Product Owner

TalentOla•Cary, NC

7d•Hybrid

About The Position

A leading insurance carrier is modernizing its enterprise ERP landscape, moving from PeopleSoft to Workday. At the center of the program is a new enterprise Data Hub built on Azure Databricks, Azure Data Factory, and ADLS Gen 2. All inbound source systems will feed the Data Hub, which supplies Workday; processed results flow back from Workday into the Data Hub, and every downstream system and reporting consumer sources its data from there. Phase 1 delivers Finance. Subsequent phases extend the same hub to Actuarial, Investment, Reinsurance, and Risk. The Product Owner hired for this role will shape the Finance data foundation that all later phases build on, and will help set the patterns the wider insurance domain inherits. We are looking for a senior Product Owner with deep ERP Finance functional experience to own the Finance data, integration, and reporting backlog for this transformation. You will sit between Finance business teams, Workday functional consultants, and the Azure data engineering team, turning close, reporting, and control requirements into a trusted, well-governed set of finance data products. You do not need to be a Workday expert. You do need to know Finance cold in at least one major ERP (PeopleSoft, Workday, SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft Dynamics), and you need the maturity to drive decisions and hold a roadmap steady across a multi-phase, high-visibility program.

Requirements

8+ years in ERP Finance, Finance Systems, finance data, business analysis, functional consulting, or product ownership, including time as the accountable Product Owner or functional lead on a significant workstream.
Strong functional knowledge of Finance modules in at least one major ERP platform: Workday, PeopleSoft, SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft Dynamics.
Solid command of GL, AP, AR, Fixed Assets, financial close, reconciliations, financial controls, and financial reporting.
Demonstrated experience on ERP implementation, modernization, migration, or finance transformation programs, ideally including at least one full lifecycle through go-live.
Proven ability to elicit requirements and produce user stories, acceptance criteria, process and data documentation, and UAT scenarios.
Comfort operating across both worlds: credible with CFO-organization stakeholders and equally effective with data engineers on mappings, transformations, and defects.
Experience in Agile delivery using Jira, Azure DevOps, or a comparable backlog-management tool.
Excellent communication, stakeholder management, facilitation, and problem-solving skills; able to drive decisions in ambiguity.
Ability to work a hybrid schedule from Cary, NC.

Nice To Haves

Insurance or financial services experience, with exposure to statutory reporting, insurance accounting (STAT/GAAP), or data from actuarial, investment, reinsurance, or risk functions.
Hands-on experience with PeopleSoft Financials and/or Workday Financial Management, including Workday integration patterns (EIB, Core Connectors, Prism) or FDM design.
Experience with finance data migration, data integration, data warehousing, or building certified data products.
Familiarity with Azure, Databricks, ADF, ADLS Gen 2, Synapse, Microsoft Fabric, or Snowflake, enough to reason about feasibility and cost with engineers.
Exposure to FP&A, budgeting, planning, consolidation, procurement, or enterprise reporting tools (e.g., Adaptive, Anaplan, Power BI, OneStream).
Product Owner, Agile/Scrum (CSPO, PSPO), ERP Finance, or accounting certification (CPA, CMA) a plus.

Responsibilities

Own, groom, and prioritize the Finance backlog for data, integrations, and reporting across the Data Hub and Workday interfaces.
Translate Finance requirements into epics, user stories, business rules, and acceptance criteria that the data engineering team can build from without rework.
Maintain a clear, sequenced roadmap tied to close cycles, cutover milestones, and downstream consumer dependencies.
Run backlog refinement, sprint reviews, and demos; make scope and trade-off calls and document the rationale.
Bring hands-on functional depth across General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Fixed Assets, financial close, intercompany, reconciliations, controls, and financial and statutory reporting.
Partner with Controllership, FP&A, Treasury, Procurement, and Finance Systems stakeholders to understand processes, data definitions, reporting needs, and current pain points.
Support mapping of PeopleSoft Finance data to the Workday Finance data model and the Data Hub, including chart of accounts, worktags, and hierarchy redesign decisions.
Challenge legacy customizations and manual spreadsheet workarounds rather than carrying them forward by default.
Define finance data-quality rules, reconciliation requirements, balancing controls, and reporting validation criteria.
Work with engineers to shape curated finance data products and certified datasets for analytics, regulatory, and statutory reporting.
Establish data definitions, lineage expectations, and ownership so Finance can trust what the hub publishes.
Contribute to the reusable patterns that the Actuarial, Investment, Reinsurance, and Risk phases will adopt.
Plan and coordinate UAT with Finance users: scenarios, test data, defect triage, and sign-off.
Lead finance data validation and parallel reconciliation through conversion, cutover, and post-go-live stabilization.
Drive adoption of the new data products and retire dependency on legacy PeopleSoft extracts and manual reporting.
Act as the connective tissue between Finance business teams, ERP functional consultants, and technical delivery.