SAP S/4HANA Program Director Transformation & Program Recovery

Contract: 9 Months + Potential Extension
Location: Remote Travel Required for Go-Live
Travel: Last weekend of November and second week of December

Job description:

We are seeking an experienced SAP S/4HANA Program Director / Senior Program Manager to lead the recovery, stabilization, and successful delivery of a highly visible enterprise transformation program.
This is a senior leadership role supporting a complex transformation involving SAP S/4HANA ERP modernization, Salesforce enhancements, and enterprise data & analytics initiatives.
The program is currently facing execution challenges involving testing, design risks, schedule pressures, and deployment readiness. We need a seasoned SAP transformation leader who can quickly assess program health, establish accountability, develop a recovery strategy, and drive the program through testing, cutover, go-live, deployment, and hypercare.
This is not a traditional Project Manager role. The ideal candidate has successfully led and recovered large, complex SAP transformation programs and is comfortable working directly with executive stakeholders, system integrators, business leaders, and technology teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead recovery and stabilization of a large-scale SAP S/4HANA transformation program.
• Assess program health, testing readiness, design risks, dependencies, governance, and deployment readiness.
• Develop and execute actionable program recovery and remediation plans.
• Lead SAP activities across SIT/UAT, mock conversions, cutover planning, deployment, go-live, and hypercare.
• Establish clear ownership, accountability, escalation paths, and decision-making processes.
• Manage and hold system integration partners and consulting vendors accountable for staffing, quality, deliverables, testing, and timelines.
• Lead executive governance, steering committee meetings, risk reviews, and program health reporting.
• Coordinate across SAP ERP, Salesforce, Data & Analytics, business, and technology workstreams.
• Manage program budgets, forecasts, vendor spend, labor costs, software commitments, and variance reporting.
• Drive issue resolution and executive decision-making during critical testing and deployment phases.
• Provide hands-on leadership during cutover, go-live, and post-production stabilization.

Required Qualifications

• 10+ years of progressive Program Management / Transformation leadership experience.
• Director-level experience leading complex enterprise technology programs.
• Extensive experience with SAP S/4HANA implementations and ERP modernization programs.
• Proven experience leading large-scale transformation programs valued at $50M+.
• Demonstrated experience recovering, stabilizing, or turning around high-risk / underperforming programs.
• Strong knowledge of SAP Activate, ASAP, or equivalent SAP implementation methodologies.
• Deep experience with SIT, UAT, testing management, mock conversions, cutover, deployment readiness, go-live, and hypercare.
• Experience managing major system integrators, consulting firms, and multi-vendor delivery teams.
• Strong program financial management experience including budgeting, forecasting, vendor spend, and variance analysis.
• Executive-level communication and presentation skills with experience working with VP and C-suite stakeholders.
• Ability to operate effectively under significant schedule and delivery pressure.
• Strong leadership, governance, risk management, and stakeholder management capabilities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience leading SAP S/4HANA transformations within large or highly regulated enterprises.
• Experience managing complex ERP + CRM + Data/Analytics transformation programs.
• Salesforce program exposure is highly desirable.
• Organizational Change Management / Business Transformation experience.
• Experience leading major SAP deployment and cutover events involving multiple vendors and executive stakeholders.