Vice President, Finance ERP Leader

Location(s): Cary, North Carolina, Tampa, FL or NYC

Setting: Hybrid

Reports to: SVP, Global CIO

MetLife, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, is one of the world's leading financial services companies, providing insurance, annuities, employee benefits and asset management to individual and institutional customers. We're united by our purpose to help our customers and each other create a confident future; we're guided by empathy; and we're inspired by each other to make a difference in the lives of our coworkers, customers, communities, and the world at large. At MetLife, it's #AllTogetherPossible. Join us!

The Team You Will Join:

The MetLife Corporate Systems Technology (CST) organization is evolving to enable MetLife's Next Horizon strategy. With a strong vision in place, we are a global function focused on driving digital technology strategies for key corporate functions within MetLife including, Finance, Actuarial and Treasury, Human Resources and Employee Experience, Risk, Control functions including Audit, legal, Risk and Compliance. In partnership with our business, we develop and deliver seamless technology experiences to our employees across the entire employee lifecycle. Our vision and mission is to create innovative, transformative and contemporary technology solutions to empower our leaders and employees so they can focus on what matters most, our customers. We are technologists with strong business acumen focused on developing our talent to continually transform and innovate.

The Opportunity:

MetLife's new Vice President, ERP Technical leader will play a key leadership role in helping to modernize and digitize financial operations across the enterprise. This leader will partner closely with MetLife's finance leadership to establish a modern, technology-driven finance function at MetLife that empowers colleagues across finance disciplines to work more accurately and efficiently. Leveraging an agile product delivery approach and integrating this engineering team with MetLife's finance group, this individual will help drive a flexible and iterative culture that continually finds ways to empower MetLife's finance function through better use of technology.

In addition, this leader will be responsible for delivering on strategic, transformational initiatives that may include in-house, cloud/multi-cloud vendor solutions, APIs, DevOps enablement and application modernization, working collaboratively with enterprise partners on business-critical applications. The leader is charged to introduce innovation, driving for game changing, digitally enabled, modernized technologies while ensuring adherence to changing legislation and regulation. This individual must have the requisite leadership and influencing skills to be regarded as an effective business partner by their respective business peers and across the cross-functional MetLife leadership teams. The candidate will leverage their experience and knowledge of IT Project and Program Management applying the latest agile principles and methods to impress the customer with consistent delivery of superior products and processes. This people leader will also be responsible for building effective, highly skilled teams, driving engagement, and developing our talent.

Key Relationships:

• Reports to the SVP, Global Corporate Systems

• Direct reports/team: Total Employees/Contractors: 35+

• Matrix Management - 60+ IT professionals across the enterprise

• Key Stakeholders: Financial Operations; Corporate Controllers, Regional and Country CFOs

Key Responsibilities:

• Define the strategy and lead the transformation of these platforms to align with business goals around growth, customer experience, compliance, and regulatory reporting.

• Lead multiyear IT ERP transformation program which will move our on-premises PeopleSoft environment to a modern, streamlined cloud platform supporting a reengineered financial environment.

• Develop the new operating model in support of a cloud financials environment

• Responsible for translating business vision into work generated by multiple Agile teams to ensure the solution meets defined goals and vision.

• Partner closely with product development leaders to drive the entire portfolio to agile delivery.

• Drive enterprise-wide financial Data strategy in support of business process reengineering

• Partner with senior business leaders to drive change management across all levels of the organization

• Deep understanding of the functions performed by the Financial Accounting and Reporting organization and future technology solutions.

• Manage ERP development team of MetLife and Vendors.

• Matrix management responsibility for cross functional team members aligned to product teams.

• Manage program budget including vendor, labor, and infrastructure costs with product owners.

• Drive AI related opportunities in the Finance space focusing on the future ERP platform

• Bring AI innovation mindset to existing and future financial platforms

• Leverage effective vendor management with a focus on a higher level of vendor engagement, vendor relationship building, and ultimately enhanced vendor performance.

• Maintain currency of technology portfolio by ensuring supported applications are consistently within one release of vendor's latest offering.

• Collaborate with teams distributed across functions and geographic locations to ensure successful delivery.

• Foster robust engineering practices and lead high-functioning engineering teams.

• Envision and deliver operational processes and technologies necessary to improve core systems reliability.

• Implement best practice continuous improvement processes that prioritize incident analysis and remediation, with a constant emphasis on automation and prevention.

• Investigate feasibility of emerging technologies to enhance customer experience and determine cost, benefit, and applicability.

• Leverage effective vendor management with a focus on a higher level of vendor engagement, vendor relationship building, and ultimately enhanced vendor performance.

• Attract and mentor a highly performant team in an exciting, inclusive, and collaborative environment.

Essential Business Experience and Technical Skills

• Undergraduate degree required. (MS or other advanced degree preferred)

• 15+ years' experience in leading enterprise application programs

• 5+ years of leading Finance ERP technical Cloud program implementations

• Extensive knowledge and understanding of enterprise level financial accounting & reporting functions and associated regulatory requirements.

• Expert ability to lead large development initiatives at scale, employing SDLC methodologies including Agile and Scrum

• Extensive experience in Finance ERP Cloud solutions (Oracle, Workday or SAP)

• Experience with cloud technologies and Microsoft Azure

• Experience with Data Bricks

• Experience developing and supporting mission-critical applications optimized to run in the cloud or virtualized environments.

• Exceptional leadership skills with ability to create and retain diverse teams of technical professionals driven by a clear understanding of organizational goals and individual purpose in their achievement.

• Exceptional written, verbal, and interpersonal communication skills to interact effectively with all stakeholders.

• A keen desire to provide ongoing transparency to stakeholders and foster an environment of trust and confidence.

• Driven to the advancement of employee satisfaction and career development by demonstrating a clear interest in them and their success.

• Excellent organization, prioritization, analytical and problem-solving skills to effectively lead areas of responsibility and attain goals.

• The ability to negotiate, influence and reach a compromise.

• Demonstrated desire to retain currency in related business and technology disciplines by ongoing education, networking, and certifications where applicable.

MetLife Leader Expectations

• Build Effective Teams - building strong-identity teams that apply their diverse skills and perspectives to achieve common goals

• Drive Engagement - create a climate where people are motivated to do their best to help MetLife achieve its objectives

• Develop Talent - developing people to meet both their career goals and the organization's goals

MetLife Success Principles

• Experiment with Confidence - Courageously learn and test new ideas without fear of failure

• Act with Urgency - Demonstrate speed to action with agility and determination

• Seek Diverse Perspectives - Source ideas and feedback to expand thinking and make informed decisions

• Seize Opportunity - Drive responsible growth and identify areas for continuous improvement

• Champion Inclusion - Foster and environment where everyone is valued, heard, and can speak up

• Create Alignment - Partner with others across the organization with candor and transparency

• Take Responsibility - Be accountable and act in pursuit of the right outcomes

• Enable Solutions - Anticipate and address obstacles while managing risk

• Deliver What Matters - Execute meaningful priorities and follow through on commitments

Equal Employment Opportunity/Disability/Veterans

If you need an accommodation due to a disability, please email us at accommodations@metlife.com. This information will be held in confidence and used only to determine an appropriate accommodation for the application process.

MetLife maintains a drug-free workplace.