Manager - Finance Functional Systems (Remote)

About the role

The Manager - Finance Functional Systems provides leadership for the Finance Systems team and steers a unified strategy that supports the Finance Controller's Office. Acting as the product manager for Finance systems, the role manages intake and prioritization, guides roadmap and governance activities, ensures configuration excellence, and collaborates with Finance Controller's Office, Supply Chain, HR and IT to enable scalable, compliant, and efficient financial systems and operations.

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Development: Manage a team of analysts, including workload planning, prioritization, coaching, and performance development.
• System Governance & Intake Management: Own the intake, triage, and prioritization process for Finance system requests. Maintain and govern the enhancement backlog, ensuring alignment with Finance Controller’s Office strategy and resource capacity.
• Configuration Quality & Controls Oversight: Ensure quality, consistency, and compliance of configuration decisions across financial systems. Oversee system controls including posting rules, validations, approvals, and audit-readiness documentation.
• Product Ownership & Roadmap Execution: Serve as the product manager for Workday systems roadmap, defining scope, sequencing, and business value. Ensure roadmap initiatives are captured with clear requirements, developed and tested in accordance with the requirements, and delivered timely.
• Partner with Finance Controller’s Office leadership to identify opportunities for automation, process redesign, and system optimization.
• Cross Functional Alignment & Stakeholder Management: Drive alignment across Accounting, AP, Grants, Gifts, Business Assets, Projects, Payroll, Procurement, HR, Treasury, and IT on system changes and financial impacts. Influence stakeholders by presenting options, risks, standardization opportunities, and recommendations in clear business terms.
• Coordinate with IT and business partners to ensure smooth deployment and adoption of new features.
• Release Management & Business Readiness: Lead Workday semi-annual release planning, including impact assessment, regression testing strategy, and stakeholder communication. Ensure the team delivers high quality testing, documentation, and readiness activities for each release cycle.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting, Finance, Information Systems, or related field.
• Minimum of 6 years of hands-on experience with Workday Financials, including ownership of complex configuration, functional architecture, and cross-domain financial processes.
• Team leadership experience in a systems or finance function is a plus.
• Demonstrated experience leading Workday enhancements, functional design and redesign and solution architecture, and automation initiatives across Accounting, AP, Payroll, Procurement, and other Finance functions.
• Experience configuring Workday business process, validations and condition rules, allocations and financial frameworks, and security groups.
• Experience leading Workday release cycles, including impact analysis, regression testing strategy, stakeholder communication, and business readiness planning.
• Experience developing advanced and composite reports, calculated fields, and analytics datasets.
• Experience supporting or managing multiple finance systems in addition to Workday, including participation in system implementations or upgrades.
• Experience working with IT on Workday integrations, security, and technical escalations.

Required Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

• Deep expertise in Workday, including configuration leadership across business processes, validations, posting rules, approvals, and reporting logic.
• Strong understanding of Workday core finance processes - period close, procure to pay, payroll, record to report– and how they are executed, controlled, and optimized within Workday.
• Strong knowledge of Workday’s data model, including the FDM, cost centers, spend categories, ledger structures, and accounting rules, with the ability to guide consistent and scalable design decisions.
• Ability to lead solution design and evaluate complex configuration impacts.
• Ability to manage and develop a high-performing functional team.
• Strong analytical, problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels, with the ability to articulate system strategy, risks, and recommendations in clear business terms.
• Ability to manage competing priorities, multiple projects, deadlines, and release cycles.
• Strategic mindset, with the ability to connect Finance Controller’s Office priorities to Workday roadmap decisions, automation opportunities, and long-term architectural direction.
• Ability to oversee a multi-system environment and evaluate how new tools integrate with Workday and Finance processes.
• Strong knowledge of generative AI, cloud services programming, and database.