Department: Finance
Reports to: Chief Financial Officer
Status: Full-time
Location: Hybrid/Head office (10 Carlson Court, Etobicoke)
Purpose
Gay Lea is modernizing its finance function to better support enterprise decision-making, performance, and growth. This includes reducing manual reporting, strengthening planning processes, and leveraging improved tools and data capabilities.
This role is accountable for creating a single, integrated view of business performance and ensuring that enterprise trade-offs are clearly surfaced and resolved across commercial, operations, and supply chain.
The role owns the enterprise performance narrative and leads Integrated Business Planning (IBP), ensuring alignment across commercial, operations, and supply. It connects short-term decisions to long-term performance, enabling faster, better trade-offs across pricing, mix, cost, capacity, and supply.
As a senior business partner to enterprise leadership, the role elevates financial clarity, strengthens accountability, and shifts the finance function from reporting to decision-making.
Key Responsibilities:
- Own the enterprise view of performance (volume, mix, cost, margin) and establish a single, aligned performance narrative
- Translate complex financial and operational data into clear insights, decisions, and actions
- Lead Integrated Business Planning (IBP) as the core enterprise decision-making cadence
- Align commercial, operations, and supply plans into an integrated view of performance
- Drive enterprise trade-offs across pricing, mix, cost, capacity, and supply
- Own rolling forecasts and long-range planning (12–36 months), ensuring alignment to strategy
- Ensure decisions today are connected to long-term financial performance
- Lead and integrate Business Finance across commercial, operations, dairy & supply, and enterprise planning
- Act as a strategic finance partner to senior leaders, influencing decisions and strengthening accountability
- Shift finance effort from reporting to decision support by leveraging data, tools, and improved ways of working
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Finance/Accounting; CPA and/or MBA preferred.
- Proven senior finance leadership experience in Business Finance, Commercial Finance, Operations Finance, or IBP environments
- 10+ years in finance with significant experience in Operations/Manufacturing finance and cost accounting
- Strong judgement and decision-making capability in complex, multi-variable environments
- Demonstrated ability to influence peers and operate at the enterprise level
- Experience leading cross-functional planning and performance processes
- Ability to operate effectively with ambiguity and make meaningful trade-offs
- Direct, pragmatic, and outcome-focused leadership style
- Advanced financial, analytical, and systems capabilities
Gay Lea Foods is a leading Canadian dairy co-operative renowned for producing high-quality, nutritious dairy products that Canadian families love and trust. From farm to table, our 1,200 farmer members in Ontario and Manitoba, and more than 1,200 employees across four provinces, work together to nourish communities through award-winning brands including Gay Lea, Nordica, Salerno, Bothwell Cheese, and more. As part of its deeply rooted, balanced commitment to people, profit, and planet, Gay Lea Foods proudly invests one percent of pre-tax earnings back into Canadian communities through a national food security partnership with Second Harvest, and the community-building efforts of the Gay Lea Foundation. To learn more, visit gayleafoods.com.
Gay Lea Foods is an equal-opportunity employer and values diversity in our workplace.
Reasonable accommodation is available upon request throughout our recruitment and selection process.
Gay Lea Foods may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support aspects of the recruitment process, including screening and assessment.
We are currently accepting applications for this open position.
Thank you for your interest in Gay Lea Foods.
Wishing you all the best with your career search!
