Financial Planning Analyst

• Job Title: FP&A Analyst
• Duration: 6 Months
• Location: Remote
• Shift: Preferably Switzerland working hours (from ~9 am till ~6 pm - UTC+2)

• East Coast US: ~3 AM–12 PM ET
• Central US: ~2 AM–11 AM CT
• Mountain US: ~1 AM–10 AM MT
• West Coast US: ~12 AM–9 AM PT

Job Description:

• The Cocoa FP&A Analyst supports the cocoa procurement organization by providing accurate financial analysis, reporting, and forecasting related to cocoa raw materials. This role acts as a key bridge between Procurement, Finance, Supply Chain, and Accounting, ensuring transparency and financial integrity across cocoa contracts, pricing, hedging, and inventory flows.
• The analyst plays a critical role in understanding how cocoa physical contracts, futures hedging, and operational execution translate into financial results, including P&L, PPV, inventory valuation, and accruals.

Main Duties:

• Financial Analysis & Reporting
• • Analyze cocoa raw material costs, including futures, differentials, premiums, freight, sustainability premiums, and other cost components.
• • Prepare and explain cocoa PPV, purchase price evolution, and cost variances versus forecast, budget, and standard cost.
• • Support monthly close activities related to cocoa, including accruals, and reconciliations.
• Forecasting & Planning
• • Support short and mid-term cocoa cost forecasts.
• • Maintain and update cocoa forecast assumptions.
• • Assist in standard cost setting and annual planning processes for cocoa raw materials.
• Systems, Data & Controls
• • Work with data from systems such as S/4, iRely, and reporting tools to ensure data accuracy and consistency.
• • Support SOX and internal control activities, including documentation, reconciliations, and audit requests related to cocoa.
• • Identify data gaps or process inefficiencies and support continuous improvement initiatives.
• Cross Functional Collaboration
• • Act as a finance partner to Cocoa Procurement, Supply Chain, and Accounting teams.
• • Support ad hoc analysis and management requests related to cocoa costs, contracts, and performance drivers.
• • Contribute to process harmonization and standardization initiatives across regions.

Typical Day:

• Support ad hoc analyses and project work based on business requests
• Improve reporting
• Lead monthly forecast updates in preparation for recurring management and executive review meetings
• Analyze monthly figures in S/4 to enable Actual vs. Forecast PPV analysis

Top Three Technical Skills:

• Solid Excel and financial modeling skills
• Experience with SAP S/4 (required) and commodity systems (preferred)
• Experience with Power BI

Pre-Screening Questions:

• Assess problem solving skills and attention to detail, which are critical for this type of role
• Evaluate the candidate’s comfort working with large datasets and developing Power BI analyses
• Assess experience analyzing Actual vs. Forecast data and translating results into actionable insights

• Must Haves (i.e., years of experience?)
• Based on the skills outlined above, a strong FP&A analyst would typically have a minimum of around five years of relevant experience.

Software Skills and Purpose (if applicable):

As per above

Industry Experience:

• Experience in the food manufacturing industry, ideally within Procurement, would be highly desirable.
• Experience working with commodities would be an additional advantage.
• Direct experience with cocoa would be a strong plus.

• Training
• How long is training? 1 week
• What is involved? Education sessions with the manager