VP Finance, Global Business Services

UL, LLC; Northbrook (IL); On-site; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Annual bonus

RSU/PSU grants

Health benefits

Paid time off

Job summary

UL Solutions in Northbrook, IL seeks a Vice President of Global Business Services to lead a globally distributed organization delivering end-to-end finance, operations, data, and transformation across the enterprise.

You will partner with the CFO and technology leaders to drive a scalable operating model, governance, and disciplined value delivery, balancing day‑to‑day service with strategic growth, digital enablement, and talent development.

Qualifications

• 15+ years of progressive executive leadership in large-scale global operations.
• Experience leading shared services/GBS in a multinational setting.
• Proven success transforming organizations with end-to-end ownership.
• Ability to advise CFO and senior executives; strong governance.
• Deep understanding of finance operations, payroll, analytics, and data enablement.
• Strong digital, AI, and automation mindset; overseeing transformation programs.
• Excellent change management, vendor management, and strategic partnering.
• Bachelor’s degree; advanced degree preferred.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve the GBS strategy, operating model, governance, and location strategy to align with enterprise priorities.
• Own end-to-end processes such as finance operations, payroll, master data, and data enablement with clear accountability.
• Lead a rigorous performance system with SLAs, KPIs, and disciplined cost-to-serve.
• Sponsor and govern a complex transformation portfolio with measurable benefits.
• Build future-ready capabilities through intelligent automation and AI-enabled service delivery.
• Partner with the CFO, Finance Leadership Team, business segments, functions, and technology leaders.
• Develop global leadership, succession planning, and capability academies; foster an enterprise-first culture.
• Maintain strong controls including SOX compliance, data governance, and risk management.

Skills

Executive leadership

Global operations

Strategic leadership

Change management

Digital enablement

Data & analytics

Financial acumen

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Business, Economics, Finance, Operations, Engineering, or related discipline

Advanced degree preferred

Job description

The Vice President, Global Business Services (GBS) leads a large, globally distributed organization across end-to-end service towers, centers of excellence, process excellence, data enablement, digital transformation, business insights, and regional delivery hubs. The model integrates ULS talent and strategic delivery partners to serve the enterprise at scale.

The Vice President, Global Business Services is the enterprise executive accountable for the strategy, operating model, performance, transformation, talent, controls, and sustained value delivery of GBS. The role has evolved well beyond traditional shared services leadership. It combines global operations, end-to-end process ownership, business partnership, digital and AI enablement, data and insights, and transformation.

The leader sets the aspiration for GBS and converts it into a sequenced portfolio of structural, operational, digital, and capability-building priorities. The role must simultaneously protect day-to-day service, improve customer outcomes, working capital and cost efficiency, modernize the footprint, and build scalable capabilities that position GBS as a trusted enterprise partner.

• Enterprise strategy and operating model: Define and continuously evolve the GBS strategy, service portfolio, governance, delivery footprint, tower model, centers of excellence, and location strategy in alignment with enterprise and CFO priorities.

• End-to-end accountability: Drive ownership across Order-to-cash, invoice-to-pay, payroll, customer care and certification operations, master data and data enablement, with clear process boundaries, service expectations, controls, and decision rights.

• Operational performance: Lead a disciplined performance system anchored in SLAs, KPIs, quality, productivity, capacity, cost-to-serve, working capital, customer experience, risk, and control effectiveness. Intervene quickly where performance or business outcomes are at risk.

• Transformation portfolio: Sponsor and govern a complex portfolio of operating-model, process, automation, AI, data, technology, and integration initiatives. Ensure investments have clear outcomes, owners, milestones, controls, adoption plans, and measurable benefits.

• Digital, data and AI agenda: Build future-ready capabilities through intelligent automation, AI-enabled service delivery, governed data foundations, decision-focused insights, and thoughtful integration of technology into redesigned processes.

• Business partnership: Serve as a senior advisor to the CFO, Finance Leadership Team, business segments, functions, and technology leaders. Translate enterprise needs into scalable solutions while challenging fragmented work, avoidable complexity, and local optimization.

• Talent and culture: Build a diverse, high-performing global team; create succession depth and career pathways; strengthen site leadership and capability academies; and foster a culture of accountability, inclusion, continuous improvement, learning, and enterprise-first decision-making.

• Risk, controls and compliance: Maintain a strong control environment across global operations, including SOX and financial reporting controls, audit readiness, data governance, third-party oversight, policy compliance, business continuity, and sustainable remediation.

• Partner and commercial leadership: Own strategic service-provider relationships, statements of work, commercial protections, performance commitments, transition governance, quality assurance, and continuous value realization.

• Enterprise change and integration: Lead sensitive global transformations, acquisitions, separations, transitions, and new-scope migrations with disciplined Day 1 readiness, stakeholder alignment, communications, talent planning, and stabilization.

• 15+ years of progressive experience, including significant executive leadership of large-scale global operations, shared services or GBS, and enterprise transformation in a complex multinational environment.

• Demonstrated success transforming a shared-services organization into an integrated GBS model with stronger end-to-end ownership, scalable delivery, measurable enterprise value, and disciplined governance.

