Public service - higher education management consulting manager

Accenture helps the world’s leading enterprises reinvent by building their digital core and unleashing the power of AI to create value at speed for organizations across industries. Our strategy is to be the reinvention partner of choice for our clients and lead in the safe, widespread adoption of AI, and to be the most client-focused, AI-enabled, great place to work in the world. We bring together the talent of our approximately 799,000 people with proprietary assets and platforms, deep process and industry expertise, and leading ecosystem relationships to deliver end-to-end solutions and measurable outcomes at scale. Through our Reinvention Services, we offer broad expertise across Cybersecurity, Digital Core, Finance, Industry and Enterprise, Song, Supply Chain and Engineering, and Talent, with advanced capabilities in AI and Data, Industry and Process, and Technology. We serve approximately 9,000 clients and generated approximately $70 billion in FY25 revenue. Visit us at accenture.com.

ABOUT THE PRACTICE

Higher education is in the middle of one of the most significant operational transformations it has seen in decades. Institutions are rethinking how they manage finance, HR, payroll, procurement, and research administration, moving away from legacy systems and fragmented processes toward integrated platforms that can support the pace and complexity of a modern university or college.

The stakes are real. These are not back-office projects. They touch every faculty member, every department administrator, every researcher managing a grant, every employee waiting on a paycheck. Done well, they unlock institutional capacity that was previously buried in manual processes and disconnected systems. Done poorly, they create disruption that takes years to recover from.

Our Higher Education practice is in the middle of this transformation, working with universities, four-year colleges, and community colleges on the implementations that matter most to them. We are looking for practitioners who find this work genuinely compelling and bring the domain depth to do it well.

THE WORK

You will own the functional tower in your domain, whether Finance, HR, Payroll, Procurement, or Research Administration, on Cloud ERP implementations for college and university clients. That means leading design, driving decisions, managing the client relationships within your workstream, and being accountable for the quality of what gets delivered.

Higher education is not a simpler version of corporate or government ERP work; it is fundamentally different. Finance functions are decentralized across colleges, departments, and research units. HR operates in a shared governance environment where faculty have a voice in institutional decisions. Payroll spans multiple bargaining units with distinct contracts and pay rules. Procurement intersects with sponsored programs in ways that create unique compliance obligations. For research universities, the sponsored research enterprise, including effort reporting, indirect cost recovery, sub-award management, and cost transfers, adds a layer of complexity that has to be designed for from the start, not discovered later.

What makes a practitioner effective in this environment is not just platform knowledge. It is understanding how universities actually make decisions, how change lands in a shared governance culture, and how the design choices made in one tower affect operations across the institution for years. We are not looking for someone who covers every domain; we are looking for someone who owns one and brings that depth to every room they walk into.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Lead the functional tower in your domain, whether Finance, HR, Payroll, Procurement, or Research Administration, on Cloud ERP implementations for universities, four-year colleges, and community colleges.
• Own design decisions within your tower, drawing on both platform capability and a real understanding of how higher education institutions operate, including the decentralized structures, shared governance dynamics, and cross-functional dependencies that shape every design choice.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with client functional leaders in your domain, such as VPs of Finance, Controllers, HR Directors, Payroll Directors, Chief Procurement Officers, Sponsored Programs Directors, or Grants Managers, and engage with them as a peer who understands their world.
• Lead stakeholder engagement and change management within your tower, recognizing that adoption in higher education requires navigating shared governance, decentralized departmental cultures, and stakeholders who will scrutinize every design decision.
• Navigate integration complexity by understanding how your tower connects to other enterprise systems, student platforms, research administration systems, and state or federal reporting environments, and by designing with those dependencies in mind.
• Apply AI-assisted analysis, workflow design, and delivery acceleration as part of how you work day to day, not as an add-on but as a standard method that improves quality and speed.
• Communicate clearly on status, risk, and decisions to senior stakeholders, including awareness of how implementation milestones interact with board reporting cycles and audit timelines.
• Contribute to proposals and pursuits by bringing domain credibility that resonates with higher education evaluators who are looking for practitioners that understand their institution, not just their software.

Travel: Ability to travel 50%+.

WHAT YOU NEED

Required:

• Minimum 5 years of consulting or functional experience in higher education or community college environments with deep functional expertise in at least one domain: institutional finance and budget operations, HR and academic workforce management, payroll administration, procurement and purchasing compliance, or research administration and sponsored programs.
• Minimum 5 years of hands-on delivery experience with a Cloud ERP platform in a functional or technical capacity with experience leading a functional tower or workstream on a large-scale ERP engagement, with responsibility for design, delivery, and client engagement within your domain.

