Global Process Owner, Accounts Payable & Travel Expense

Sonos; Glasgow; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Sonos Global Business Services seeks a Global Process Owner to lead standardized P2P and Travel & Expense processes globally, with end-to-end design, governance, and improvements. This hybrid role requires partnering with Finance, Compliance, and IT, and manages an outsourced BPO partner.

You’ll own the global operating model, drive automation, controls, and performance metrics, and report to the Director, GBS Controller.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in related field.
• 7+ years in P2P, AP, or finance operations.
• End-to-end P2P experience across regions.
• Strong knowledge of SOX and financial controls.
• Experience with SAP S/4HANA.

Responsibilities

• Define global P2P and T&E standards, policies, KPIs.
• Lead cross-functional governance and scorecards.
• Own P2P operating model from intake to payment.
• Partner with Finance on close and working capital.
• Manage BPO partner performance and SLAs.

Skills

P2P end-to-end

Accounts Payable

Process improvement

Change management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Supply Chain, Business

Tools

SAP S/4HANA

Ariba

OpenText

VIM

Job description

At Sonos we want to create the ultimate listening experience for our customers and know that it starts by listening to each other. As part of the Sonos team, you’ll collaborate with people of all styles, skill sets, and backgrounds to realize our vision while fostering a community where everyone feels included and empowered to do the best work of their lives.

This position is considered hybrid, allowing for a combination of remote work and in-office collaboration. Qualified applicants must live within commuting distance of our Boston or Glasgow office locations and should expect to be in the office 2 days per week.

Sonos Global Business Services seeks a Global Process Owner to lead standardized, scalable, and well-controlled Procure-to-Pay (P2P) and Travel & Expense (T&E) processes globally.

You will own end-to-end process design, governance, controls, performance, technology enablement, and improvement. Your mandate is to simplify and standardize processes, reduce exceptions and manual work, increase automation, strengthen controls, and improve employee and supplier experience.

You will also own the global T&E operating model, including policies, booking and expense platforms, Corporate Card and Purchasing programs, TMC operations, expense processing, and service delivery.

This role operates through a hybrid delivery model. You will manage an outsourced BPO partner as an extension of the team, and you’ll be accountable for that partnership’s performance, staffing, and escalations as much as for the process design itself.

Reporting to the Director, GBS Controller, you will partner globally with Indirect Procurement, Corporate Accounting, Treasury, Compliance, Legal, People, Technology, Internal Audit, and business stakeholders.

What You’ll Do

Own Global Process Design, Governance, and Performance

• Define global P2P and T&E standards, policies, process maps, RACIs, controls, documentation, and KPIs.
• Establish decision rights for changes, exceptions, and regional variations, allowing deviations only for valid business, regulatory, tax, or statutory needs.
• Lead cross-functional governance on priorities, risks, process-design conflicts, exceptions, and investments.
• Own global scorecards for PO compliance, touchless processing, first-time match, invoice cycle time, on-time payment, exception aging, cost efficiency, working capital, and customer experience.
• Benchmark performance and build a prioritized, measurable improvement roadmap.

Lead Procure-to-Pay

• Own the P2P operating model from intake and purchasing through receiving, supplier onboarding, invoicing, exception management, payment, and financial close.
• Drive adoption of compliant buying channels, catalogs, guided buying, and approval workflows.
• Improve PO and policy compliance for non-PO spend, one-time suppliers, and process exceptions.
• Support receiving, goods receipt, and service confirmation; partner with Finance to manage open, over-received, and stale POs.
• Support supplier onboarding and master-data standards, including banking, tax documentation, duplicate prevention, risk screening, and lifecycle controls.
• Support supplier enablement through e-invoicing, portals, electronic payments, and self-service.

Transform Accounts Payable and Payment Processes

• Own global AP from invoice capture through matching, coding, approval, accounting, and payment.
• Increase touchless processing and first-time-match rates reducing cycle times and cost per invoice.
• Establish exception management that eliminates recurring root causes.
• Own supplier-payment process design, controls, and performance.
• Support working capital through payment-term governance, DPO performance, avoidance of unnecessary early payments, and discount capture.
• Own supplier-service standards for inquiries, disputes, statement reconciliation, service levels, and escalations.

