Public Service Higher Education Management Consulting Senior Manager Transformation Lead

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ABOUT THE PRACTICE

Higher education is in the middle of one of the most significant operational transformations it has seen in decades. Institutions are rethinking how they manage finance, HR, payroll, procurement, and research administration, moving away from legacy systems and fragmented processes toward integrated platforms that can support the pace and complexity of a modern university or college. All of this while the promise and reality of AI is changing the way we deliver and the opportunities for functional transformation inside and outside of the ERP.

The stakes are real. These are not back-office projects. They touch every faculty member, every department administrator, every researcher managing a grant, every employee waiting on a paycheck. Done well, they unlock institutional capacity that was previously buried in manual processes and disconnected systems. Done poorly, they create disruption that takes years to recover from.

Our Education practice is at the forefront in driving this reinvention -  working with universities, four-year colleges, and community colleges on the strategy, readiness, and implementations that matter most to them. If this market excites you and you have the experience to make a difference in it, we would like to meet you.

THE WORK

As a higher education transformation lead, you combine higher education functional expertise with the ability to lead complex, technology-enabled institutional transformation, from strategy and readiness through design, implementation, stabilization, and value realization. We are seeking individuals that have demonstrated this through overall program delivery or deep experience in specific functional domains such as Finance, HR, payroll, procurement, or research administration is where you built your career and where your credibility lives.

Higher education implementations fail for predictable reasons, and they are almost never about the technology. They fail because the complexity of decentralized operating models was underestimated. Because change management in a shared governance environment was treated as a communications exercise instead of a sustained engagement strategy. Because the research enterprise was bolted on late instead of designed for from the start. Because integration dependencies with student systems, advancement platforms, and research administration tools were discovered in testing instead of scoped in design. Because data migration, including payroll history, grant encumbrances, and position control records, was underplanned and politically underestimated.

The practitioners we are looking for understand all of this before the project kickoff. We are looking for:  Finance leaders who knows that a university close cycle feeds board materials and rating agency disclosures, and designs accordingly. HR leaders who have navigated shared governance and built adoption strategies that actually work with faculty and department administrators. Research Administration leaders who understand effort reporting, indirect cost recovery, and federal sponsor compliance as deeply as they understand the platform. Payroll or Procurement leaders who has designed for the real institutional environment, not the simplified version.

You will own senior client relationships in your domain, lead high-stakes engagements, work collaboratively across the teams and for our clients, help shape markets before the RFP is written, and raise the functional quality of everything the team delivers.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Lead Cloud ERP engagements – with a lens on business transformation - for college and university clients, either as an overall delivery lead or as the senior owner of the functional tower in your domain, with accountability for quality, client relationships, and outcomes.

• Own senior client relationships in your functional area, including the VP of Finance, CFO, CHRO, VP of Research, Sponsored Programs Director, Payroll Director, and Chief Procurement Officer, engaging as a peer who understands what they are managing, not just what they have asked for.

• Drive functional design decisions that account for the full complexity of how higher education institutions actually operate: decentralized finance and HR structures, shared governance dynamics, research enterprise requirements, cross-functional integration dependencies, and board reporting obligations.

• Lead change management strategy within your domain, building adoption approaches that work in a shared governance culture, engage department-level administrators and faculty stakeholders, and account for the political realities of institutional transformation.

• Own integration strategy within your tower, understanding how your functional domain connects to student systems, research platforms, advancement systems, state reporting environments, and other enterprise tools, and ensuring those dependencies are designed for, not discovered late.
• Bring AI-assisted delivery, platform-native AI capabilities and responsible workflow automation into engagements as standard practice, and help clients think through what governed AI adoption looks like in their institutional context. Outside of ERP toolsets, bring modernization and functional opportunities for AI-process redesign and automation.

• Contribute to must-win pursuits and proposals, bringing the kind of domain credibility that changes what a higher education evaluator thinks of us in the room because they can tell within the first ten minutes whether someone understands their institution or is pitching a generic playbook.

