Director - Finance Technology

INSPIRE | EXHILARATE | DELIGHT

For over seven decades, Chalhoub Group has been a partner and creator of luxury experiences in the Middle East. In its pursuit to excel as a hybrid luxury retailer, the Group has curated a portfolio of over 10 owned brands and strengthened its distribution and marketing expertise for over 400 international names across luxury fashion, beauty, jewellery, watches, eyewear, and art de vivre categories.

Every step at Chalhoub Group is taken to build a future where luxury dreams become reality — bridging cultures and crafting memorable experiences for our consumers. Be it by constantly reinventing itself, committing to innovation, or embracing new technologies, the Group is shaping the future of luxury retail. It delivers seamless omnichannel experiences across more than 950 stores, online platforms, and mobile apps. Driving this innovation journey is The Greenhouse — the Group’s innovation hub, incubator, and accelerator for startups and emerging businesses, regionally and globally.

Chalhoub Group fosters a people-at-heart culture rooted in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and a workplace catalysed by forward thinking and future-proofing. Today, it brings together over 16,000 talented professionals across eight countries in the Middle East, with a presence in LATAM. Their collective efforts have earned the Group the Great Place to Work® certification in several markets.

Sustainability is at the core of the Group’s strategy, guided by a clear commitment to people, partners, and the planet. Chalhoub Group is proud to be a member of the United Nations Global Compact, a signatory of the Women’s Empowerment Principles, and to have pledged to reach Net Zero by 2040.

What you'll be doing  

We are seeking a dynamic and enterprise-minded Director – Finance Technology to lead the evolution of our Finance technology landscape and act as a key partner to the CFO and Technology leadership. This strategic role will enable Finance to operate with greater agility, insight, and efficiency, while ensuring governance and enterprise-wide alignment. The role will also focus on continuously innovating through the application of the latest technology, including AI-driven solutions, to address and solve complex business and finance challenges.

A core part of this role is to lead the transition and integration of the Finance-aligned ‘shadow IT’ team into the central Technology & Data organization, ensuring structure, accountability, and long-term support models are in place.

Additionally, the role will support the SAP S/4HANA “Transform” programme by preparing for and managing the service transition from implementation to BAU operations, including the retirement of Oracle Finance platforms and future enhancement ownership of SAP.

In parallel, this role will be accountable for maintaining stability and operational continuity within the Oracle Finance environment until SAP is fully deployed ensuring tight SLAs, clear ownership, and minimal business disruption.

You will be responsible for building a scalable, insight-driven support model for Finance that leverages automation, modern BI platforms, and advanced analytics while ensuring technology investments deliver measurable business value and financial transparency.

In their endeavour to excellence, the fundamental values all our employees must possess are Commitment, Integrity, Empathy and Flexibility.

Strategic Leadership & Transformation Partnership

• Define and drive the Finance technology roadmap aligned with transformation priorities enabling automation, insight, AI-driven solutions and operational excellence.
• Serve as the strategic liaison between Technology and Finance, ensuring clarity and alignment on transformation initiatives, investment plans, and support capabilities. Continuously explore and evaluate the latest AI and technology innovations to address emerging Finance challenges
• Partner with the CFO and Finance Transformation Office to provide technology support for the “Transform” SAP S/4HANA programme, ensuring post-go-live service models are operationally ready.

Service Transition & SAP Operational Readiness

• Lead the transition of Finance support services from Oracle to SAP, ensuring business continuity, knowledge transfer, and platform stability during and after go-live.
• Establish scalable, structured BAU processes to support SAP post-implementation, including incident, change, enhancement, and user support workflows.
• Coordinate with the SAP programme team and external vendors to ensure smooth handover into IT operations, and future-proof support and optimization models.

Shadow IT Integration & Organizational Alignment

• Lead the integration of the Finance shadow IT team into the Technology & Data organization aligning roles, responsibilities, and capabilities under IT governance.
• Implement operating models, performance metrics, and delivery standards to ensure the integrated team functions as a high-performing unit within Enterprise Technology.
• Rationalize and modernize legacy Finance tools, ensuring compliance with security, architecture, and data standards.

Finance Data, BI & Analytics Enablement

• Develop and deliver a scalable Finance data and BI support model to enhance agility, accuracy, and decision-making across the Finance function.
• Drive the adoption of advanced analytics, AI-driven tools, and self-service reporting solutions to meet Finance’s evolving needs, including forecasting, scenario planning, and business insights.
• Simplify and standardize data models, promoting a “single source of truth” approach, while leveraging bots, AI-driven automation, and auto-reconciliation to improve efficiency and accuracy.
• Deliver high-quality, real-time financial reporting capabilities to support key stakeholders, including the CFO and Finance leadership, with timely, data-driven insights.
• Ensure the standardization and consistency of financial statements (P&L, balance sheets, cash flow reports), meeting both internal requirements and regulatory standards.
• Continuously enhance Finance data and BI solutions to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of financial performance reporting, enabling informed decision-making across the organization.
• Promote self-service tools to empower Finance teams to generate customized financial reports, reducing manual processes and improving operational efficiency.

Financial Governance & Technology ROI

• Partner closely with Finance leaders to ensure rigor in ROI analysis, cost-benefit evaluations, and business case development for technology investments.
• Provide transparency into the cost structure of Finance tech, identifying opportunities for optimization, consolidation, and reinvestment.
• Embed financial discipline into platform management and enhancement prioritization across SAP and other Finance platforms.

