Director of Financial Process Transformation

Company Description By working at Harvard University, you join a vibrant community that advances Harvard's world‑changing mission in meaningful ways, inspires innovation and collaboration, and builds skills and expertise. We are dedicated to creating a diverse and welcoming environment where everyone can thrive.

Financial Administration (FAD) is dedicated to advancing Harvard University’s teaching and research mission by stewarding its resources; providing support, guidance, and consultation; ensuring compliance with university and federal guidelines; mitigating risk; pursuing operational excellence; and promoting the financial health of the University.

• Engage with respect, honesty, and integrity
• Cultivate equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging
• Welcome innovation, collaboration, and flexibility
• Enjoy our work, grow professionally, and aim for the extraordinary

Learn more about Financial Administration (harvard.edu) and our eight reporting units. ((Use the "Apply for this Job" box below).)

The Director of Financial Process Transformation leads enterprise‑wide initiatives to simplify, standardize, and modernize financial operations across the University. Reporting to the Office of the Controller, with a dotted‑line relationship to Office of Finance and Administration, this role operates across Financial Administration (FAD) and partners with school and central finance leadership to drive transformation priorities.

The Director sets direction, aligns stakeholders, and ensures the successful delivery of high‑impact initiatives that span organizational boundaries. The Director brings a structured, outcomes‑driven approach to redesigning financial processes—reducing complexity, improving cycle times, strengthening compliance, and minimizing administrative burden.

Success in this role requires the ability to influence and align senior stakeholders in a decentralized environment, along with a track record of leading large‑scale change from concept through implementation. The Director ensures that initiatives are not only well‑designed, but fully adopted and sustained, with measurable improvements in efficiency, consistency, and user experience.

Set the vision and roadmap for financial process transformation across FAD, leading a portfolio of high‑impact initiatives aligned to institutional priorities.

Partner with senior leaders across schools, units, and central functions to establish priorities, navigate tradeoffs, and drive alignment. Serve as a trusted advisor on financial process strategy and change.

Oversee the redesign of complex, cross‑cutting financial processes to reduce fragmentation, eliminate manual workarounds, and improve consistency while maintaining appropriate controls.

Guide the use of policy, governance, and guidance to enable effective process change, determining when formal policy is required versus when process, technology, or behavioral changes will achieve better outcomes.

Collaborate with finance systems and IT leadership to align process transformation with system capabilities and roadmaps, ensuring solutions enable automation, scalability, and long‑term sustainability.

Establish success metrics and monitoring approaches, including cycle time, exception rates, and administrative effort, and use data and stakeholder feedback to refine priorities and improve outcomes.

Drive adoption of new processes and ways of working across a diverse stakeholder landscape, ensuring changes are effectively communicated, embedded, and sustained over time.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent work experience required
• Minimum of 10 years’ relevant work experience
• Supervisory experience

• MBA or master’s degree in relevant field a plus
• Experience supporting process improvement or organizational change initiatives
• Ability to manage multiple projects…