Sr. Director, Financial Systems Strategy (Hybrid)

About the role

The American Medical Association (AMA) is seeking a Sr. Director, Financial Systems Strategy for our Finance team. This is a hybrid position reporting into our Chicago, IL office, requiring 3 days a week in the office.

Responsibilities

• Partner with IT to develop and maintain a multi-year Finance technology and transformation roadmap aligned with the Association's strategic objectives.
• Business lead for the evaluation, selection, and implementation of enterprise Finance technologies, including ERP, payroll, financial reporting, planning, and automation solutions.
• Develop business cases, investment recommendations, and project success metrics for major Finance transformation initiatives.
• Serve as the primary Finance liaison with Information Technology, Business Unit leadership, software vendors, implementation partners, and external service providers.
• Partners with IT to establish governance frameworks, project steering committees, and decision-making processes to support successful execution of strategic initiatives.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and industry best practices to identify opportunities for innovation, automation, and process improvement.
• Systems Implementation & Integration
• Business lead for the implementation, integration, and adoption of Finance-related technology platforms, including ERP, general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable, purchasing, payroll, financial reporting, planning, and related applications.
• Business lead for the selection and transition to a third-party payroll provider, including vendor evaluation, implementation oversight, testing, and post-implementation governance.
• Assess business and technical requirements, define project scope, and effectively drive projects through implementation and organizational adoption.
• Collaborate with Information Technology and Business Units to design, implement, and support integrations between enterprise financial systems and decentralized operational systems.
• Business lead for data governance efforts related to system implementations, including chart of accounts design, master data standards, organizational hierarchies, and data quality initiatives.
• Direct the development of system documentation, training materials, and user support resources to facilitate successful adoption.
• Process Excellence, Operations & Continuous Improvement
• Lead initiatives to document current-state and future-state business processes, controls, governance processes, and system requirements.
• Drive automation and process improvements across payroll, record-to-report, procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, budgeting, forecasting, and financial reporting processes.
• Partner with Finance, Information Technology, Human Resources, and Business Unit leaders to develop and execute continuous improvement initiatives.
• Lead organizational change management activities associated with Finance transformation projects, including communication, training, stakeholder engagement, and adoption strategies.
• Partner with Finance leadership and Internal Audit to strengthen internal controls through process redesign and system-enabled automation.
• Establish mechanisms to identify, prioritize, and implement ongoing system and process enhancements.
• Support Finance systems and Business Unit integrations during the month-end, quarter-end and year-end processes.
• Provide strategic oversight of Finance systems operations, ensuring system stability, performance, security, and alignment with business needs.
• Manage relationships with software vendors, implementation partners, and outsourced service providers, including performance monitoring and contract compliance.
• Build organizational capabilities in financial systems, data governance, process improvement, and technology-enabled transformation.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Information Technology or related field is required. Advanced degree/MBA preferred.
• Minimum of 12+ years of progressive experience in financial systems, finance transformation, or related roles.
• Experience with integrating ERP with planning/reporting tools such as Oracle Essbase or similar platforms.
• Minimum 7+ years’ experience developing staff; ability to attract and develop talent.
• Experience leading multiple financial systems implementations in major organizations, including system/process design, project management, change management, and issue management and resolution.
• Demonstrated experience leading ERP selection, cloud ERP transformation, and large-scale Finance modernization initiatives, including vendor selection, implementation governance, and organizational change management.
• Experience with the following systems is preferred: Infor/Lawson, Oracle Hyperion, SmartView/Essbase, Blackline, or similar applications/tools.
• Advanced skills with Microsoft Office and project management software.
• Excellent understanding of finance/accounting processes and ability to develop process documentation, business requirements, functional specifications and UAT scripts within internal teams.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to build strong relationships across departments.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and effectively with others at all levels of the organization.

Pay

The salary range for this position is $191,434 - $258,539. This is the lowest to highest salary we believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s pay within the salary range will be determined by a variety of factors including but not limited to business consideration and geographical location, as well as candidate qualifications, such as skills, education, and experience.

Schedule

This is a hybrid position requiring 3 days a week in the office.