Remote SAP S/4HANA Finance Lead

SAP S/4HANA Finance Team Lead

Next Ventures are current executing a search for an experienced SAP Finance lead for a remote working opportunity. Applicants must be EU passport holders and avaiable for a maxumum of one client site visit in the EU per month.

• Project: SAP S/4HANA Implementation
• Client: Public sector
• Functional Areas: SAP Finance (FI), Controlling (CO), Asset Accounting (AM) and integration with Funds Management (FM)

Role Overview
The SAP S/4HANA Finance Team Lead will be responsible for leading the finance functional workstream, providing specialist SAP expertise, and supporting the successful implementation and integration of SAP S/4HANA Finance, Controlling and Asset Accounting within the Public sector.
The role requires a strong combination of SAP functional and configuration expertise, public sector experience, and team leadership capability. The successful candidate will work closely with client stakeholders, technical teams and other functional workstreams to ensure that solutions meet business requirements, comply with contractual obligations, and align with project objectives and timelines.

Key Responsibilities

• Functional Leadership: Lead the SAP Finance functional workstream, providing direction and oversight across SAP FI, CO and Asset Accounting (AM).
• Business and Functional Support: Provide high-quality business and functional support for SAP Finance, with particular emphasis on integration between FICO and Funds Management (FM).
• Solution Design and Configuration: Oversee and contribute to SAP configuration, solution design and the delivery of functional solutions aligned with business and public sector requirements.
• Requirements Management: Elicit, document and validate functional and technical requirements, ensuring traceability from business needs through to solution delivery.
• Team Leadership: Manage and coordinate a joint team of SAP consultants and client personnel, promoting effective collaboration, knowledge sharing and delivery across the project lifecycle.
• Project Delivery: Ensure that deliverables and work products are of a high standard and meet agreed quality criteria, contractual obligations and project milestones.
• Project Planning and Reporting: Provide timely and accurate input to the management team to maintain and update the integrated master project schedule, highlighting dependencies, risks and potential delivery issues.
• Data Migration and Conversion: Support data conversion activities, including finance data mapping, validation, reconciliation and migration into SAP S/4HANA.
• SAP Activate Delivery: Apply SAP Activate methodology to support project planning, fit-to-standard workshops, design, configuration, testing, deployment and transition to business-as-usual operations.
• Stakeholder Management: Work closely with finance business stakeholders, project management, technical teams and other SAP workstreams to resolve issues and ensure successful integration.
• Quality Assurance: Ensure functional deliverables, configuration decisions and supporting documentation comply with agreed standards and project governance.

Essential Requirements
Candidates must demonstrate the following experience and capabilities:

• SAP Functional Expertise: At least 10 years of SAP experience overall, including a minimum of 3 years of hands-on experience in each of the following:
• SAP Financial Accounting (FI)
• SAP Controlling (CO)
• SAP Asset Accounting (AM)
• Public Sector Experience: At least 5 years of experience working in the public sector, either as an SAP consultant or within a public sector organisation.
• Team Leadership: Proven experience managing a combined team of consultants and client-side personnel on at least two projects, with responsibility spanning the full project lifecycle.
• SAP Activate: In-depth knowledge and practical experience of the SAP Activate implementation methodology.
• SAP Configuration: Demonstrable hands-on experience configuring SAP solutions and translating business requirements into functional and technical specifications.
• Data Conversion: Experience supporting data conversion and migration activities as part of an SAP implementation or transformation programme.
• Finance Integration: Strong understanding of SAP Finance processes and integration between FI/CO and Funds Management, preferably in a complex public sector environment.
• Communication Skills: Fluent English, with the ability to communicate effectively with business stakeholders, technical teams, senior management and project leadership.

Desirable Requirements
The following skills and experience would be advantageous:

• SAP Debugging: Practical debugging skills to investigate configuration issues, integration errors and functional defects.
• SAP Cloud ALM: Experience using SAP Cloud ALM for implementation management, testing, monitoring or project delivery.
• Financial Legislation: Experience assessing and implementing changes arising from financial legislation, regulatory requirements or public sector financial policy changes.
• Defence Sector or Public Sector / Government Experience: Previous experience delivering SAP transformation or finance programmes within defence or similarly complex government environments.

Key Competencies
The successful candidate will demonstrate:

• Strong leadership and team coordination skills.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving capabilities.
• A structured and methodical approach to solution design and delivery.
• The ability to manage competing priorities and delivery deadlines.
• Strong stakeholder engagement and relationship management.
• A commitment to high-quality deliverables, governance and continuous improvement.

Outcomes
The SAP S/4HANA Finance Team Lead will be expected to:

• Lead the effective delivery of the SAP Finance functional workstream.
• Ensure robust integration between SAP FI/CO, Asset Accounting and Funds Management.
• Deliver high-quality functional documentation, configuration and project deliverables.
• Support accurate and timely data conversion and reconciliation.
• Maintain effective coordination between consultants, client staff and project management.
• Contribute to the successful delivery of the SAP S/4HANA implementation within agreed scope, quality standards and timelines.

CV in Word format , More information is available on application .