Operational Excellence & Agile Execution

• Own the end-to-end management of Finance technology enhancements in the Oracle ecosystem, ensuring requests are triaged, prioritized, and delivered through a structured SAFe Agile delivery model.
• Collaborate across Finance, Procurement, and Audit teams to enhance process effectiveness, control, and sustainability
• Implement guardrails to minimize “regret spend” by enforcing clear business cases, ROI thresholds, and traceability of enhancements to strategic outcomes.
• Ensure alignment between product owners, dev teams, and Finance stakeholders to deliver value-driven outcomes including AI-driven solutions without unnecessary complexity or cost.
• Establish and embed a similar enhancement governance framework for SAP post go-live enabling continuous improvement, controlled backlog management, and full visibility on change investment decisions.
• Drive continuous service improvement through AI-driven insights, data, user feedback, and performance metrics.

• Lead the Major Incident Management (MIM) rota on a rotating basis (approximately 1 week in every 8–10 weeks), providing authoritative leadership during high-impact events as a core accountability of the Director role.

People, Culture & Capability Building

• Build a high-performing, integrated Finance tech support team, blending retrained legacy Finance IT talent with strategic recruitment with central IT standards, practices, and a strong culture.
• Support the Finance function’s ambition to close digital capability gaps, enhance analytics maturity, and foster talent development across areas like AI, tax tech, automation, and data.
• Enable a culture of cross-functional collaboration and shared ownership across IT and Finance teams.

Finance Technology & Functional Expertise

• Deep understanding of Finance enterprise platforms, including Oracle and SAP S/4HANA, with experience supporting transformations, enhancements, and maintaining operational stability.
• Proven expertise in managing technology services for Finance, including system integration, application support, and lifecycle ownership across core functions such as accounting, tax, reporting, financial planning, and procurement.
• Hands-on experience in implementing and supporting Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics solutions tailored to Finance, enabling self-service reporting, forecasting, and data-driven decision-making.
• Familiar with automation and integration tools relevant to Finance, including Robotic Process Automation (RPA), reconciliation systems, and reporting controls to improve process efficiency and accuracy.
• Experience delivering technology enhancements using Agile methodologies (SAFe preferred), managing cross-functional backlogs, release cycles, and aligning with Finance stakeholders.
• Ensure compliance with financial regulations and standards (e.g., IFRS, SOX, GDPR) across all Finance technology platforms. Collaborate with internal and external teams to ensure auditability and data traceability in Oracle and SAP environments.
• Work with legal and compliance teams to uphold financial data privacy, security, and reporting standards, especially for AI-driven solutions and automation.
• Accounting: Lead technology solutions for core accounting processes, ensuring alignment with financial reporting standards and integration with broader Finance systems.
• Group Finance & Management Reporting: Oversee technology solutions supporting financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting, enabling effective management reporting and group-wide performance tracking.
• Tax: Support the transformation of tax technology to streamline processes, automate calculations, and ensure compliance with global tax regulations.
• Treasury: Enhance Treasury systems to improve cash management, liquidity forecasting, and risk management, with a focus on automating cash position reporting and transaction reconciliation.
• Procurement: Integrate Finance and Procurement systems to optimize purchasing, supplier management, and cost control, driving automation and reporting improvements.

What you’ll need to succeed  

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Information Systems, Computer Science, or any related field; MBA or relevant postgrad qualification preferred.
• 12+ years of experience across technology, enterprise transformation, or Finance systems leadership, with at least 5 years in a senior role.
• Proven experience supporting large-scale Finance transformations, ideally including SAP S/4HANA implementations and post-go-live transitions.
• Deep understanding of AI, machine learning, and emerging technologies in Finance, with a demonstrated passion for exploring, implementing, and seamlessly integrating these advanced tools into innovative business solutions.
• Demonstrated success in leading shadow IT transitions, platform rationalization, and team integrations within a complex enterprise.
• Deep understanding of Enterprise Finance systems (SAP, Oracle), BI tools, and data models.
• Deep functional understanding of Finance operating models and processes, including key domains such as Procure-to-Pay (P2P), Order-to-Cash (O2C), Record-to-Report (R2R), and Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A). Able to translate business needs into technology solutions and support models that reflect the nuances and dependencies across Accounting, Controlling, Treasury, Tax, Procurement, and Financial Operations.
• Experience in retail, FMCG, or complex operational environments would be a plus.
• Familiarity with ESG, sustainability reporting, or governance tooling is an advantage.

What we can offer you  

With us, you will turn your aspirations into reality.  We will help shape your journey through enriching experiences, learning and development opportunities and exposure to different assignments within your role or through internal mobility. Our Group offers diverse career paths for those who are extraordinary, every day.  

We recognise the value that you bring, and we strive to provide a competitive benefits package which includes health care, child education contribution, remote and flexible working policies as well as exclusive employee discounts.  

We Invite All Applicants to Apply

It Takes Diversity Of Thought, Culture, Background, Differing Abilities and Perspectives to truly Inspire, Exhilarate and Delight our customers. At Chalhoub Group, we are committed to inclusion and diversity.

We welcome all applicants to apply and be part of our exciting future. We ensure equal opportunity for all our applicants without regard to gender, age, race, religion, national origin or disability status.