Director, Business Optimization (AP Audit)

Profit Recovery Partners•Santa Ana, CA

64d•Onsite

About The Position

At Profit Recovery Partners (PRP), we believe that collaboration and innovation thrive when we're together. This position is fully onsite at our Santa Ana office, allowing for real-time teamwork, immediate problem-solving, and a strong sense of community among our team members. Who You Are: As a Director at PRP, you are a solution-oriented leader with an entrepreneurial mindset who thrives on tackling complex challenges alongside a high-performing team. The ideal candidate brings sharp critical thinking skills and a business-builder's instinct to influence, negotiate, implement and scale cost reduction strategies that deliver measurable results for our clients. In this role, you will provide vision and direction to assess client opportunities and collaborate with the expense area experts to analyze and create best-in-class solutions for PRP clients. The Director is accountable for driving Practice Group growth, executing strategic initiatives, achieving financial goals (P&L management), and developing a team of future leaders. What You'll Do: Lead PRP's Accounts Payable (AP) Recovery Audit practice; overseeing client engagements, team execution, and overall P&L performance. Manage end-to-end audit lifecycle, from data acquisition and normalization to claims identification, validation, and recovery tracking. Partner with clients' Finance, Procurement, and Shared Services teams to identify duplicate payments, missed credits, overpayments, and vendor compliance issues. Develop customized audit strategies leveraging analytics, automation tools, and proprietary benchmarking data to uncover root-cause trends and savings opportunities. Present findings, recovery recommendations, and process-improvement initiatives directly to CFOs, Controllers, and Procurement executives. Negotiate and secure recovery of funds on behalf of clients, ensuring full documentation and transparency in accordance with client policies. Build and maintain relationships with vendors and suppliers to facilitate efficient claim resolution and future-state process improvements. Drive continuous improvement initiatives by identifying audit patterns, error sources, and control gaps to strengthen clients' AP processes. Collaborate with PRP's data analytics and technology teams to enhance automation, dashboard reporting, and machine-learning audit capabilities. Oversee and mentor audit managers and analysts; establish clear KPIs, ensure quality control, and foster a high-performance, entrepreneurial culture. Support new business development by contributing to proposals, pricing models, client pitches, and thought leadership related to spend recovery and AP optimization. Stay current on payment trends, ERP/AP automation tools, and industry best practices to continuously evolve PRP's audit methodology. Represent the firm as a subject-matter expert in AP recovery, participating in client workshops, webinars, and strategic advisory sessions. Establish productive working collaborative relationships with partners in other operational groups within the company Quickly garner internal resources from all departments to collaborate with and find a way to keep projects moving forward when faced with adversity Other duties as assigned

Requirements

Bachelor's Degree required with a minimum of 9-13 years of expense management, vendor management, consulting or other related experience
4+ years of management/supervisory experience
Excellent written, verbal, and visual communication skills
Excellent quantitative and qualitative skills; Advanced Microsoft Office and Excel skills
Ability to lead others to complete complex projects on time
Experience in building relationships and alignment amongst team members and clients with demonstrated leadership skills
Proven ability to deliver results

Responsibilities

Lead PRP's Accounts Payable (AP) Recovery Audit practice; overseeing client engagements, team execution, and overall P&L performance.
Manage end-to-end audit lifecycle, from data acquisition and normalization to claims identification, validation, and recovery tracking.
Partner with clients' Finance, Procurement, and Shared Services teams to identify duplicate payments, missed credits, overpayments, and vendor compliance issues.
Develop customized audit strategies leveraging analytics, automation tools, and proprietary benchmarking data to uncover root-cause trends and savings opportunities.
Present findings, recovery recommendations, and process-improvement initiatives directly to CFOs, Controllers, and Procurement executives.
Negotiate and secure recovery of funds on behalf of clients, ensuring full documentation and transparency in accordance with client policies.
Build and maintain relationships with vendors and suppliers to facilitate efficient claim resolution and future-state process improvements.
Drive continuous improvement initiatives by identifying audit patterns, error sources, and control gaps to strengthen clients' AP processes.
Collaborate with PRP's data analytics and technology teams to enhance automation, dashboard reporting, and machine-learning audit capabilities.
Oversee and mentor audit managers and analysts; establish clear KPIs, ensure quality control, and foster a high-performance, entrepreneurial culture.
Support new business development by contributing to proposals, pricing models, client pitches, and thought leadership related to spend recovery and AP optimization.
Stay current on payment trends, ERP/AP automation tools, and industry best practices to continuously evolve PRP's audit methodology.
Represent the firm as a subject-matter expert in AP recovery, participating in client workshops, webinars, and strategic advisory sessions.
Establish productive working collaborative relationships with partners in other operational groups within the company Quickly garner internal resources from all departments to collaborate with and find a way to keep projects moving forward when faced with adversity
Other duties as assigned

Benefits

Full medical, dental, and vision benefits package
401K plan with company match
Paid holidays, vacation, and sick time
25+-year track record of growth
Winning team atmosphere with high degree of employee recognition and promotions from within
High paced, collaborative working environment that thrives on team success
We value social responsibility and founded the following employee-driven committees: Corporate Social Responsibility, Diversity & Inclusion Group, Women's Empowerment Group, and the Wellness Committee. Each committee seeks to provide employees with a chance to give back to their community in ways most meaningful and rewarding to them.

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