Senior Consultant - Workday Adaptive Planning

Fusion5; Christchurch; Hybrid; NZD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible and hybrid working

Tailored development plan

Company bonus scheme

Birthday leave

Volunteer day

Wellbeing support

Job summary

Fusion5 is seeking a Senior Consultant to lead Workday Adaptive Planning implementations end-to-end, from discovery through to go-live and adoption. You will shape planning models, such as driver-based budgeting, rolling forecasts, and reporting, and guide clients to measurable value while safeguarding scope, timeline and budget.

You will work with CFOs and FP&A leaders, coach teams, and bring practical judgment on where AI and agents can reduce cycle times.

Qualifications

• Hands-on Workday Adaptive Planning implementation or deep usage.
• Strong finance grounding including P&L, balance sheet and cash flow.
• Ability to lead conversations with CFOs and FP&A leads.
• Some exposure to sales cycle activities and proposal shaping.
• Clear, direct communication in grounded business language.
• Right to work in New Zealand or Australia.

Responsibilities

• Lead Workday Adaptive Planning implementations end to end from discovery to go-live.
• Design planning models (driver-based budgeting, rolling forecasts, workforce and capital planning).
• Protect scope, timeline, budget, risk and maintain client relationships.
• Coach clients and share knowledge with the team.
• Apply AI considerations to planning, identifying where automation adds value.

Skills

Workday Adaptive Planning

Finance & FP&A

CFO conversations

Lead engagements

Hybrid work

NZ/Australia eligibility

Tools

Workday ecosystem

ERP integration

Job description

Lead Workday Adaptive Planning implementations and help shape the outcome before it becomes a project.

Work at the forefront of the AI shift in planning, with Workday's decision intelligence platform.

Planning has changed more in the past two years than in the previous twenty. People now want to ask a question in plain language, test multiple scenarios against it, and commit the chosen one to a governed plan before the meeting ends.

Workday Adaptive Planning has introduced Adaptive Decision Intelligence, which lets planning teams explore scenarios conversationally and write the agreed plan back with its assumptions and approval chain intact. That is a materially different conversation to have with a CFO, and it is the conversation we want you leading.

Fusion5's Corporate Performance Management practice sits inside a Trans-Tasman transformation partner of more than 900 people, with AI, data and agent operations capability alongside us. Go Beyond is not a tagline here, it is our strategy: helping clients redesign how the business actually runs, with AI at the core. We are looking for a Senior Consultant who can carry that story into a client conversation and then deliver on it.

One role, two halves Most consulting roles hand you a signed statement of work and ask you to deliver it. This one starts earlier. You will work with our clients to shape the outcome and define what great looks like, then be the person who implements it.

Leading the delivery

• Lead Workday Adaptive Planning implementations end to end, from discovery, design, implementation and testing through to go-live and the adoption support that creates measurable client value.
• Design planning models that our clients can genuinely own: driver-based budgeting, rolling forecasts, workforce and capital planning, consolidation and management reporting.
• Be disciplined and protect a great outcome: scope, timeline, budget, risk, and a trusted relationship with both our clients and your team.
• Coach our clients to achieve their goals and share your knowledge with your team.
• Bring judgement to using AI in planning; where automation and agents genuinely cut cycle time and manual effort, and where they do not.

Shaping the work

• Run discovery and qualification sessions with business leaders, then turn what you hear into a solution aligned to their business goals.
• Deliver tailored demonstrations that speak to the client's business drivers, using their language and relevant proof points.
• Shape estimates, scope and implementation approach, and inform proposals grounded in business outcomes.
• Build the value case with the client across cycle time, effort, accuracy and how the newly created capacity can be best used, working closely alongside our sales team and the Workday alliance.

What we need

• Hands-on Workday Adaptive Planning experience implementing it, administering it, or running it at depth as a power user.
• A strong finance grounding: P&L, balance sheet and cash flow, budgeting, forecasting and management reporting.
• The confidence to lead a conversation with a CFO, financial controller or FP&A lead.
• Some exposure to the front of a sales cycle, including demonstrations, discovery, scoping and/or value cases, and the appetite to do more of it.
• Clear, direct communication, written and spoken, with the ability to explain complicated concepts simply and in grounded business language.
• The right to work in New Zealand or Australia.

What is a bonus

• A CA, CPA or equivalent qualification, or time served inside an FP&A function.
• Experience with other planning platforms, including IBM Planning Analytics, Anaplan, Board, Oracle EPM, Pigment, or the spreadsheet models you have since replaced.
• A view on AI-assisted planning, decision intelligence, MCP and agents, even if it is only a well-founded opinion rather than delivered work.
• Consulting or partner-side experience in a professional services business.
• Integration and data experience across ERP, HR and reporting systems.
• Industry depth in financial services, transportation and logistics, retail and manufacturing.

Not the finished article? Read this before you scroll past

We have written that bar honestly rather than aspirationally. The core list is short on purpose: meet most of it and we want to hear from you. If you are an FP&A professional who knows Adaptive inside out from the customer side and has never worked for a consultancy, that is a background we value rather than a gap. And if you are already seasoned and doing this at another partner, the scope here is wider.

Why Fusion5

Fusion5 helps organisations improve performance by connecting people, processes and technology, with expertise spanning business applications, cloud, infrastructure, security and AI. Our people tell us it works: 77% engagement in our most recent Your Voice survey, six points above the industry benchmark, and 88% of employees recommend Fusion5 as a great place to work.

• Flexible and hybrid working, an Auckland base preferred, and genuine openness across Australia and New Zealand.
• A tailored development plan, external certifications, coaching and leadership programmes and the time to use them.
• Company bonus scheme, birthday leave, a volunteer day, wellbeing support and free access to our Employee Assistance Programme.
• Real career range: a practice growing into AI-era planning, with room to grow as it does.