Jennifer Knutson Email & Phone Number

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Us

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Us

Lead the Finance team supporting the relationships with our strategic growth channels customers (including Costco, Target, Whole Foods, Amazon, Dollar General, and Aldi)Provide finance leadership on strategic customer partnerships and negotiations, including those with emerging ecommerce customersPartner with GMI operating units to ensure alignment on pricing and promotion with these non-traditional customersOversee $0.5B trade marketing/promotions spend to ensure accuracy and accounting policy compliance

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Us

Finance Manager in US Retail, Baking Operating UnitResponsibilities:Provide strategic financial leadership for General Mills' Desserts, Pancake, and Flour businesses (including development of our Natural/Organic brands in these categories)Lead Planning & Analysis activities for entire Baking Operating Unit (monthly estimates, annual planning process, corporate/investor relations requests)Accomplishments:Lead re-engineering of the Betty Crocker business model which has stabilized in-market performance and re-asserted category leadershipDeveloped business model for introduction of natural/organic brands into baking categoriesServed as acting Finance Director for Baking Operating Unit for 3 months during the director's leave of absence.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Us

• Lead a team of 2 Finance professionals• Manage Planning & Analysis for General Mills’ 2nd largest division• Provide marketing finance support for Betty Crocker cake and frosting and Gold Medal flour

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Us

Finance Controller for yogurt manufacturing facility with 30 salaried & 150 wage employees.• Lead a team of 5 Finance and IS professionals (4 Finance & 1 IS)• Lead development of annual plant operating budget • Accountable for internal controls development and execution (including internal audits)• Lead monthly reporting and estimates for corporate (with consistently best in class accuracy)• Partnered with HR and plant leadership to recommend strategic organizational/staffing changes (wage & salary)• Assisted Plant Technical Manager with creation and management of capital plan (including cash flow management, IRR/NPV assessment) to ensure appropriate shareholder return• Partnered with Engineering, Maintenance, and Operations to drive productivity pipeline creation and management (plant productivity, margin management)• Managed storeroom and raw material inventory (and drive the related internal controls, process improvements, and working capital reductions)• Lead Continuous Improvement (CI) Initiatives & apply CI principles to both functional and plant processes• Lead Functional Initiatives (standardization, centralization, globalization efforts)• Provided Finance training to wage & salary teams (Finance, CPC, Overuse, Spring Plan)• Prepared and communicated plant and division performance updates to wage & salary teams• Benchmarked with other Yoplait plants (domestic & international) for best practice sharing• Managed state-specific incentives, audits, and regulations (such as MA state tax audit and state tax incentive programs)

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Us

Senior Financial Analyst, Global CapitalAssessed viability of General Mills' large domestic & international capital projects, including growth (new items, capacity), cost savings, and essential.Established process to perform equal due diligence on imbedded lease investments with our external supply chain partners.Performed Monte Carlo simulations on discount cash flow models to predict likely return and how it compared to the project as submitted by the business team, hurdle rates, and WACC.Estimated annual CapEx cash flow projections to inform decisions about share repurchase and dividend payment.

Minneapolis, Minnesota, Us

Financial Analyst II, ConsumerEstimated General Mills' financial liability from coupon redemption expense (initial expense when coupon hit the market, as well as update projections based on actual redemption trends).Finance lead on system conversion from a heritage, Access database platform to an SAP module, including extensive automation of the coupon projection process using regression analysis.

San Francisco, California, Us

Financial Analyst, FP&APlanning & analysis support for a Wells Fargo Financial branch that dealt in student loan collections, home mortgage refinance, and auto finance.Used activity-based costing to perform a client profitability analysis for our portfolio of student loan collections clients which enabled simplification and increased profitability.

B.S., B.A., Finance, International Business, Economics, German

Finance, General