Director, Finance Systems Strategy & Optimization

Director, Finance Systems Strategy & Optimization 

College Board - Finance  

Location: This is a remote role. Candidates who live near CB offices have the option of being fully remote or hybrid (Tuesday and Wednesday in office). All CB employees are required to occasionally travel to meet in person for business purposes.  

Role Type: This is a full time position  

About the Team   

The Operational Excellence (OX) function at the College Board is a high-performing team, serving as a center of excellence in the Finance Division, led by the Executive Director, Operational Excellence. Situated directly under the Chief Financial Officer (CFO), OX brings deep expertise in project management, process architecture, product strategy, data analytics, and strategic communications. We are committed to driving organizational excellence by designing and optimizing integrated systems, enhancing cross- functional collaboration, streamlining complex workflows, and fortifying policy and communication frameworks. Our mission is to empower every function within the Finance Division to operate at peak performance—delivering exceptional value and measurable impact to the College Board.   

About the Opportunity    

As the Director, Finance Systems Strategy & Optimization, you will serve as the execution leader responsible for translating strategic vision into tangible system improvements across the College Board’s core financial platforms—Workday Financials, Adaptive Planning, and Strategic Sourcing – Workday Financials, Adaptive Planning, and Strategic Sourcing. You will focus on driving end-to-end delivery of technical solutions, coordinating complex projects, and ensuring our financial systems operate efficiently, accurately, and in alignment with business needs.  

You will partner with Accounting, Procurement, Strategic Finance, Investments, Technology, and Talent to ensure these systems are fully leveraged to deliver maximum value. You will play a critical role in owning the system roadmaps—taking full responsibility for executing both immediate and long-term action plans. You will lead the investigation and implementation of new functionality, ensuring alignment with the needs and priorities of all major stakeholders. You will have a special focus on AI integration, ensuring our systems utilize the latest and greatest technologies to automate and innovate so Finance  teams can work faster and most efficiently and produce more critical insights with ease. Teams will rely on you to build custom dashboards in Workday Financials and maintain financial data integrity to help to drive business decisions. You will be responsible for developing enhanced reporting solutions. You will create and maintain a suite of staff-friendly resources to ensure system processes are clear and known to all users.  

Our ideal candidate is passionate about technology, along with prioritizing and simplifying – implementing the most impactful things and finding powerful solutions for complex problems. The ideal candidate has Workday Financials expertise, an excellent ability to anticipate user needs, an obsession with data, and the ability to manage the technical and people components of projects with attention to detail and speed.  

In this role, you will:   

Prioritize and implement technical solutions in Workday Financials to meet business needs (40%)  

• Translate functional needs into solutions, ensuring that our Workday Financials solutions meet business needs and are scalable, repeatable, automated, leverage AI and new and emerging technologies, etc.  

• Project manage the implementation of new features and enhancements, overseeing configuration, testing, deployment, and change management  

• Engage and manage external consultants, as needed  

•  Manage the intake and prioritization of product/systems requests, working closely with stakeholders to ensure we prioritize the most impactful work  

Maintain and optimize Workday Financials from a technological and usage perspective (25%)  

• Own business process enhancements of Workday Financials modules to support optimal user experience  

• Develop and monitor key performance metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of Workday Financials solutions and identify areas for improvement  

• Proactively analyze, identify, and correct technical problems and deficiencies  

• Stay up to date with industry trends and best practices to ensure our Workday Financials and Adaptive instances are optimized  

• Facilitate bi-annual Workday releases and liaise with our Workday account manager to understand their roadmap  

• Work with Technology to support the integrative and administrative needs of Workday Financials and Adaptive  

• Create and maintain detailed documentation and user guides on major system tasks, reports, custom BPs, etc.  