Own Controls, Compliance, and Financial Close

• Own an effective, documented, and audit-ready control framework.
• Partner with Corporate Accounting, Internal Audit, and external auditors on SOX and financial controls.
• Maintain fraud-prevention and access controls across supplier data, invoices, payments, expenses, and card administration.
• Embed approval authority, segregation of duties, and delegation of authority in processes and systems.
• Partner with Compliance on VAT, withholding, statutory supplier reporting, e-invoicing mandates, and other tax and regulatory requirements.
• Ensure timely, accurate month-end AP and card clearing, aging review, and subledger-to-GL reconciliation.

Partner with Indirect Procurement

• Establish joint source-to-pay governance with shared priorities, roadmaps, metrics, and escalation paths.
• Embed negotiated suppliers, pricing, terms, and contracts in purchasing channels and supplier data to realize negotiated value.
• Provide spend, compliance, and supplier-performance insights for category strategy, sourcing, renewals, and supplier reviews.
• Measure preferred-supplier adoption, contract compliance, off-contract spend, leakage, and realized versus negotiated value.
• Improve handoffs across sourcing, contracting, onboarding, purchasing, receiving, invoicing, and payment.

Own Travel & Expense

• Own the global T&E operating model, policies, processes, controls, platforms, and service experience.
• Oversee the online booking tool, TMC relationship, and operational administration.
• Own expense processing, compliance, reimbursement accuracy, and exception management.
• Support Corporate Card operations, controls, administration, settlement and reconciliation.
• Partner with People and Security on traveler duty of care, including tracking, risk alerts, high-risk travel, and incident response.
• Improve traveler and employee experience through simplification, automation, analytics, and platform optimization.
• Provide T&E spend, adoption, compliance, and performance insights to business and senior leadership.

Own Technology, Data, and Automation

• Act as business product owner for P2P and T&E technology, defining priorities, requirements, roadmap, and backlog with Technology and Indirect Procurement.
• Align technology investments with the target operating model, maximize standard capabilities, minimize customization, and deliver measurable outcomes.
• Support process design and business readiness for system releases, new countries and entities, integrations, and acquisitions.
• Define data-quality and governance standards for supplier, purchasing, invoice, payment, spend, and T&E data.
• Use process mining, analytics, workflow automation, and AI to reduce friction and manual work, predict or prevent exceptions, and improve decisions.
• Maintain a prioritized transformation portfolio with business cases, owners, milestones, and validated benefits.

Lead the Service-Delivery Model and Change

• Own the BPO partnership, including scope, SLAs, capacity, scorecards, QBRs, escalations, knowledge transfer, and continuous improvement.
• Assess the outsourced model as automation, process maturity, and business needs evolve.
• Drive adoption through stakeholder engagement, communications, training, self-service guidance, and measurement.
• Develop retained process leaders and a culture of accountability, continuous improvement, and innovation.
• Make compliance easy for employees and suppliers through process and system design.

What You’ll Need

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Supply Chain, Business, or a related field.
• 7+ years of progressive experience in P2P, Accounts Payable, procurement operations, GBS, shared services, or finance operations and transformation.
• End-to-end P2P expertise, particularly in Accounts Payable and transactional procurement.
• Experience owning, designing, or transforming processes across regions, business units, or service-delivery teams.
• Strong knowledge of financial controls, SOX, and P2P and T&E risk management.
• Large-scale ERP experience; SAP S/4HANA strongly preferred.
• Proven success simplifying, standardizing, and automating operational processes.
• Strong analytical, influencing, and change-management skills; ability to drive cross-functional outcomes without direct authority.
• Ability to turn complex operational issues into clear priorities, decisions, and measurable outcomes.
• Self-starter with integrity, intellectual curiosity, and a continuous-improvement mindset.

Preferred Qualifications

• Global Process Owner or global process leadership experience in GBS or shared services.
• Experience managing outsourced, offshore, or global transactional services.
• Experience with SAP procurement and AP technologies and workflows, such as OpenText, VIM, Ariba, or equivalent.
• Experience with corporate T&E programs and platforms such as Navan.
• Experience with supplier enablement, e-invoicing, and global digital-invoicing requirements.
• Experience applying process mining, analytics, automation, or AI in finance or procurement.
• Experience leading ERP transformation, shared-services evolution, BPO transitions, or acquisition integrations.
• Experience in a global public company across countries and time zones.
• CPA, Lean, Six Sigma, or another relevant certification is a plus.

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