Summary

The Vice President & Chief Accounting Officer (VP & CAO) is a key financial executive responsible for leading the company’s accounting, financial reporting, internal control, and accounting-related M&A due diligence and integration activities.

Description

Saltchuk Overview
Saltchuk companies do more than just move goods – we connect and empower communities through essential freight transportation, marine services, and energy distribution networks. As a privately-owned family of transportation and distribution companies headquartered in Seattle, with combined revenues of $6B and nearly 9,000 employees, we are organized into six business units that oversee the operation and growth of our diverse portfolio of operating companies. Behind every journey we undertake and every delivery we make is a promise of safety, reliability, and dedication—to our employees, our customers, and the regions we serve. At Saltchuk, we seek people who share our values and take pride in being professional, collaborative, and team oriented. We are dedicated to fostering a culture where we would all be proud for our children to work, making it an extraordinary place to build a long-term career.

Position Summary
This role ensures the accuracy and integrity of financial information and supports forecasting, budgeting, and strategic planning. The VP & CAO oversees both centralized and decentralized accounting teams across multiple business units, ensuring alignment, consistency, and strong accounting and financial reporting governance throughout the enterprise.

Primary Job Responsibilities 

Financial Reporting & Compliance 

  • Supervise the preparation of accurate, reliable, and timely monthly, quarterly, and annual consolidated financial statements in accordance with GAAP for a multi-billion-dollar enterprise.
  • Ensure consistent application of accounting policies across the company, including all decentralized business unit accounting teams.
  • Oversee compliance with relevant accounting standards and financial reporting requirements for a large private company.
  • Guide the preparation of financial reporting packages for executive leadership, the board, lenders, and owners.

Internal Controls, Audit, & Risk Management

  • Own the company’s internal control framework and ensure strong control environments within corporate and business unit accounting functions.
  • Partner with the business units, internal auditors and external auditors to identify and resolve technical accounting and audit issues promptly for the Saltchuk family of companies.
  • Identify and mitigate financial and compliance risks across the enterprise, including decentralized operations.
  • Strengthen and harmonize controls as the company expands organically or through acquisitions.

M&A Due Diligence & Integration

  • Lead accounting and internal control due diligence for Corporate Home acquisition targets, including evaluation of financial statements, control gaps, and accounting practices.
  • Oversee integration of acquired entities into the company’s accounting systems, policies, and internal control environment.
  • Provide recommendations related to purchase accounting, financial risk mitigation, and post-close integration activities.

Forecasting, Budgeting, & Strategic Finance Support

  • Collaborate closely with the CFO and Treasurer to support forecasting, annual budgeting, and long-range planning.
  • Ensure decentralized business units provide accurate, well-supported financial inputs that reflect proper accounting treatment.
  • Provide accounting insights, historical trends, and variance analyses to strengthen forecast accuracy and financial predictability.
  • Evaluate accounting and control implications of strategic initiatives.

Leadership, Collaboration & Strategic Partnership

  • Lead, mentor, and develop both corporate accounting staff and decentralized business unit accounting leaders.
  • Provide oversight and dotted-line leadership for Business Unit controllers, ensuring alignment with corporate accounting policies and governance standards.
  • Drive process improvements, automation, and adoption of best practices across Corporate Home and decentralized accounting teams.
  • Foster a collaborative, transparent, and aligned financial culture across all accounting teams.
  • Act as a strategic business partner to Saltchuk senior leadership, Tax, Legal, Treasury, FP&A, HR, Corporate Development and the business units.
  • Provide oversight for ERP implementations.

External Stakeholder Engagement

  • Serve as the primary liaison for external auditors, valuation specialists, and other accounting-related consultants.

Qualifications & Experience

  • 15+ years of progressive accounting leadership experience, including deep knowledge of GAAP and experience in  large-scale, multi-entity organizations. 
  • Exceptional accuracy, analytical and problem-solving abilities, and attention to detail without losing sight of the big picture.
  • Experience in the assessment of acquisition targets and financial trends, with purchase accounting and integration experience preferred.
  • Experience supporting budgeting, forecasting, and long-range financial planning.
  • Ability to build scalable processes and drive continuous improvement across varied business environments.
  • Track record of developing and retaining strong accounting leadership at both corporate and business unit levels.
  • History of working collaboratively, building relationships, and meeting expectations of a variety of stakeholders from executive leadership, business unit leaders, auditors, and lenders.
  • Strong leadership, communication, and influencing skills across distributed organizations.
  • Expertise with ERP, consolidation and reporting systems.

Education

  • Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, or related field required.
  • Certified Public Accountant (CPA).

Pay & Benefits

We’re committed to taking care of you and your family, today and in the future. You’ll get market-competitive pay and benefits to include medical, dental, and vision plans, life insurance, and disability benefits. We also offer a generous 401(k) company match of 4% with an added discretionary contribution of 3% on total cash compensation to help you save for your future. 

Starting base salary ranges from $280,000 to $330,000 depending on experience and qualifications.  Eligibility to participate in Saltchuk’s annual incentive plan with a target bonus of 40% of base salary.  Total Cash Compensation at target bonus ranges from $392,000 to $462,000.

We'd love to hear from you!
Send your resume to Careers@saltchuk.com

Saltchuk is a family of diversified transportation and distribution companies with a vision to serve our customers by being the best in North America, and we are proud to be Equal Opportunity Employers. We celebrate diversity and are committed to ensuring that all qualified individuals have an equal chance to thrive with us, regardless of race, color, national origin, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, genetic information, political affiliation, or any other status protected by law. We value safety, reliability, and commitment to our organization in a work environment where anyone would be proud for their children to work.  Check out more of what we do at www.saltchuk.com.