Senior Project Manager (Accounting Systems)

General Job Description:

Were seeking a seasoned Senior Project Manager to lead transformative technology initiatives across Accounting and Finance processes and systems. This role will drive modernization and integration efforts involving platforms such as JD Edwards (JDE) and Medius (A/P), ensuring seamless collaboration between Technology (IT) and Business Operations. Reporting to the Director of Project Portfolio Management (PMO), the ideal candidate has 7+ years of ERP-related project leadership experience, including successful delivery in mid-sized company transformations.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities:

• Lead cross-functional planning and orchestration of technology initiatives focused on Accounting & Finance processes and systems.
• Partner with sponsors, business owners, analysts, and SMEs to define project scope, business case, ROI, resource needs, and vendor deliverables.
• Adhere, advocate and contribute improvements to PMO framework and project management standards.
• Leveraging deep understanding of Financial systems, partner with project sponsors, business process owners, business analysts, technical SMEs within Technology (IT), Finance, Accounting, Purchasing to organize, refine and document project business case, scope, goals, ROI/value argument, resource requirements, vendors services and project work deliverables, including Change Management.
• Build and drive ongoing refinement, updates and execution against a comprehensive project plan ensuring Assigned team members are well-informed of timelines and interdependencies and capture estimating inputs from all team members.
• Oversee and drive projects that will upgrade finance and accounting systems to latest versions, improve data quality, and optimize usability of systems features.
• Oversee and drive projects that will contribute to Billing and Cost Analytics/Decision Support systems maturity by improving data quality, enabling latest systems capabilities and automation.
• Proactively communicate with internal Business Operations and Technology teams, external vendors, and stakeholders to ensure well-coordinated project execution, manage risks and issues and provide transparency to stakeholders and executive sponsors.
• Partner with internal ACCO stakeholders on Change Management considerations to ensure a successful sequencing of communications, training and deployment of new processes and systems.
• Collaborate with colleagues using multiple back-office productivity and collaboration tools: Smartsheet, Box, Google Workspace (Gmail, GCalendar, GChat, Gemini-AI), Zoom, Lucid Charts, PowerPoint, Jira.
• Partner with shared service --IT QA-- to ensure Quality Delivery via comprehensive test plans. In partnership with Technology Business Operations analysts, Business Process Owners, Developers (internal and external vendors). Oversee completion of Day in the Life (DITL) aka User Acceptance Test (UAT) in non-production environments. Ensure technical QA testing is documented and executed successfully prior to UAT/DITL.
• Maintain and uphold project management best practices: Scope Management, Risk & Issue & Decision Management, Schedule/Task Planning, Status, Stakeholder Management.
• Orchestrate project resources and team members to ensure translation of high-level business cases and requirements are expanded into detailed Functional Requirements Specifications (FRS), Technical Design Documents (TDD) and Technical Specifications (TS) to ensure lower-level technical configuration in systems are traceable to back to the FRS.
• Partner with receiving Technology App/System Manager to compile Transition to Support Plan, including a Control Plan that defines when ROI confirmations are conducted to confirm value is achieved for PMO value-tracking analysis.
• Conduct project health assessments, lessons learned as directed by PMO, project sponsors.
• Other work as assigned.

Position Requirements (Skills, Knowledge, Abilities):

• Bachelors degree in Business Administration, MIS, or related field required.
• Project Management certification, in good standing. (PMP preferred; Prince2 considered).
• Deep understanding of ERP systems (preferably JD Edwards), Finance/Accounting modules, GAAP and data integration best practices.
• Demonstrated experience with Accounting & Finance reporting and analytics platforms deployment projects.
• Demonstrates strong team leadership, fluid partnering interaction style, clear and concise written & verbal communication skills.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent verbal and written communication; adept at executive-level presentations.
• Analytical mindset with problem-solving agility.
• Experience with Smartsheet and Jira. Preferred: Experience with Smartsheet for Project Management plans, dashboard status reporting; similar with Jira. Aptitude to learn Smartsheet and Jira techniques to tailor project reports, as needed.
• Familiarity with Change Management frameworks (PROSCI, ADKAR preferred).
• Ability to manage multiple overlapping projects with discretion and confidentiality.

ACCO Competencies:

• Proactivity / Initiative: Recognizes what needs to be done and accomplishes it in a manner appropriate for ones level/position and with minimal supervision.
• Perseverance: Shows the wherewithal to fight for difficult goals despite challenges and to bounce back from adversity.
• Insight: The ability to gather and make sense of information that suggests new possibilities.
• Engagement: Shows a knack for using emotion and logic to communicate a persuasive vision and connect with people.
• Teamwork: The ability to effectively work toward common goals with others by supporting, encouraging, and sharing information in an authentic and approachable manner.
• Big Picture: Understands and contributes to organizations short- and long-term business strategy. On a personal level has independently developed a vision for short- and long-term career success.
• Motivation / Dedication: Commits to excellence in pursuing unselfish goals. Initiates action with collective goals takes responsibility, and shows personal humility.
• Technical Curiosity / Willingness to Learn: Interest in seeking out new experiences, knowledge, and candid feed, back; demonstrating openness to learning and change.
• Problem-Solver: Ability to identify, analyze, and solve a problem in support of personal, group, department, or organizational objectives.

Physical Requirements:

(The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.)

• The employee may regularly lift and/or move up to 10 pounds and occasionally lift and/or move up to 20 pounds.
• Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision and distance vision.
• The auditory/hearing abilities required by the job include the ability to hear customers calling by telephone.
• While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit for prolonged periods, stand; use hand to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms and talk or hear.
• The employee is regularly required to walk and sit.
• This individual must be a responsible person and regular onsite attendance is required in Pasadena, CA headquarter offices.

Hours: This is a full-time, exempt position. Workdays are scheduled from Monday through Friday. Typically, work hours begin and end between 7:00 am and 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Occasional out-of-hours work will be necessary to support critical project milestones (e.g. go-live, cut-overs).

Competitive Wages:

$115,000 - $143,000 annually. Applicants please note that actual compensation is determined by several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to job-related skills, depth of experience, certifications, relevant education or training, and specific work location, among others. The offered wage or salary is only one aspect of an employee's total compensation.

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