• Executive presence and credibility to advise, influence, and challenge C-suite leaders, business presidents, functional executives, boards, auditors, and external partners.

• Proven ability to lead a broad portfolio spanning finance operations, customer operations, payroll, procurement operations, master data, process excellence, analytics, digital enablement, controls, and service management.

• Strong commercial, financial, and operational acumen, including business cases, productivity and cost management, working capital, vendor contracts, investment prioritization, and benefit realization.

• Practical understanding of digital transformation, automation, AI, enterprise platforms, data architecture, governance, and technology-enabled operating-model redesign.

• Exceptional global people leadership, with experience building leadership teams, developing successors, leading through ambiguity, and inspiring geographically and culturally diverse organizations.

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Business, Economics, Finance, Operations, Engineering, or a related discipline. Advanced degree preferred.

Pivotal Experience and Expertise:

• GBS architect: Has designed and led a modern GBS model that integrates service delivery, process ownership, transformation, data, digital, controls, and talent under one enterprise agenda.

• Transformation at scale: Has successfully led multi-year, cross-functional transformations involving organization redesign, process standardization, outsourcing or insourcing, location strategy, technology deployment, automation, and change management.

• Operational rigor: Establishes transparent performance systems and has the judgment to distinguish isolated service issues from systemic process, capacity, accountability, or control failures.

• Enterprise influence: Navigates matrixed organizations, aligns leaders with competing priorities, and moves decisions forward without relying solely on formal authority.

• Digital and AI fluency: Connects emerging capabilities to real business problems, redesigns work before automating it, and balances speed with governance, control, adoption, and measurable impact.

• Global footprint leadership: Has directed multi-country operations and delivery hubs, built resilient location and sourcing strategies, and managed strategic partners without diluting enterprise accountability.

• Value orientation: Converts GBS performance into business outcomes, including customer experience, cash, growth enablement, productivity, cost, quality, control, cycle time, and organizational capacity.

• Change leadership: Communicates with clarity and empathy, makes difficult decisions, builds followership, and leaves behind stronger leaders, capabilities, governance, and institutional discipline

Cultural Characteristics:

• Enterprise-first and mission-driven: Puts the company, customers, and team ahead of functional ownership; connects GBS priorities to UL Solutions’ mission and enterprise strategy.

• High standards, low ego: Raises the bar, invites challenge, gives credit broadly, and combines humility with the courage to make consequential decisions.

• Customer and outcome obsessed: Looks beyond activity and technology deployment to the business result, end-to-end journey, and experience being created.

• Accountable, metrics-driven, and decisive: Creates clarity, confronts issues directly, follows through, and expects leaders to own both performance and root-cause resolution.

• Strategic and pragmatic: Holds the long-term vision while sequencing change realistically, protecting service continuity, and adapting as facts evolve.

• Talent-centric and inclusive: Builds trust across cultures, develops people through expanded ownership, and creates opportunities for leaders and teams to grow with the operating model.

• Curious and future-ready: Continuously benchmarks, learns, tests assumptions, and advances digital, data, AI, and process capabilities with disciplined judgment.

• Connected collaborator: Builds durable partnerships across Finance, Technology, HR, Sourcing, Sales, operations, and the business to solve enterprise problems rather than shift them.

Total Rewards

We understand compensation is an important factor as you consider the next step in your career. The estimated salary range for this position is $250,000 - $300,000 and is based on multiple factors, including job-related knowledge/skills, experience, geographical location, as well as other factors. This position is eligible for annual bonus compensation with a target payout of 40% of base salary and a 50% RSU and PSU grant. This position also provides health benefits such as medical, dental and vision; wellness benefits such as mental and financial health; and retirement savings (401K) commensurate with the standard rewards offered in each individual location or country. We also provide full-time employees with paid time off including vacation (25 days), holiday including floating holidays (12 days) and sick time off (72 hours).

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About Us

A global leader in applied safety science, UL Solutions (NYSE: ULS) transforms safety, security and sustainability challenges into opportunities for customers in more than 110 countries. UL Solutions delivers testing, inspection and certification services, together with software products and advisory offerings that support our customers’ product innovation and business growth. The UL Mark serves as a recognized symbol of trust in our customers’ products and reflects an unwavering commitment to advancing our safety mission. We help our customers innovate, launch new products and services, navigate global markets and complex supply chains, and grow sustainably and responsibly into the future. Our science is your advantage.

About the Team

Advancing our mission of working for a safer world starts with our people. We have over 15,000 team members around the world, each making a valuable and essential contribution to creating a safer future. Whether it’s hiring top talent, empowering our people to learn new skills or providing critical hands‑on support, we are always finding new ways to deliver a better employee experience. We’re looking for people to share their ideas and help us create a diverse, engaged culture that’s united by a passion for safety and sustainability. Join our team, shape our culture and support our global community of experts.

UL LLC has been and will continue to be an equal opportunity employer. To assure full implementation of this equal employment policy, we will take steps to assure that:

Persons are recruited, hired, assigned and promoted without regard to race, color, age, sex or gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, religion, creed, national origin, ethnicity, citizenship, ancestry, disability, genetic information, military or veteran status, pregnancy, marital or familial status, or any other protected category under applicable law.