Associate Director, Enterprise Software Engineering Italy

ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS – ITALY

This position is based in Milan, Italy

Using your deep technical expertise and strong leadership capabilities, you will lead the Italy Enterprise Systems team and drive a multi-year transformation of a complex SAP-centric landscape. You will play a critical role in modernizing enterprise applications, reducing technical debt, and enabling the successful migration from SAP ECC 6.8 to a centralized STEP S/4HANA platform.

What makes this role great?

As the Associate Director, Enterprise Systems – Italy, you are an integral part of driving business and technology transformation across the Italian organization as part of Global Business Services IT organization while closely partnering with Italy Business partners and Global IT teams.

You will be accountable for a diverse Enterprise Systems landscape that supports core Finance, Sales, Operations, and HR processes. With SAP ECC approaching end of life, this role offers a unique opportunity to shape the future of Italy’s enterprise architecture by simplifying systems, standardizing business processes, and rolling Italy into a global S/4HANA template.

This role combines strategic leadership, BU/IT alignment, transformation ownership, and hands-on expertise. While you lead and inspire your team, you will remain closely involved in architecture decisions, fit-to-standard discussions, and complex delivery challenges throughout the S/4HANA journey.

You steer the ship from current-state complexity to a simplified, standardized, and future-ready enterprise landscape — from strategy and design through execution and stabilization — and you guide your team through every stage of that transformation.

Some of the key areas you will be responsible for in this leader role:

· Provide thought leadership in close collaboration with Italian and global Business Process Owners to simplify and improve core business processes across Finance, Order-to-Cash, CRM, and HR

· Lead and manage the Italy Enterprise Systems team responsible for SAP ECC, SAP C4C, and remaining legacy platforms such as Lotus Domino

· Own the transformation of the current Italy Enterprise Systems landscape, characterized by significant technical debt and business complexity

· Execute a roadmap to simplify and rationalize the ES landscape ahead of the migration to STEP S/4HANA

· Lead the preparation for SAP ECC 6.8 end-of-life, including system simplification, custom code reduction, and process harmonization

· Drive the definition and adoption of business process templates aligned with the global STEP S/4HANA model

· Direct and govern fit-to-standard and fit-gap analyses to enable the rollout of STEP S/4HANA in Italy

· Support and co-lead the migration of Italy to STEP S/4HANA, ensuring business continuity and operational stability

· Drive the successful delivery of operational releases and transformation initiatives within agreed scope, timeline, budget, and risk parameters

· Identify and resolve complex technical, operational, and organizational challenges across systems and stakeholders

· Manage internal and external resources, optimizing capacity, cost, and capability across run and change activities

· Proactively address workforce risks, including succession planning in light of anticipated retirements within the coming five years

The experience we can’t wait to hear about:

· Proven track record as a thought leader working with enterprise systems in a large, complex, global organization

· Minimum 5 years of experience managing and leading enterprise application or software delivery teams

· Extensive experience with SAP enterprise landscapes, including ECC and S/4HANA transformation programs

· Experience working with Finance, Supply Chain, Sales, and HR systems and processes (e.g., FICO, O2C, CRM, HR)

· Strong background in Enterprise Architecture, Systems Requirements, Project and Program Management, Systems Design and Delivery

· Demonstrated experience mentoring, coaching, and developing team members, including performance management and succession planning

· Ability to analyze complex business needs, facilitate structured discussions, and drive process standardization and efficiency

· Experience working with geographically diverse teams and external vendor partners

· Demonstrated budget management, tracking, and forecasting experience

· Proven ability to deliver enterprise system initiatives on time and within budget

· Experience defining, maintaining, and improving processes, metrics, SLAs, and governance models across enterprise platforms

Our Interview Practices

To maintain a fair and genuine hiring process, we kindly ask that all candidates participate in interviews without the assistance of AI tools or external prompts. Our interview process is designed to assess your individual skills, experiences, and communication style. We value authenticity and want to ensure we’re getting to know you—not a digital assistant. To help maintain this integrity, we ask to remove virtual backgrounds and include in-person interviews in our hiring process. Please note that use of AI-generated responses or third-party support during interviews will be grounds for disqualification from the recruitment process.

Applicants may be required to appear onsite at a Wolters Kluwer office as part of the recruitment process.

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