Higher Education Transformation Lead — AI-Enabled Cloud ERP

Accenture PLC; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 133,000 - 311,000; Full time

Job summary

Accenture is seeking a higher education transformation lead to drive end-to-end ERP programs for colleges and universities. You will own senior client relationships in finance, HR, payroll, procurement, and research administration, guiding design, adoption, and integration across complex, decentralized environments.

You’ll lead strategic engagements, champion AI-enabled delivery, manage change in a shared governance culture, and shape the market through early involvement in key forums and

Qualifications

• Minimum 8 years of consulting or functional experience in higher education or community college environments with Senior-level functional expertise in at least one domain: institutional finance and budget operations, HR and academic workforce management, payroll administration, procurement and purchasing compliance, or research administration and sponsored programs.
• Minimum 7 years of hands-on delivery experience with Cloud ERP in a functional capacity with demonstrated experience as a delivery lead or senior functional tower owner on large, complex ERP engagements or similar institution-wide transformations and implementations in higher education, with accountability for design quality, senior relationships, and outcomes in your domain.
• Bachelor's degree preferred. Equivalent experience considered.

Responsibilities

• Lead Cloud ERP engagements – with a lens on business transformation - for college and university clients, either as an overall delivery lead or as the senior owner of the functional tower in your domain, with accountability for quality, client relationships, and outcomes.
• Own senior client relationships in your functional area, including the VP of Finance, CFO, CHRO, VP of Research, Sponsored Programs Director, Payroll Director, and Chief Procurement Officer, engaging as a peer who understands what they are managing, not just what they have asked for.
• Drive functional design decisions that account for the full complexity of how higher education institutions actually operate: decentralized finance and HR structures, shared governance dynamics, research enterprise requirements, cross-functional integration dependencies, and board reporting obligations.
• Lead change management strategy within your domain, building adoption approaches that work in a shared governance culture, engage department-level administrators and faculty stakeholders, and account for the political realities of institutional transformation.
• Own integration strategy within your tower, understanding how your functional domain connects to student systems, research platforms, advancement systems, state reporting environments, and other enterprise tools, and ensuring those dependencies are designed for, not discovered late.
• Bring AI-assisted delivery, platform-native AI capabilities and responsible workflow automation into engagements as standard practice, and help clients think through what governed AI adoption looks like in their institutional context. Outside of ERP toolsets, bring modernization and functional opportunities for AI-process redesign and automation.
• Contribute to must-win pursuits and proposals, bringing the kind of domain credibility that changes what a higher education evaluator thinks of us in the room because they can tell within the first ten minutes whether someone understands their institution or is pitching a generic playbook.
• Help shape the market 24 to 36 months before an RFP: build relationships with university functional leaders, engage with platform account teams on joint pipeline, and represent the practice at NACUBO, EDUCAUSE, CUPA-HR and related forums.
• Contribute to practice development including solutions, services, and client outcomes for use on future engagements.
• Develop junior and mid-level practitioners in your functional area, helping them build the domain depth, change management instincts, and platform fluency that make the whole team more credible.

Job description

Accenture is seeking a higher education transformation lead to drive end-to-end ERP programs for colleges and universities. You will own senior client relationships in finance, HR, payroll, procurement, and research administration, guiding design, adoption, and integration across complex, decentralized environments.

You’ll lead strategic engagements, champion AI-enabled delivery, manage change in a shared governance culture, and shape the market through early involvement in key forums and