Senior Specialist, Digital Transformation

University of British Columbia - Staff; United States; Remote; USD 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

An established academic institution is seeking a Senior Specialist in Digital Transformation to lead the modernization of its financial systems. This role involves collaborating across departments to enhance financial processes and drive digital initiatives that improve performance and sustainability. The ideal candidate will leverage their project management and analytical skills to implement strategic solutions, ensuring compliance and promoting data governance. This position offers a unique opportunity to influence financial operations at a leading university, making a significant impact on its long-term success.

Qualifications

• Minimum of five years of related experience in finance or digital transformation.
• Strong understanding of financial processes and project management.

Responsibilities

• Lead digital transformation initiatives across the university's finance function.
• Analyze business processes for opportunities in automation and digitization.
• Develop comprehensive transformation roadmaps for financial systems.

Skills

Project Management

Data Analysis

Financial Reporting

Communication Skills

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, or related field

Master's degree or MBA

Tools

Workday

SAP

Oracle

Power BI

Tableau

Job description

Staff - Non Union

Job Category M&P - AAPS Job Profile AAPS Salaried - Information Systems and Technology, Level D Job Title Senior Specialist, Digital Transformation Department Finance Transformation | VP Finance and Operations Compensation Range $8,305.08 - $12,952.33 CAD Monthly

The Compensation Range is the span between the minimum and maximum base salary for a position. The midpoint of the range is approximately halfway between the minimum and the maximum and represents an employee that possesses full job knowledge, qualifications and experience for the position. In the normal course, employees will be hired, transferred or promoted between the minimum and midpoint of the salary range for a job.

Posting End Date May 13, 2025

Note: Applications will be accepted until 11:59 PM on the Posting End Date.

Job End Date

Jun 2, 2026

At UBC, we believe that attracting and sustaining a diverse workforce is key to the successful pursuit of excellence in research, innovation, and learning for all faculty, staff and students. Our commitment to employment equity helps achieve inclusion and fairness, brings rich diversity to UBC as a workplace, and creates the necessary conditions for a rewarding career.

Job Summary

Senior Specialist, Digital Transformation will spearhead the modernization and optimization of its digital and finance function, not only across VP Finance & Operations (VPFO) portfolio, but also impacting the entire UBC, including both campuses and impacting all major university funds. This role will focus on designing solutions to enhance existing complex and university-wide financial systems, data, technology, financial processes, and systems strategies to improve financial performance. The successful candidate will utilize both project management and analytical skills to drive financial operations improvements, deliver strategic insights, and support business objectives. The Senior Specialist, Digital Transformation will be responsible for driving reporting, data and digital transformation initiatives, including process enhancements and the development of a comprehensive transformation roadmap.

Organizational Status

Reporting to the Associate Director, Finance Strategy & Decision Support, the Senior Specialist, Digital Transformation is a key member of the Transformation and Strategy team. The position works closely with all members in the Vice President Finance and Operations (VPFO) team and partners with other finance departments including Treasury, Faculty and Administration Finance Directors from both campuses, and key data and informational partners such as the Integrated Service Centre, PAIR and Enrolment Services.

Work Performed.

• Lead the implementation of digital transformation initiatives at the corporate level, from concept through implementation.

• Design solutions to enhance existing university-wide financial systems by working collaboratively and cross-functionally with Financial Reporting, FP&A, Treasury, Business Intelligence, HR, IT, the Integrated Service Centre, and distributed finance teams from both Faculties and Administrative Units across both campuses.

• Analyze existing business processes, and identify opportunities for digitization and automation across the entire university and impacting all major funds

• Analyze and translate business requirements into data-driven solutions using analytics, dashboards, and reporting tools. Develop processes and procedures compatible with existing components of the systems in scope.

• Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and provide insights to support decision-making.

• Promote data governance and best practices for data quality, security, and usage.

• Lead in data modeling activities to ensure transformed data supports business intelligence and analytics needs.

• Develop detailed documentation of transformation processes, mapping logic, and business rules.

• Ensure compliance with data governance, privacy, and security standards.

• Work closely with teams such as IT, Integrated Service Centre, HR, and operations to tailor digital solutions to the university’s needs.

• Identify ways to improve financial services through digital advancements while maintaining cost efficiency.

• Collect, analyze, and interpret data to inform decision-making and uncover insights for improving the entire university’s outcome and long-term financial sustainability.

• Facilitate organizational adaptation to new technologies by addressing employee concerns, providing training, and ensuring smooth transitions by working closely with all members in the Vice President Finance and Operations (VPFO) team and Faculty and Administration Finance Directors from both campuses.

• Manage projects related to digitization, including resource planning, risk management, budget, and stakeholder engagement.

• Analyze organizational processes, policies, and operations to identify opportunities for digital transformation.

• Provide specialist advice to central and distributed finance staff and client departments; and act as project lead.

Consequence of Error/Judgement

This role is instrumental in ensuring the University’s financial recording and reporting activities are accurate and delivered in a timely manner. Makes decisions regarding design and maintenance of existing university-wide financial systems. A degree of judgment, technical expertise and strategic thinking is required. This role provides a unique opportunity to shape the future of financial operations at a leading academic institution. The ideal candidate will have a continuous improvement mindset, a passion for driving transformative change, and the ability to align accounting processes with strategic business objectives to achieve impactful results.

Supervision Received

The Senior Specialist, Digital Transformation works independently, with a wide latitude, and in a collaborative environment under broad directives from the Associate Director, Finance Strategy & Decision Support. Work is reviewed in terms of achievement of broad project objectives and goals

Supervision Given

While this role has no direct reports, the Senior Specialist Digital Transformation will be involved in reviewing the work of other staff, and providing guidance to members of the campus community. Manages indirectly via influence, not authority.

Minimum Qualifications
Undergraduate degree in a relevant discipline. In-depth knowledge of applications and the business requirements supporting them. Minimum of five years of related experience, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.

- Willingness to respect diverse perspectives, including perspectives in conflict with one’s own

- Demonstrates a commitment to enhancing one’s own awareness, knowledge, and skills related to equity, diversity, and inclusion

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business or Data analytics, or a related field; Master's degree or MBA, MBAN

• Expertise in financial systems (e.g., Workday, SAP, Oracle), process improvement, and project management.

• Strong understanding of financial processes, budgeting and planning, accounting principles, and financial reporting.

• Proficiency with business intelligence tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau) and ERP software.

• Strong communication, leadership, and analytical skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels.

• Experience as a consultant / senior consultant with Big 4 firms, or in higher education environments is an asset.

• Demonstrated success in managing change and driving process automation within the finance function.

• Ability to evaluate and design strategies for optimizing cost structures and financial operations.

This position offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of financial operations at a leading academic institution. The ideal candidate will possess a proactive, continuous improvement mindset and a passion for challenging the status quo to drive impactful transformation.