with financial targets. * Support project managers and operational leaders in identifying corrective actions to improve project delivery, cost efficiency, and margins. * Build strong relationships with scientific and operational stakeholders while maintaining appropriate Finance independence and control.
Project Forecasting & Variance Analysis
* Develop regular project cost-to-complete forecasts, incorporating actual costs, project progress, remaining activities, resource requirements, and expected completion dates. * Monitor actual project costs against budget and forecast and provide detailed variance analysis. * Identify the operational drivers of material variances rather than simply reporting financial deviations. * Track changes in project scope, timelines, resource requirements, and other factors that may affect project economics. * Establish early-warning indicators for projects experiencing cost or margin pressure. * Improve forecasting accuracy through systematic analysis of historical project performance and operational drivers. * Provide portfolio-level analysis of project performance, identifying trends, recurring issues, and opportunities for operational improvement.
Process Development & Controls
* Design and implement a scalable project controlling process, including governance, responsibilities, reporting cadence, and standardized methodologies. * Establish appropriate controls to ensure project financial data is complete, accurate, and timely. * Define clear interfaces between Finance, Business Units, Scientific Operations, Project Management, and other relevant functions. * Improve the integration of operational and financial data to reduce reliance on manual reporting and improve transparency. * Develop and maintain project controlling tools and models, including Excel-based models where appropriate. * Identify opportunities to automate and improve project reporting and analysis as the organization and project portfolio scale. * Establish consistent project financial KPIs and performance standards across the organization.
Planning & Strategic Support
* Support the annual budgeting and forecasting process with detailed project-level operational and cost assumptions. * Provide input into resource planning and capacity decisions by translating expected project activity into financial requirements. * Support investment and resource allocation decisions through project economics and scenario analysis. * Analyze historical project performance to improve future pricing, costing, resource planning, and operational decision-making. * Work closely with the Sales & Revenue Controller to connect commercial assumptions, project delivery, and financial performance, ensuring consistency between revenue forecasts and project cost forecasts.
Your profile
Experience
* Significant experience in project controlling, operational controlling, FP&A, or finance business partnering in a project-based, services, R&D, contract research, engineering, or similarly complex environment. * Proven experience establishing or improving project controlling processes and frameworks. * Strong experience with project budgeting, forecasting, cost-to-complete analysis, variance analysis, and project margin management. * Experience developing fully loaded costing methodologies and project profitability analysis. * Demonstrated ability to work closely with operational and project teams and translate operational activity into financial outcomes. * Experience working with resource-intensive projects where personnel capacity and utilization are significant cost drivers. * Strong Excel and financial modelling skills. * Experience with ERP, project management, resource planning, or other operational data systems would be advantageous.
Skills & Attributes
* Strong project controlling and financial modelling expertise with excellent attention to detail. * Commercially and operationally minded, with a strong understanding of the drivers of project profitability. * Confident challenging project managers, scientific leaders, and Business Unit leadership in a constructive and collaborative manner. * Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with non-financial stakeholders. * Highly analytical, structured, and pragmatic. * Comfortable building processes and frameworks in an environment where systems and processes are still developing. * Hands-on and entrepreneurial, with the ability to operate independently and take ownership of a critical business process. * Able to communicate complex financial information clearly to senior management.
Why us?
* An industry leader at an inflection point, with considerable growth and expanding capabilities ahead. * An organization positioned for disruptive changes in the CRO market. * Detail oriented with strong organizational skills. * An innovative field of work in an exciting industry. * A long-term, responsible position in a healthy, growing and future-oriented company. * Comprehensive onboarding to prepare you optimally for your area of responsibility. * Multicultural teams and an open corporate culture. * A competitive salary.
Contact Details
Proteros biostructures GmbH People Team Bunsenstr. 7a, 82152 Martinsried +49 89 700761 0 [email protected]