• Help shape the market 24 to 36 months before an RFP: build relationships with university functional leaders, engage with platform account teams on joint pipeline, and represent the practice at NACUBO, EDUCAUSE, CUPA-HR and related forums.

• Contribute to practice development including solutions, services, and client outcomes for use on future engagements.

• Develop junior and mid-level practitioners in your functional area, helping them build the domain depth, change management instincts, and platform fluency that make the whole team more credible.

Travel: Ability to travel 50%+

WHAT YOU NEED

Required:

• Minimum 8 years of consulting or functional experience in higher education or community college environments with Senior-level functional expertise in at least one domain: institutional finance and budget operations, HR and academic workforce management, payroll administration, procurement and purchasing compliance, or research administration and sponsored programs.

• Minimum 7 years of hands-on delivery experience with Cloud ERP in a functional capacity with demonstrated experience as a delivery lead or senior functional tower owner on large, complex ERP engagements or similar institution-wide transformations and implementations in higher education, with accountability for design quality, senior relationships, and outcomes in your domain.

Preferred:

• Demonstrated experience engaging directly with senior functional executives in higher education organizations.
• Prior experience in a senior functional operating role within a college, university, or community college, such as VP of Finance, CFO, CHRO, VP of Research, Sponsored Programs Director, Payroll Director, or Chief Procurement Officer. People who have sat in the chair.

• Finance: Cloud ERP Financials delivery experience in a higher education context. Deep familiarity with enrollment-driven budgeting, all funds budgeting, GASB fund accounting, endowment management, and the board and audit committee reporting cycles that govern institutional finance. Experience designing for decentralized college and departmental finance structures.

• HR: Cloud ERP HCM delivery experience with depth in academic workforce structures, faculty appointment management, or large-scale HR transformation in higher education. Experience developing adoption strategies that work in a shared governance environment, engaging faculty governance bodies, department chairs, and distributed HR functions.

• Payroll: Cloud ERP Payroll delivery experience with multi-bargaining-unit complexity, faculty and staff pay structures, or college and university payroll compliance at scale.

• Procurement: Cloud ERP Procurement delivery experience with familiarity with higher education purchasing compliance, decentralized requisition-to-pay environments, and the intersection of procurement and sponsored programs, including grant-funded purchasing compliance under federal regulations.

• Research Administration: deep familiarity with sponsored programs finance and operations in a higher education context, including effort reporting, indirect cost recovery (F&A rates), sub-award management, cost transfer processes, grant lifecycle management, and federal sponsor compliance (NIH, NSF, DoD, 2 CFR 200). Experience designing ERP or research administration systems to support the full sponsored research lifecycle, and working across the sponsored programs office, finance, and faculty principal investigators.

• Experience managing data migration complexity in higher education, including payroll history, grant encumbrances, position control records, and other sensitive institutional data that requires both technical rigor and careful stakeholder management.

• Experience with integration design in complex higher education environments, connecting ERP platforms to student systems, advancement platforms, research administration tools, state reporting systems, or other enterprise applications.

• Experience contributing to competitive higher education pursuits, including pre-RFP positioning, institutional advisory relationships, and engagement with platform account teams. Familiarity with the higher education procurement and RFP process from the client side is a significant differentiator.

• Bachelor's degree preferred. Equivalent experience considered.

Compensation at Accenture varies depending on a wide array of factors, which may include but are not limited to the specific office location, role, skill set, and level of experience. As required by local law, Accenture provides a reasonable range of compensation for roles that may be hired as set forth below.
We anticipate this job posting will be posted until 11/09/2026.

Accenture offers a market competitive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, and long-term disability coverage, a 401(k) plan, bonus opportunities, paid holidays, and paid time off. See more information on our benefits here:

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Role Location Annual Salary Range
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Washington $141,100 to $311,200

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