Financial Analyst - Private Equity

Description:    The Financial Analyst plays a critical role in supporting financial planning, analysis, and strategic decision-making across LightPath’s global optical manufacturing operations. This role brings a private equity–style mindset to financial analysis, focusing on value creation, operational leverage, capital efficiency, and disciplined execution within a publicly traded environment.

The Financial Analyst partners closely with executive leadership, operations, engineering, and supply chain teams to deliver actionable insights that drive margin expansion, cash flow optimization, and return on invested capital (ROIC). This position supports internal management, Board of Directors, and investor-facing activities with data-driven, decision-quality financial analysis.

Responsibilities:

Financial Planning, Forecasting & Modeling

• Support the development of annual budgets, rolling forecasts, and long-range strategic plans across global manufacturing sites.
• Build and maintain robust financial models incorporating operational drivers, scenario analysis, and sensitivity analysis consistent with private equity best practices.
• Analyze actual performance versus plan, identifying key variances, root causes, and actionable recommendations.
• Support value-creation initiatives through modeling of pricing, cost structure, productivity, and capacity utilization.

Strategic & Private Equity–Style Analysis

• Apply a private equity perspective to evaluate profitability, cash flow generation, working capital efficiency, and capital deployment.
• Support analysis of organic growth initiatives, capital investments, restructuring opportunities, and operational improvements.
• Develop investment-style analyses for CapEx, including payback, IRR, and ROI assessments.
• Assist with strategic initiatives such as portfolio optimization, make/buy analysis, and manufacturing footprint decisions.

Financial Reporting & Executive Support

• Prepare monthly, quarterly, and annual management reporting packages for executive leadership.
• Support preparation of materials for Board of Directors meetings, earnings calls, and investor relations, ensuring alignment with public company reporting standards.
• Partner with Accounting to ensure accurate financial reporting and consistent interpretation of results.

Operational & Cost Analysis

• Analyze manufacturing costs including labor, materials, overhead, scrap, and yield to identify margin improvement opportunities.
• Partner with Operations and Supply Chain to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) such as gross margin, inventory turns, working capital, and throughput.
• Support continuous improvement initiatives through data-driven analysis and tracking of realized savings.

Data, Systems & Process Improvement

• Ensure integrity and consistency of financial data across ERP, planning, and reporting systems.
• Leverage ERP and BI tools (e.g., Visual, Power BI, Tableau) to enhance analytics, dashboards, and reporting efficiency.
• Drive continuous improvement in FP&A processes through automation, standardization, and improved financial transparency.

Compliance & Governance

• Support internal and external audit activities by providing financial analysis and documentation.
• Ensure compliance with internal controls, SOX requirements, and public company governance standards.
• Collaborate with global finance teams to maintain standardized reporting and planning practices.

Knowledge, Ability and Skills:

• Strong analytical and financial modeling skills with a value-creation mindset.
• Ability to synthesize complex financial and operational data into clear executive-level insights.
• High attention to detail with strong business judgment.
• Collaborative, proactive approach to partnering across technical and operational teams.
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-paced, results-oriented, publicly traded environment.

Experience/Qualification:

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or related field.
• 3–6 years of experience in FP&A, private equity, investment banking, transaction advisory, or manufacturing finance.
• Exposure to private equity–style analysis, including ROI, IRR, cash flow, and operational value drivers.
• Proficiency with ERP systems and business intelligence tools (e.g., Visual, Power BI, Tableau).
• Strong communication skills with experience presenting financial insights to senior leadership.

Preferred

• MBA or CFA preferred.
• Prior experience supporting manufacturing or industrial businesses, particularly in capital-intensive environments.
• Experience working with or supporting private equity–backed companies.
• Familiarity with optical, photonics, or advanced manufacturing industries.
• Experience supporting Board-level or investor-facing materials.