Product Lead, Business Systems

Product Lead, Business Systems
NYC CEO Office Location
Hybrid

At CEO, Product Managers and Product Leads own a portion of the organization’s technology ecosystem and staff user experience with a focus on ensuring efficient, compliant, and integrated systems that minimize user friction.

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.

The Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO) provides employment services to people recently released from incarceration. Across the United States, 8,000-9,000 people participate in CEO each year, transitioning to employment that supports themselves, their families, and their communities.

What began as a demonstration project of the Vera Institute of Justice in the 1970s to address employment barriers facing the formerly incarcerated following release in New York City has grown into the leading reentry employment organization in the country, where over 30,000 formerly incarcerated individuals have secured full-time employment since 1996.

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

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

Key responsibilities of the Product Lead, Business Systems include but are not limited to:

• Define,…