Overview

We are running a Sr. Cost Accounting Manager search for a private-equity-backed materials manufacturer, with the seat based in Atlanta, GA. The business turns roughly $2 billion a year, employs several thousand people, and operates dozens of plants worldwide. Its materials end up in a broad spread of industrial and consumer applications. The company is currently integrating a recent acquisition, which has added scale on top of an already diverse portfolio. This position sits within a central inventory and cost accounting group and owns costing for the longstanding side of the business, directing a group of Plant Cost Accountants spread over several facilities.

Role depth

Inventory valuation, product costing, standard cost setting, manufacturing variance work and the reporting that wraps around all of it are yours for the legacy business, and you become the person the organization calls on costing methodology. Practically, that covers close for inventory and cost at month end and year end, inventory reconciliations, bill of material upkeep, standard cost refreshes, cost and inventory metrics, and a control environment sturdy enough to satisfy internal and external auditors. You sit shoulder to shoulder with Operations, Supply Chain, Procurement, Commercial and plant leadership, converting cost data into choices about plant performance, working capital and margin.

Standardization is the bigger assignment. Costing policy, practice and governance are being written across the manufacturing network rather than handed down, and this role defines those standards and then gets them adopted at the sites. Year one is about laying down process that lasts and growing the plant cost team.

In our words

The Director who created this role was blunt about it: it feels a bit like launching a startup inside a $2 billion business, and that will not appeal to everyone. The portfolio is wide, the tempo is quick, and much of the process has yet to be documented. His own words were about building a rocketship with no training wheels. He wants someone who moves fast, puts structure in place, and stays level when things are still shifting underfoot.

He has watched strong technicians miss here, and the accounting was never the issue. What they lacked was the nerve to lead and the instinct to get ahead of problems. So the winner is the person who arrives with a recommendation before anyone requests one, who can make the reasoning land with an operations audience, and who has genuinely carried cost across several plants instead of supporting one. If leaving your mark on a system that has not been built yet appeals, this is the seat.

The hiring manager

Your manager would be the Director, Global Cost & Inventory Accounting. He is relatively new to the business and is standing up the cost accounting function, arriving with a background in business finance at large materials manufacturers. He is refreshingly direct about the environment: he warns candidates that the pitch sounds great but the reality is fast and ambiguous, because he would rather be honest than sell hard.

Direct reports

You head up a group of Plant Cost Accountants based at several different facilities, and coaching, succession planning and keeping good people are genuinely part of the mandate. Peers in the wider function include a Senior Manager over inventory and another Senior Cost Accounting Manager supporting a different division.

Software and ERP

JD Edwards is the system on the legacy side. The recently acquired operation sits on SAP and goes first in the S/4HANA migration, with this business queued behind it. JDE background is preferred and SAP helps, though the hiring manager will not insist on a perfect match: he believes strong accountants learn whatever system is in front of them, so flexibility counts for more than the ERP brand on your resume.

Travel and remote

Plan on travel of up to 25% to visit other facilities and back company initiatives. The arrangement is hybrid, with consistent in-person collaboration in Atlanta, GA.

Benefits

This is a senior role inside a function still taking shape, and that is where the growth case lives: the costing organization is expanding as the company grows through acquisition, several senior seats sit around you, and whoever standardizes costing across the legacy plants and then carries it into an S/4HANA world becomes very difficult to replace. Base pay runs from $140,000 to $160,000. A CPA, CMA or graduate degree is preferred instead of required, and it serves as a tiebreaker between otherwise comparable candidates.

Location

The role is based in Atlanta, GA, where the northern suburbs offer well-regarded public schools, walkable town centers with good dining and retail, and home prices that still look reasonable next to the coastal metros. Hartsfield-Jackson puts nonstop flights to most of the sites you would cover within easy reach, which counts for something when travel is part of the job.