Title:  Director, Financial Transformation

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Director, Financial Transformation:

The Director, Transformation ideates, executes, and owns a portfolio of high-value strategic projects that improve both financial and operational performance. This role coordinates across stakeholders including PE investors, executives, and leaders from Operations, IT, Finance, and HR with the goal of discovering ideas for transforming the business, assembling robust plans, securing financing, and aligning resources for strong project delivery. This leader will start the flywheel for transformation initiatives, then gradually transition to an oversight role once project teams begin hitting landmarks, moving on to the next opportunity to grow their transformation portfolio. This is a highly dynamic role that requires constant context switching, comfort with ambiguity, and a desire to lean into messy work – sometimes acting as an individual consultant vs. leading internal/external teams, sometimes poring over data vs. informing enterprise strategy.

What You'll Do:

Business Analysis

• Analyze operational and financial data to develop and investigate hypotheses about performance drivers, especially for complex decisions involving multiple teams with downline impacts
• Translate difficulties, anecdotes, observations, current state processes, and critical metrics into clearly scoped opportunities for new strategic transformation projects
• Estimate financial value and operational impact of transformation projects, specifying value levers and how/where outcomes will hit P&L

Process Improvement

• Map current state business processes with an emphasis on evaluating how the company makes key decisions, both strategic and operational
• Lead cross-functional teams to design future state business processes and identify what needs to happen to make them a reality
• Inform the design of quantitative models to guide better decisions and technology to enable future state operational workflows
• Plan change management activities required for value capture, including communications, employee training, and technology cutovers

Program Management

• Build comprehensive business cases to substantiate return on investment, vet plans, and secure funding for transformation projects
• Lead projects and teams through PMO framework, ensuring progression according to scope, schedule, budget, and quality standards
• Document project risks and dependencies, then work across the enterprise to mitigate these proactively so transformation delivery timelines stay on track
• Facilitate requirements gathering, proposal structuring, and vendor selection with key collaborators
• Oversee the build and activation project phases, often managing multiple consulting firms, contractors, and internal teams
• Hold regular Steering Committee meetings with executive sponsors to communicate progress, raise issues, make important decisions, and progress through stage gates

Stakeholder Management

• Align diverse stakeholders around a single vision, set of priorities, and understanding of portfolio finances, timelines, risks, and status
• Organize portfolio review meetings for multiple audiences, including individual operations divisions, the executive leadership team, and the Board of Directors
• Raise potential roadblocks quickly and with urgency to mobilize resources proactively

What You'll Need:

• Bachelor’s degree required
• Advanced degree – MBA or quantitative field (ex. economics, operations research, statistics, data science, computer science) – preferred
• 7-12 years of experience, including 3+ years managerial experience, preferably in consulting, strategy, analytics, continuous improvement, operations planning, or program management functions
• Experience leading multiple large ($1mil+) projects, preferably around technology deployment, process improvement, or embedding analytics into strategic/operational decisions
• Experience of operations at a global scale
• Experience managing consultants, contractors, and internal project teams
• Knowledge of the logistics or aviation industries preferred
• Influence strategy and outcomes without formal operational authority
• Open-minded questioning, “What would need to be true for this to work?”
• Creativity in problem solving, especially complex processes involving many teams and decisions
• Project Management standard processes across all lifecycle phases, including extensive risk management
• Business process mapping, future state design, and change management to bridge the gap
• Technology design fluency – both workflows and analytics – including agile development approaches
• Adaptable communication with many very different partner groups
• Presentation preparation and delivery to senior leadership
• Ability to work across all levels of the organization, including frontline, analysts, executives, and Board
• Independence and a desire to function autonomously with limited direction
• Management of consultants, contractors, and internal project teams
• Strong data fluency and data storytelling required
• MS Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, Outlook) required
• Data structuring and analysis through SQL, Python, or similar preferred
• Understanding of optimization and machine learning models preferred

What You Can Expect:

Univar Solutions is a leading, global distributor of chemicals and ingredients essential to the safety, health, and wellbeing of our daily lives from life-saving medicines and vitamins to hand sanitizers and industrial materials used for cleaning, construction, and more.  Our global team of more than 10,000 employees support our vision to redefine distribution and be the most valued chemical and ingredient distributor on the planet!

We offer a Total Rewards package that includes market aligned pay and incentives as well as a diverse benefits offering to support our employees’ physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing.

Univar Solutions supports sustainable solutions for the world around us so that we can do our part to help keep our communities healthy, fed, clean, and safe! 

We are committed to a diverse workforce and a culture of inclusion.  Together, we are building a culture that acknowledges the unique experiences, perspectives and expertise of individuals and provides the development and growth opportunities to empower us to redefine our industry. 

Univar Solutions is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or other protected classification.

Univar Solutions does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters, employment agencies, or staffing firms (collectively Recruiting Firms). Recruiting Firms must enter into a Master Services Agreement (MSA) with Univar Solutions prior to submitting any information relating to a potential candidate. All searches must be initiated by Univar Solutions' Talent Acquisition team and candidates must be submitted via Applicant Tracking System (ATS) by approved vendors who have been expressly requested to make a submission for a specific job opening. No placement fees will be paid to any firm unless the aforementioned conditions have been met. Contacting our hiring managers directly is prohibited.

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