Product Owner, ERP - Financial and Operations Systems

About Four Seasons:

Four Seasons is powered by our people. We are a collective of individuals who crave to become better, to push ourselves to new heights and to treat each other as we wish to be treated in return. Our team members around the world create amazing experiences for our guests, residents, and partners through a commitment to luxury with genuine heart. We know that the best way to enable our people to deliver these exceptional guest experiences is through a world-class employee experience and company culture.         
At Four Seasons, we believe in recognizing a familiar face, welcoming a new one and treating everyone we meet the way we would want to be treated ourselves. Whether you work with us, stay with us, live with us or discover with us, we believe our purpose is to create impressions that will stay with you for a lifetime. It comes from our belief that life is richer when we truly connect to the people and the world around us.

About the location:

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is a global, luxury hotel management company. We manage over 120 hotels and resorts and 50 private residences in 47 countries around the world and growing. Central to Four Seasons employee experience and social impact programming is the company’s commitment to supporting cancer research, and the advancement of diversity, inclusion, equality and belonging at Four Seasons corporate offices and properties worldwide. At Four Seasons, we are powered by people and our culture enables everything we do.

Product Owner, ERP – Financial and Operations Systems

The Product Owner for Transactional Finance is responsible to ensure current and future business objectives for all major areas of transactional finance. This will include ensuring that the business requirements are met by the respective development, implementation, and management of Microsoft Dynamics ERP solutions. This role involves collaborating with stakeholders to define product vision, creating and maintaining the product backlog.

The Product Owner will provide clear accountability and leadership across all stages of Financial Accounting integrated technology and process journey.  This role will be single minded in their focus on developing products and a cohesive seamless experience that drives adoption and maturity of the goals of Enterprise Performance Transformation.

This is a global role and responsible for the Product supporting all areas of the business (corporate, properties, residential, yachts, etc.)

The Transactional Finance Product Owner is an expert user of Dynamics 365 with full certifications and experience overseeing and delivering the successful business configuration of Microsoft Dynamics 365 including out-of-the box reporting and native integrations with core applications such as PowerBI. The Product Owner will oversee all deployment, training, system change management.  Advanced user support not resolved as part of standard service desk offerings will be facilitated by the Product Owner. With a focus on back office transactional finance, the Product Owner will work in partnership with other Product Owners (e.g. OneStream, PMS) FP&A, Finance Data & Analytics, Operations Finance) to ensure end to end seamlessness of finance technology in the delivery of financial processes, policies, efficient operations and empowered data driven decision making. The Product Owner is also the lead Data Steward for all Transactional Finance and a data champion of data governance for D-365 inside the integrated Finance ecosystem.

The Product Owner is the primary liaison between Finance and the D365 Technology leader. The Product Owner will partner with the TID (Technology, Innovation & Data) department to maximize the value of the D365 and related systems and integrations to ensure the business drives continuous innovation (TID services team will be responsible for technical solutioning, development, technical implementation, Level 1 service desk)

What You’ll Be Doing:

Stakeholder Management

• Accountable to collaborate and make business decisions, in co-operation with finance business stakeholders to understand their requirements, gather feedback, and align D365 future initiatives with business goals.
• Act as the primary business point of contact for D365-related business queries, issues, and requests from stakeholders.
• Engage with TID Finance support team to address trends identified related to system support and usability.
• Accountable for defining and ensuring finance accepts and adheres to solution acceptance criteria for each feature and for the successful deployment of product features.
• Facilitate regular communication and status updates with stakeholders to ensure transparency and to manage expectations.
• Act as the central point of contact for TID, Data Governance, and D365 product owner to relay business and process requirements and work together on developing and maintaining the Finance solution product roadmap with a focus on D365 Finance & Operations.

Product Vision and Strategy

• Work closely in collaboration with TID to define, communicate, and manage the product vision, roadmap, defining user stories, and strategy for D365, considering business priorities, hospitality, and industry market trends.
• Stay connected with D365 community, including Microsoft, their partners and clients.
• Conduct market research and stay updated on D365 best business practices to identify opportunities for innovation.
• Work closely with global Finance stakeholders to prioritize features and enhancements based on business value and user needs. Continue to motivate the operational teams to adopt new technologies and capabilities as and when they become relevant and adoptable.
• Ensure customer-driven design considering user experience requirements and solution usability, using market and industry knowledge

Product Backlog Management

• Create and prioritizes the product backlog, ensuring that it reflects the most valuable and feasible items.
• Collaborate with the TID development team, which provides a list of future features, to refine backlog items, ensuring they are well-defined, estimated, and ready for implementation.
• Continuously prioritize and reprioritize backlog items based on changing business needs, market conditions, and stakeholder feedback.

Partnership with Technology, Innovation & Data department (TID)

• Partner with the TID department to build the Product roadmap that reflects Finance's needs and desires, capturing any available innovations and improvements.
• Nurture the engagement between the Finance, Data Governance, Data Analysis, and TID departments to ensure the D365 platform is evolving to its fullest potential.
• Proactively share knowledge between the TID department and Product Owners to drive D365 F&O business functionality and business process learnings.
• Understand the delta and business ramifications between how technology is currently working and how it should be working in a leading business practice finance organization.

What You Bring:

• Proven experience as a Product Owner or similar role in ERP implementation, preferably with Microsoft Dynamics. Strong business and financial process knowledge and experience with Microsoft Dynamics 365.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills to effectively collaborate with stakeholders, vendor partners, and other cross-functional teams.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to understand complex business requirements and translate them into business and process requirements.
• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple tasks and stakeholders in a fast-paced environment.
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies, such as Scrum, and experience working with Agile development teams.
• Knowledge of D365 best business practices, hospitality and financial business process industry trends, and emerging technologies.
• Financial acumen and understanding of hospitality finance detailed processes (L1 – L5) to ensure the Four Seasons D365 global finance solution meets the needs of finance of the future.
• Project Management: Proficiency in project management tools and methodologies, such as Agile, Scrum, or Kanban.
• Technical Proficiency: Strong understanding of Dynamics 365 architecture and integrations with other Microsoft products and third-party applications.
• Business Acumen: Deep understanding of business processes and how Dynamics 365 can be leveraged to improve efficiency and productivity.

Key Skills:

• Hospitality business process acumen from L1 – L5 with demonstrated experiential delivery in sustaining and evolving Standard Operating Procedures, Internal Controls, Master Data Discipline, global finance training guides, and automated financial testing.
• Demonstrated ability to be accountable to develop, maintain, and evolve the finance perpetual business case including accountability over gross costs and benefits.
• Accountable for Four Seasons Finance benefits realization.
• Requirements gathering and prioritization: Ability to gather and prioritize requirements from finance stakeholders and align them with business goals.
• Stakeholder management: Skilled in effectively managing and collaborating with finance and IT stakeholders to ensure their needs are met.
• Training: Capability to deliver training courses and support to finance stakeholders on the effective use of D365.
• Techno-functional acumen: Knowledge and experience in both business and functional aspects of D365 to effectively communicate with stakeholders.
• Change management: Ability to drive and manage change within the organization, ensuring smooth adoption of D365 and its enhancements.

This role will be a Hybrid working model, which will require 3 days per week in the Four Seasons Corporate Office located at 1165 Leslie Street, Toronto, Ontario #LI-Hybrid

Four Seasons is committed to providing employment accommodation in accordance with the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. If contacted for an employment opportunity, please advise Human Resources if you require accommodation.