Execute comprehensive data/dashboard solutions for the Finance functions (20%)  

• Serve as the “go to” to develop reporting and data solutions within Workday Financials, Adaptive, and Strategic Sourcing (and in supplemental tools—i.e., Tableau or PowerBI—as needed)  

• Design and implement comprehensive dashboard solutions within Workday Financials to provide actionable insights and support decision-making for Procurement, Accounting, and Investments  

Lead roadmap development and drive execution across teams (15%)  

• Develop and maintain the finance product roadmaps in collaboration with functional Finance leadership, related SMEs, and Technology to optimize system use  

•  Provide status reports and updates to Leadership, as needed  

About You   

You have:  

• At least five to eight years working in finance operations, with at least three years specifically in Workday Financials  

• A Bachelor's degree required in a related field required, Workday Financials and/or Adaptive  

• Planning certification is a plus  

• Proficiency in Financial Accounting, Procurement, and Expense modules within Workday Financials, as well as with Adaptive Financial Planning and Strategic Sourcing; and you are eager and able to learn continuously and grow in your Workday skills  

• Ability to pivot quickly, adapt to evolving requirements, and work in an Agile- adjacent environment  

• Proficiency in Workday Worksheets and Discovery Boards; and, preferably, experience with Workday Prism and working knowledge of Tableau and/or PowerBI  

• Exceptional attention to detail and strong organizational skills, with the ability to manage a wide range of tasks effectively and see them through to the end  

• Enthusiasm for data, passionate about harnessing the power of large data sets to inform business decisions and capable of moving quickly to transform data  

• Ability to collaborate and work cross-functionally with different areas of an organization, and bring a team-first mentality and “no job is too small” perspective  

• Confidence in working on both sides of the system - with our users and our engineers - and feel comfortable translating practical needs to technical solutions  

• Great verbal and written communication skills  

• Excited about supporting educational opportunities for millions of students 

• Experience with Jira and Confluence preferred  

• The ability to travel 2-3 times a year to College Board offices or on behalf of College Board business  

• Authorization to work for any employer in the United States  

All roles at College Board require:  

• A passion for expanding educational and career opportunities and mission-driven work  

• Curiosity and enthusiasm for emerging technologies, with a willingness to experiment with and adopt new AI-driven solutions and comfort with learning and applying new digital tools independently and proactively.   

• Clear and concise communication skills, written and verbal  

• A learner's mindset and a commitment to growth: welcoming diverse perspectives, giving and receiving timely, respectful feedback, and continuously improving through iterative learning and user input.  

• A drive for impact and excellence: solving complex problems, making data-informed decisions, prioritizing what matters most, and continuously improving through learning, user input, and external benchmarking.  

• A collaborative and empathetic approach: working across differences, fostering trust, and contributing to a culture of shared success  

• Authorization to work in the United States  

About Our Process    

Application review will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled. This role is expected to accept applications for a minimum of 5 business days.  

While the hiring process may vary, it generally includes: resume and application submission, recruiter phone/video screen, hiring manager interview, performance exercise such as live coding, a panel interview, a conversation with leadership and reference checks.     

What We Offer  

At College Board, we offer more than a paycheck: we provide a meaningful career, a supportive team, and a comprehensive package designed to help you thrive. We’re a self-sustaining nonprofit that believes in fair and competitive compensation grounded in your qualifications, experience, impact, and the market.  

A Thoughtful Approach to Compensation  

The hiring range for this role is $88,000-$160,000. We adjust salaries by location to ensure fairness, no matter where you live. Below, we've offered an estimated range for a variety of metro areas throughout the United States. 

• New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington DC and Los Angeles:  $135,000-$160,000 

• Austin, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia and Denver:  $120,000-$140,000  

• Atlanta, Miami, Iowa City and most other locations throughout the Southeast and Midwest:  $88,000-$125,000  

We aim to make our best offer upfront, rooted in fairness, transparency, and market data. You’ll have open, transparent conversations about compensation, benefits, and what it’s like to work at College Board throughout your hiring process. Check out our careers page for more.