Technical Product Owner Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) at Nedbank

Role Purpose

• The Head of ERP Delivery & Operations is responsible for leading the Bank’s SAP CCOE ERP , as well as associated ERP related application teams, ensuring the stability, scalability, and modernization of the SAP and overall enterprise resource planning landscape. This role owns the full lifecycle of SAP and associated solutions (approx. 40 3rd party applications) —from build to run—across platforms including SAP ECC/S4HANA, Ariba, Fieldglass, BW, SAC, Datasphere, and Payroll. The SAP CCOE is also responsible for central SAP specific functions such as Basis and GRC/Security for Finance, Procurement, Corporate Real Estate, HR and Loans. The role is critical in maintaining seamless integration between SAP and the Bank’s core banking and product systems, particularly in ensuring accurate and timely postings to the general ledger

Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership

• Define and execute the SAP ERP strategy aligned to business and IT objectives.
• Drive modernisation and upgrades across SAP platforms to ensure currency and compliance.
• Champion a “You Build It, You Run It, You Own It” culture within the SAP team.

Operational Excellence

• Oversee day-to-day operations of SAP systems, ensuring high availability, performance, and security.
• Lead incident, problem, and change management processes for SAP platforms.
• Ensure effective monitoring, alerting, and proactive maintenance of SAP environments.

Delivery and Integration

• Manage end-to-end delivery of SAP projects and enhancements.
• Ensure robust integration between SAP and non-SAP systems, especially for financial postings from product systems to the general ledger.
• Collaborate with Finance, HR, Procurement, and other business units to deliver value through SAP capabilities.

Team and Vendor Management

• Lead a multidisciplinary SAP team including functional, technical, and support roles.
• Manage relationships with SAP and third-party vendors, ensuring service levels and value delivery.
• Foster a high-performance culture through coaching, development, and accountability.

Governance and Compliance

• Ensure SAP systems comply with internal controls, audit requirements, and regulatory standards.
• Maintain accurate documentation and enforce governance across SAP change and release processes.

Required Skills and Experience

• 10+ years of senior management and leadership experience
• Proven experience leading SAP ERP teams in complex enterprise environments.
• Deep expertise in SAP ECC, Ariba, Fieldglass, BW, SAC, Datasphere, Payroll and SAP Business Technology PaaS.
• Experience and/or exposure to S/4HANA would be preferred.
• Strong understanding of SAP integration patterns, especially with non-SAP core banking systems.
• Experience with SAP upgrades, migrations, and cloud-based solutions
• Leading multi-disciplined teams / full stack squads throughout the system development lifecycle to meet the business requirements using modern methodologies such as BizDevOps and SAFE.
• “You build it, You run it, You own it”.
• Management of products which require high availability.
• The products typically have significant client and business impact in the event of an outage

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Information Systems, Finance, or related field.
• SAP certifications in relevant modules or platforms.
• Experience in financial services or banking environments.

Technical / Professional Knowledge

• Technical skills
• Product management
• Project Management
• Financial management
• Strategy planning and execution
• Vendor Management Skills
• Stakeholder management
• Governance, Risk and Controls
• Relevant regulatory knowledge

Behavioural Competencies

• Delegation and Empowerment
• Execution
• Decision Making
• Building Talent
• Customer Focus
• Guiding Team Success
• Leadership Determination
• Driving Innovation