Senior Financial Systems and Innovation Manager

Overview Foley & Lardner LLP is a great place to work because of what we do and how we do it. Here, your unique perspectives, experiences, and abilities will be embraced and developed, so you can excel. Being a part of Foley means having the opportunities and resources necessary to gain experience, advance professional goals, and forge meaningful connections. It’s a place where you can build your career and enjoy professionally satisfying work. We have over 2,300 people who are #HappyatFoley, and we think you will be too. The Senior Manager, Financial Systems is responsible for leading the strategy, operation, and project delivery of the firm’s accounting and integrated finance systems. This role serves as a senior liaison between Finance, Technology, internal stakeholders, and external vendors to ensure financial applications, data, reporting, integrations, and related business processes support the firm’s evolving needs. The position provides leadership to financial systems professionals, plays a key role in driving critical projects and system initiatives, leads innovation and process improvement, and ensures operational excellence across financial systems support, documentation, upgrades, testing, and issue resolution. This role has significant impact on the accuracy, integrity, availability, and strategic use of financial data across the firm. Responsibilities Provide leadership and oversight for the firm’s financial systems, including accounting, reporting, integrations, and related finance applications. Lead, mentor, and develop financial systems professionals including responsibility for work direction, professional development, coaching & mentoring, performance reviews, performance management, compensation, etc. Serve as a key liaison between Finance, Technology, consultants, vendors, and internal stakeholders on firmwide financial systems, roadmaps, projects, integrations, and issue resolution. Manage strategically important financial systems projects, including coordinating resources, resolving issues, documenting decisions, and meeting project milestones. Ensure financial data is accurate, consistent, complete, and appropriately reflected across dashboards, financial reports, accounting systems, and other integrated firm systems. Drive innovation, process improvement, automation, and efficiency across Finance by identifying opportunities to better leverage systems, data, workflows, and platform capabilities. Oversee incidents, outages, and recurring issues; analyze root causes and ensure remediation plans are implemented to reduce future disruption. Maintain thorough functional and operational documentation for systems, procedures, projects, integrations, reporting logic, and process changes. Communicate system changes, enhancements, risks, issues, and solutions clearly to management, peers, staff, vendors, and cross-functional stakeholders. Lead the administration and governance of month-end financial processes, ensuring adherence to close schedules, and overseeing the accurate and timely distribution of month-end financial reporting. Monitor legal industry, professional services, financial systems, reporting, and technology trends to help inform the future direction of the firm’s finance technology roadmap. Qualifications Bachelor’s Degree required; Information Technology, Accounting, Finance, Business Administration, or a related field strongly preferred. Minimum of ten (10) years of overall experience supporting finance and/or accounting systems, including significant experience leading complex systems initiatives, managing financial systems operations, supporting reporting and data integrity, and working collaboratively with Finance, Technology, business stakeholders, and external vendors required. Minimum of five (5) years of people management experience leading technical, systems, project, or cross-functional teams is required. Prior law firm or professional services experience strongly preferred. Prior experience with applications such as 3E preferred. Experience managing financial systems projects, upgrades, integrations, reporting tools, data governance, dashboards, and process improvement initiatives preferred. Experience working with consultants, vendors, external developers, and internal technology teams preferred. In support of transparency and equity in the workplace, Foley provides salary ranges for all positions. The figures below represent the full compensation range of this position. The actual offered amount will be between the range minimum and midpoint based on the following factors: education, experience, geographic market, and internal pay equity at Foley. Milwaukee- $173,200 to $259,800 Chicago and Houston- $190,500 to $285,800 Foley offers a comprehensive benefit program which currently includes Paid Time Off; Paid Holidays; Medical, Dental and Vision insurance; 401(k) Retirement; Disability and Life insurance; Adoption Assistance; Backup Care for Dependents. Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer/M/F/Vet/Disabled. About Foley & Lardner Foley is an Am Law 50 law firm consistently ranked among top-tier practices. With over 1,100 lawyers in 26 offices across the United States, Mexico, Europe, and Asia, our market-leading platform includes Corporate, Intellectual Property, and Litigation. Adding depth to our bench strength, we focus on four primary sectors: Energy, Health Care & Life Sciences, Innovative Technology, and Manufacturing. We look beyond the law to focus on the constantly evolving demands facing our clients and act as trusted business advisors to deliver creative, practical, and effective solutions. For nearly two centuries, Foley has maintained its commitment to the highest level of innovative legal services and to the stewardship of our people, firm, clients, and the communities we serve. While respecting our roots, we’re also continuously looking to modernize all aspects of our business and elevate who we are and what we do, which keeps us focused on the future.