Comhar Partners

Vice President, Controller Position Profile

ABOUT RACK & RIDDLE

Rack & Riddle Custom Wine Services is a full production custom crush winery and automated bottling facility. They have three centrally located Sonoma County facilities in Healdsburg and Alexander Valley (Geyserville), California. Their new state-of-the-art facilities have increased winemaking space, automated bottling capabilities, and have ample stainless-steel tank and tirage storage capacities. Today, Rack & Riddle’s team has grown to more than 75 employees, including an on-site lab team, an award-winning winemaking team, and an exceptional business development, production, and cellar staff.

RACK & RIDDLE'S STORY

In 2007, Wine industry veterans Rebecca Faust and Bruce Lundquist set out to establish Rack & Riddle Custom Wine Services. They envisioned a leading-edge facility using premium vineyards to produce wine in the heart of the Northern California Wine Country. During their planning, they quickly realized a unique calling for Rack & Riddle — to craft the finest California sparkling wines in the French Méthode Champenoise tradition for industry clientele, as well as for their own Rack & Riddle sparkling wine label. Faust and Lundquist harnessed their combined expertise of over 40 years in the industry to create a space for Rack & Riddle in a very niche marketplace. They carefully selected six gifted winemakers. This included the sought-after skills of Penny Gadd-Coster. The acquisition of Penny, a winemaker and master of the Méthode Champenoise process, to the team was a huge win. Méthode Champenoise is the traditional French method of making sparkling wines, where the bubbly undergoes secondary fermentation in the bottle. It results in the highest caliber of sparkling wines that requires an incredible amount of labor, time, and equipment. Most wineries won’t even attempt it. Rebecca & Bruce’s vision would truly set them apart. They knew that putting the extra care, labor, and expense into their process would result in a superior sparkling wine.

Rack & Riddle's Custom Wine Services

Private Label Sparkling R&R offers Private Label Méthode Champenoise sparkling shiners, ready for disgorging and finishing with branded labels. Grape to Bottle (Custom Crush) R&R’s custom crush winery and award-winning winemaking team help client’s develop premium wines, from grape to bottle. Base to Bottle R&R uses its Méthode Champenoise sparkling transformation process to turn client’s base wine into sparkling wine Still Wine Bottling R&R’s cutting-edge facilities offer high-capacity, fully-automated bottling, labeling, and case packing.

POSITION OVERVIEW

Comhar Partners is working closely with Rack & Riddle to identify a highly skilled Vice President Controller. The ideal candidate should possess financial leadership and experience with a positive attitude who will manage the accounting team for this well-respected and growing custom crush winery and automated bottling facility. Seeking a financial wizard with a balance of a servant’s heart, a shrewd business mind, and an appetite for operational efficiency. Support the CFO, working as a team with executive leadership to achieve new financial goals.

The Vice President Controller will be responsible for and coordinate the company’s accounting functions, and will directly oversee AP, AR, and Financial Reporting functions. They will oversee the company’s financial statements, internal financial reporting, and analysis. Responsible for managing external annual audits and quarterly reviews. The Vice President Controller will be a key member of the team evaluating our business growth path, including organic and acquisitive additions. Reporting to the Executive Vice President of Finance, the Vice President Controller will be an active member of the corporate team.

  • The candidate will run the accounting department with high standards
  • Support decision making throughout the company
  • Guide the company’s growth and value creation
  • Support the owners faithfully and loyally
  • Comfortable interfacing with professionals
  • Team leader as well as member
  • Demonstrated leadership ability

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Leadership

  • Act as a thought partner with the CFO and operations team to deliver efficiencies across the organization.
  • Ensure the finance team has a clear and compelling vision of 'what great looks like' and a plan around how to achieve it.
  • Partners with the team in process improvements for the department to create an effective and efficient forecasting and budgeting process.
  • The business is highly transaction-intensive and requires the coordination of the finance, operations, and IT functions to understand profitability and execute operational KPIs.

Financial and Strategic Leadership

  • Advise critical business decisions to drive growth and actively contribute to the evolution and execution of strategic business plans, including strategic planning, organic growth
  • Promote a culture and capability within the distributed finance function of continuous growth and improvement in profitability, managing costs, creating efficiencies, and mitigating risks
  • Ensure the finance team provides timely insights into financial trends and forecasts as a catalyst to pro-active business management
  • Drive culture and processes in line with company values and performance expectations.
  • Ensure appropriate risk mitigation through systematic risk assessment and risk mitigation tools and processes.
  • Overseeing accounting staff and all related functions
  • Closing the books, preparing financial statements, etc.
  • Overseeing compliance-related activities (audit preparation, tax compliance, other regulatory requirements, etc.)
  • Overseeing cost accounting
  • Assist with developing budgets and other analysis
  • Developing and implementing controls and proper approval workflow/processes
  • Hiring, training, and retaining skilled accounting staff

CRITICAL COMPETENCIES FOR SUCCESS

Results-Oriented

Performance-driven and able to provide measurable results. The successful candidate will be resourceful, action-oriented, as well as a flexible and decisive leader who establishes clarity in the midst of distractions to produce results in a timely fashion. The Vice President Controller will utilize analytical skills to drive costs from the business, improve overall productivity and elevate the company’s technology advances as points of differentiation in the marketplace. They will possess the ability to be resilient in the face of challenges and deliver to higher standards while upholding values that command respect from others.

Critical Thinker

Combines analytical and creative horsepower to simplify and break down complex situations into the core of issues with easy to understand action items. This individual must be intellectually sharp and use critical thinking to make or influence decisions while demonstrating outstanding business judgement. They will be comfortable creating the new and the different and have a ravenous appetite to learn more and experiment in a disciplined way.

Strategic Agility

This individual must be intellectually sharp and clearly capable of thinking on their feet while demonstrating outstanding business judgment. The Vice President Controller will possess skills to improve overall productivity of the company and elevate Rack & Riddle’s value proposition in the marketplace. This person must not only embrace change but draw on resilience to alter their road map along the way based on the current marketplace and feedback.

Exceptional Leader

One who builds, inspires, and coaches teams with a passion for the business, while forging close working relationships with others throughout the organization. This individual will create and implement policies and procedures to foster a culture of trust, accountability and results while elevating capabilities.

EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE REQUIREMENTS

  • 5-7 years of relevant experience (controller, management experience)
  • Experience in larger or smaller organization
  • CPA or CMA preferred
  • Manufacturing/Cost accounting background (beverage industry is a plus)
  • NetSuite or Oracle Experience preferred
  • If not, other systems such as SAP B1, Sage, Microsoft Dynamics, or other mid-tier ERP systems
  • System implementation experience is a plus
  • Opportunity for the candidate to design and implement a system from the ground up
  • Good communicator and track record of managing teams
  • Strong technology skills, including ability advanced Excel skills and the ability to write reports in ERP environment
  • Demonstrated experience in leading a Reporting function in a manufacturing-related company, beverage experience preferred.
  • Excellent knowledge of finance, accounting, budgeting, and Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
  • Knowledge of automated financial and accounting reporting systems. NetSuite / Craft (developed for beverage inventory)
  • Advanced knowledge of budgeting, forecasting, and product-line profitability analysis.
  • Experience preparing in excel using advanced formulas financial projections, cash projections, and budgets.

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Paul Herrerias

Title: Managing Director Email: pherrerias@comharpartners.com Direct: (415) 721-7001 Mobile: (415) 302-5300

Ghali Asad

Title: Director

Email: gasad@comharpartners.com

Direct: (212) 202-0251

Mobile: (718) 210-5547