Preferred:

• Bachelor's degree
• Finance: experience with enrollment-driven budget modeling, GASB fund accounting, endowment accounting, or board and audit committee reporting in a Cloud ERP Financials context. Familiarity with how decentralized college and departmental finance structures affect system design.
• HR: experience with faculty appointment structures, academic workforce planning, classification and compensation, or HR transformation in a Cloud ERP HCM context. Experience navigating shared governance environments and designing for both centralized HR and distributed departmental HR functions.
• Payroll: experience with multi-bargaining-unit payroll configuration, faculty and staff pay structures, or complex leave and benefit plans in a Cloud ERP Payroll context.
• Procurement: experience with higher education purchasing compliance, requisition-to-pay processes, grant-funded procurement, or the intersection of procurement and sponsored programs in a Cloud ERP Procurement context.
• Research Administration: experience with sponsored programs finance, effort reporting, indirect cost recovery, sub-award management, cost transfer processes, or grant lifecycle management in a higher education ERP or research administration system context. Familiarity with federal sponsor requirements (NIH, NSF, DoD) and 2 CFR 200 compliance as they apply to system design.
• Prior experience working within a college, university, or community college in a finance, HR, payroll, procurement, or sponsored programs function, with an understanding of the institution from the inside.
• Experience with data migration complexity in higher education, including payroll history, position control records, grant encumbrances, or other sensitive historical data that requires careful conversion strategy.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted delivery methods or platform-native AI capabilities in Cloud ERP platforms.

Compensation at Accenture

Compensation at Accenture varies depending on a wide array of factors, which may include but are not limited to the specific office location, role, skill set, and level of experience. As required by local law, Accenture provides a reasonable range of compensation for roles that may be hired as set forth below. We anticipate this job posting will be posted until 11/09/2026.

Accenture offers a market competitive suite of benefits

Accenture offers a market competitive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, and long-term disability coverage, a 401(k) plan, bonus opportunities, paid holidays, and paid time off. See more information on our benefits here: U.S. Employee Benefits | Accenture

Role Location Annual Salary Range

• California $94,400 to $293,800
• Colorado $94,400 to $253,800
• Connecticut $94,400 to $253,800
• District of Columbia $100,500 to $270,300
• Illinois $87,400 to $253,800
• Maine $80,400 to $216,200
• Maryland $94,400 to $253,800
• Massachusetts $94,400 to $270,300
• Minnesota $94,400 to $253,800
• New York $87,400 to $293,800
• New Jersey $100,500 to $293,800
• Ohio $87,400 to $235,000
• Virginia $87,400 to $270,300
• Washington $100,500 to $270,300

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 791,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. Our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com

What We Believe

We have an unwavering commitment to diversity with the aim that every one of our people has a full sense of belonging within our organization. As a business imperative, every person at Accenture has the responsibility to create and sustain an inclusive environment. Inclusion and diversity are fundamental to our culture and core values. Our rich diversity makes us more innovative and more creative, which helps us better serve our clients and our communities. Read more here

Requesting An Accommodation

Accenture is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for persons with disabilities or religious observances, including reasonable accommodation when needed. If you are hired by Accenture and require accommodation to perform the essential functions of your role, you will be asked to participate in our reasonable accommodation process. Accommodations made to facilitate the recruiting process are not a guarantee of future or continued accommodations once hired. If you would like to be considered for employment opportunities with Accenture and have accommodation needs such as for a disability or religious observance, please call us toll free at 1 (877) 889-9009 or send us an email or speak with your recruiter.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

We believe that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences. All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, military veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other basis as protected by applicable law. Our rich diversity makes us more innovative, more competitive, and more creative, which helps us better serve our clients and our communities.

For details, view a copy of the Accenture Equal Opportunity Statement Accenture is an EEO and Affirmative Action Employer of Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities. Accenture is committed to providing veteran employment opportunities to our service men and women.

Other Employment Statements

Applicants for employment in the US must have work authorization that does not now or in the future require sponsorship of a visa for employment authorization in the United States. Candidates who are currently employed by a client of Accenture or an affiliated Accenture business may not be eligible for consideration. Job candidates will not be obligated to disclose sealed or expunged records of conviction or arrest as part of the hiring process. Further, at Accenture a criminal conviction history is not an absolute bar to employment. The Company will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. Additionally, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the Company's legal duty to furnish information.

California requires additional notifications for applicants and employees. If you are a California resident, live in or plan to work from Los Angeles County upon being hired for this position, please click here for additional important information. Please read Accenture’s Recruiting and Hiring Statement for more information on how we process your data during the Recruiting and Hiring process.