SAP FICO Lead

Role Overview

A rapidly growing, multi‑country retail organisation has recently upgraded its back‑office systems to SAP S/4HANA and established a SAP Centre of Excellence (CoE) to support and continuously optimise the platform.

The SAP CoE FICO Lead is a senior functional leadership role responsible for end‑to‑end ownership of SAP FICO within the CoE. The role blends hands‑on functional leadership, team management, and strategic finance process ownership, acting as the primary SAP partner to Finance and Operations stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and own SAP FICO (FI + CO) within the SAP CoE
• Act as senior functional authority in business discussions, incidents, and change
• Line‑manage and develop a small onshore/offshore FI team, ensuring service quality and SLAs
• Drive Record‑to‑Report (R2R) best‑practice process design, including:
  • Fixed Assets
  • Intercompany
  • Project Accounting
  • Period‑end close and consolidation
• Oversee and support month‑end finance processes (strong Controlling focus)
• Partner closely with Finance, Retail Operations, Global Process Owners, SMEs, and Technology
• Analyse incident trends and lead continuous improvement initiatives
• Lead analysis, design, testing, and documentation of system enhancements
• Support strategic roadmap initiatives including:
  • Migrating custom developments to SAP BTP
  • Assessing and implementing next‑generation digital finance tools
• Collaborate with other SAP CoE workstreams (e.g. MM, SD)

Required Experience & Skills

Core Experience

• 5+ years SAP FICO experience
• Minimum 3 end‑to‑end SAP implementations
  • At least 2 within SAP FICO
  • Preferably in a lead role
• 2+ years supporting BAU SAP environments
• Hands‑on SAP S/4HANA experience (upgrade or greenfield)
• Retail sector experience preferred

Functional Expertise

• New GL, AR, Banking, Asset Accounting
• Cost Center, Profit Center, COPA, Product Costing
• Project System, Results Analysis, Unsettled Costs
• Month‑end close and R2R processes
• Cross‑module knowledge (MM / SD)
• Interfaces and third‑party integrations
• Functional specifications and business change delivery

Leadership & Attributes

• Senior stakeholder management capability (business & IT)
• Strong sense of accountability and delivery ownership
• Confident influencing and decision‑making skills
• Calm, resilient, and effective under pressure
• Proactive, improvement‑driven mindset
• Thrives in fast‑paced, evolving organisations