The Finance Transformation BA/PM will lead business analysis, systems analysis, process design, and project coordination across finance and G&A process improvement workstreams. This person will work directly with FP&A, Accounting, Procurement / SS&P, Reporting, IT, business stakeholders, vendors, and partner teams to translate business needs into clear requirements, solution options, backlog items, data/reporting definitions, acceptance criteria, and implementation-ready work.
This is not a generic project manager, pure FP&A, accounting, or requirements-gathering role. The ideal candidate must be financially literate enough to work credibly with Finance and Accounting leaders, while being systems-oriented enough to engage application owners, developers, data teams, vendors, and shared services partners. They must be able to structure ambiguity, drive follow-up, and identify whether a problem is primarily a process, data, system configuration, integration, reporting, governance, ownership, or change-management issue.
Key Responsibilities
- Facilitate workshops with Finance, FP&A, Accounting, Procurement / SS&P, IT, Reporting, Data, partner shared services, vendors, and business stakeholders.
- Document current-state and future-state processes across budgeting, forecasting, budget-to-actuals, close, accruals, allocations, procurement intake, approvals, supplier/vendor workflows, PO/invoice handling, reporting, reconciliations, and cross-functional handoffs.
- Translate business pain points into clear business requirements, user stories, functional specifications, data requirements, acceptance criteria, decision records, and implementation-ready options.
- Serve as the day-to-day bridge between business teams and partner platform, data, reporting, finance operations, procurement, and support resources.
- Clarify ownership, dependencies, handoffs, intake paths, escalation routes, service expectations, and the practical route from business need to delivered outcome.
- Bridge business needs and technical delivery across D365, Coupa, Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday, ServiceNow, Power BI, Excel-based models, integrations, data marts, and workflow/reporting tools.
- Help stakeholders evaluate practical options, trade-offs, constraints, dependencies, implementation paths, and downstream operating implications without over-engineering or assuming every issue requires a new system or custom build.
- Support data mapping, reporting definitions, KPI/metric alignment, semantic-layer inputs, and requirements involving budgets, forecasts, actuals, commitments, project codes, cost centers, vendors, POs, invoices, accruals, allocations, and program/project reporting.
- Create and maintain a prioritized backlog of process, system, reporting, data, automation, and AI-enabled improvement opportunities, including value, feasibility, dependencies, ownership, risks, and sequencing.
- Maintain project plans, meeting notes, action logs, RAID logs, decision logs, dependency trackers, concise status materials, and stakeholder follow-ups.
- Coordinate UAT planning, test scenarios, defect tracking, validation evidence, business sign-off, and post-go-live stabilization.
- Help define governance, ownership, RACI, escalation paths, operating routines, documentation standards, change management, and training materials so improvements are repeatable and sustainable.
- Identify practical opportunities to use automation, analytics, workflow tools, and AI to reduce manual effort, improve knowledge capture, accelerate analysis, or strengthen business support processes.
- Workshop plans, agendas, notes, decision records, and action trackers.
- Current-state and future-state process maps and narratives.
- Business requirements, functional specifications, user stories, and acceptance criteria.
- Decision-ready options, trade-off summaries, dependency maps, and implementation considerations.
- Shared services intake, ownership, escalation, and handoff documentation.
- Data mapping, reporting, dashboard, KPI/metric, and semantic-layer requirements.
- Prioritized backlog of process, system, reporting, data, automation, and AI opportunities.
- RAID log, decision log, dependency tracker, project plan, and weekly status reports.
- UAT plans, test scenarios, defect logs, validation evidence, and business sign-off documentation.
- Governance, RACI, escalation, operating model, training, and change-management support materials as needed.
Must-Have Experience
- 7+ years of experience in finance transformation, finance business analysis, finance systems, finance project management, enterprise systems consulting, or a similar BA/BSA role.
- Strong working knowledge of G&A processes, especially Finance, Accounting, FP&A, Procurement, shared services, reporting, workflow, and financial controls.
- Strong working knowledge of Accounting and FP&A processes, including budgeting, forecasting, budget-to-actuals reporting, month-end close, accruals, cash reporting, journal entries, cost allocations, reconciliations, and financial controls.
- Demonstrated ability to translate Finance, Accounting, Procurement, and operations needs into clear requirements for IT, developers, data teams, application owners, vendors, and shared services partners.
- Hands-on experience with ERP, planning, procurement, workflow, reporting, finance data, or enterprise application platforms.
- Ability to shape practical solution options, identify trade-offs, and connect business process, data, systems, reporting, integrations, governance, and operating model implications.
- Strong process mapping, requirements gathering, user story writing, acceptance criteria definition, documentation, and workshop facilitation skills.
- Experience managing project plans, status reports, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions, action logs, stakeholder follow-ups, and delivery coordination.
- Experience supporting UAT, test scenario development, defect tracking, validation evidence, business sign-off, and post-go-live stabilization.
- Ability to distinguish whether an issue is primarily a process, data, system configuration, integration, reporting, governance, ownership, or change-management issue.
- Experience operating independently in ambiguous, cross-functional environments with business, IT, shared services, vendors, and senior stakeholders.
- Strong written communication, facilitation, documentation, stakeholder-management, and executive-summary skills.
Nice-to-Have Experience
- Hands-on experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, Coupa, Workday Adaptive Planning, Workday, ServiceNow, Power BI, Jira, SharePoint/Teams, or similar platforms.
- Experience working in or with a shared services model, especially where platform ownership, process ownership, data/reporting ownership, and operational support are distributed across organizational boundaries.
- Experience with finance data marts, reporting layers, dashboards, master data, integrations, semantic layers, or data governance initiatives.
- Experience in life sciences, biotech, clinical development, nonprofit, foundation, grant-funded, R&D-heavy, or matrixed/shared-services organizations.
- Experience with project accounting, funder/grant reporting, program-level financial reporting, clinical trial/R&D forecasting, procurement intake, supplier onboarding, contract workflows, approval routing, and PO/invoice processes.
- Exposure to Agile, Scrum, SDLC, product/backlog management, and Jira-based delivery practices.
- Practical familiarity with AI, workflow automation, low-code/no-code tools, analytics, or knowledge-management approaches that can be applied responsibly in enterprise operations.
- CPA, CMA, PMP, PMI-PBA, CBAP, Agile/Scrum, Lean Six Sigma, or similar certification.
Ideal Candidate Profile
- The ideal candidate is a finance transformation operator and finance-savvy systems BA/PM who can combine business analysis, systems analysis, project management, process optimization, and finance domain expertise. They should be credible with Finance and Accounting leaders, practical with systems and data teams, and disciplined enough to move work from discussion to implementation.
- They should be able to manage themselves, create structure, maintain momentum, elevate decisions or ownership capacity, and surface downstream consequences.
- A strong candidate will have the judgment to distinguish between:
- A process issue.
- A data or reporting-definition issue.
- A system configuration issue.
- An integration issue.
- A governance, ownership, or change-management issue.
Success Measures
- The contractor will be successful if they help:
- Move workshops from discussion to concrete decision, action, requirement, and delivery follow-through.
- Create clear requirements that partner shared services, IT, vendor, data, reporting, and application teams can act on.
- Reduce ambiguity around ownership, governance, data definitions, status, risks, dependencies, and delivery paths.
- Prioritize process, reporting, system, data, governance, automation, and AI-enabled improvements realistically and implement them where feasible.
- Build documentation that reduces key-person dependency and supports sustainable operations after the contract ends.