Product Lead, Business Systems

Center for Employment Opportunities•New York, NY

6h•$118,000 - $140,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Product Lead - Business Systems serves as a strategic, technical, leader for CEO’s financial and operations systems. This role owns the Finance and Operations platforms strategy. An immediate priority will be supporting the end-to-end execution of our Finance technological transformation with implementation partners—including the modernization of accounting, financial planning, and grants management systems. Over time, this role will oversee adjacent enterprise platforms, including Payroll, Procurement, and potentially Contracts and People Systems. This individual serves as a crucial organizational leader, bridging strategy, operations, and technical implementation. They will work closely with business leadership, key stakeholders, IT operations and implementation partners and to co-design, configure, deploy, maintain and support these platforms. They are responsible for driving continuous improvement, navigating complex trade-offs, and managing external vendor partners to support high-quality delivery. As part of our mission, we strongly encourage individuals who have lived experience of incarceration or involvement in the justice system to apply for this role.

Requirements

At least 7+ years of progressive experience in enterprise business systems, internal product management, or IT product ownership within complex organizations.
Demonstrated experience in leading multi-year enterprise platform transformations (e.g., ERP, Financial Systems, HRIS) from vendor selection through post-implementation governance.
Proven track record managing technology roadmaps, writing specifications, prioritizing backlogs, and leading cross-functional deployments.
Experience in collaborating closely with external implementation providers or technology consultants on large-scale system overhauls.
Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to navigate reporting lines across Finance leadership and product departments.
Proven experience in influencing and advising Senior Leadership on technology investments, trade-offs, and risk management.
Deep expertise in managing and directing external implementation partners, systems integrators, and software vendors on large-scale overhauls.

Nice To Haves

Expertise in core financial workflows, accounting principles, grants management structures, and fund accounting in complex, multi-entity, or non-profit context.
Professional certifications such as Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), PMP, or administrator-level credentials in major financial planning or accounting software suites.

Responsibilities

Define, own, and execute the roadmap for CEO’s financial and operations systems in alignment with organization priorities.
Drive the convergence and modernization strategy for adjacent systems and processes (e.g., Payroll, Procurement, Contracts) to eliminate data silos and manual handoffs.
Lead and/or co-lead (with the implementation partner/lead and business owner) the implementation of finance and operations platforms and related processes.
Team with stakeholders and the implementation provider to co-design, blueprint, configure and implement new Finance systems.
Lead the strategic selection, blueprinting, and architectural design of future business systems in collaboration with executive stakeholders and vendors.
Lead internal product discovery deep dives as needed, mapping workflows across teams and translating distinct stakeholder needs into technical specs.
Lead rigorous, cross-functional processes to identify, evaluate and select relevant vendors, implementation partners, and third-party tools.
Develop role-specific onboarding materials and documentation to upskill staff on new systems and workflows.
Lead change management, communication plans, and training rollouts for the updated platforms to ensure high staff adoption in partnership with business owner.
Serve as the chief strategic translator between non-technical executive stakeholders, finance teams, and external technical development teams/implementation partners.
Establish continuous feedback loops to identify and remove operational friction, ensuring compliance and internal controls do not impede staff productivity.
Balance the reactive requests by teams with building resilient future systems aligned to organization priorities.
Establish clear data governance structures, security access levels, and change control protocols in tight alignment with IT security standards and external audit compliance.
Manage the configuration, user permissions, control frameworks, and day-to-day functional administration of the systems in partnership with IT Operations.
Create and maintain comprehensive documentation, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to support sustainable growth and maintenance.
Manage external technology vendors, configuration partners, and implementation consultants as needed, holding them accountable to delivery timelines, specifications, and technical standards.
Troubleshoot complex, tier-2 and tier-3 functional issues, managing escalation paths to software vendors or support partners when required.
Define, track, and optimize system KPIs related to operational effectiveness (e.g., speed to close, grant tracking compliance, reporting accuracy) and general platform satisfaction.
Audit and optimize data flows, API connections, and cross-platform integrations between financial tools and secondary organizational systems to prevent data fragmentation.
Monitor industry trends and upcoming software releases to proactively suggest features, automation improvements, and optimizations.
Monitor tools performance using data and qualitative employee feedback to identify, isolate, and eliminate friction points and drive continuous improvement.
Other duties as assigned