Job Purpose
The IT Change & Release Manager is responsible for leading enterprise-wide SAP change governance, release management, deployment coordination, and production readiness activities across a complex global SAP landscape. This role serves as the primary owner of SAP change governance and Change Advisory Board (CAB) coordination, ensuring all SAP changes, releases, enhancements, upgrades, and deployments are planned, validated, approved, communicated, and executed in a controlled and predictable manner.
This role partners closely with SAP functional teams, SAP Basis, development teams, integration teams, business stakeholders, project leadership, and production support organizations to balance transformation initiatives with operational stability. The role plays a critical leadership position in the company's SAP S/4HANA transformation by establishing disciplined release processes, deployment controls, and governance standards that reduce risk, improve visibility, and enable successful delivery of business capabilities across both production and project environments.
How You Make an Impact (Job Accountabilities)
SAP Change Governance & CAB Leadership
- Own and administer enterprise SAP change governance processes, ensuring compliance with established controls, approval workflows, and audit requirements.
- Lead SAP-related Change Advisory Board (CAB) activities, including change review, risk assessment, prioritization, scheduling, approvals, and stakeholder communications.
- Ensure change requests contain complete business impact assessments, testing evidence, implementation plans, dependency analysis, and rollback procedures.
- Drive continuous improvement of change governance practices to improve release quality, transparency, and operational stability.
Release Management & Deployment Coordination
- Manage SAP release planning, scheduling, deployment readiness, and execution activities across production and project landscapes.
Coordinate release calendars, transport sequencing, dependency management, and implementation activities across technical and functional teams.
- Facilitate release readiness reviews and go-live decision processes for enhancements, projects, upgrades, and maintenance releases.
Support recurring release cycles and major SAP upgrades while minimizing business disruption.
SAP Cloud ALM Administration & Lifecycle Management
- Administer and optimize SAP Cloud ALM capabilities supporting implementation, operations, monitoring, testing visibility, release management, and deployment governance.
- Maintain end-to-end traceability across requirements, testing activities, transports, releases, and production deployments.
- Leverage SAP Cloud ALM to provide operational visibility, reporting, monitoring, and risk management across SAP delivery activities.
- Support adoption and continuous optimization of SAP Cloud ALM processes and capabilities.
Production Readiness & Operational Stability
- Partner with SAP Basis, development, infrastructure, integration, and support teams to ensure deployment readiness and production stability.
- Coordinate cutover planning, post-deployment validation, hypercare activities, and transition to support processes.
- Identify deployment risks, unresolved dependencies, and readiness gaps before production implementation.
- Balance ongoing production support requirements with active project and transformation initiatives.
SAP S/4HANA Transformation Support
- Support SAP S/4HANA transformation initiatives through disciplined change control, release governance, deployment planning, and production readiness management.
- Establish scalable release and governance frameworks that support global rollout activities.
- Partner with program leadership to ensure transformation milestones are executed
What You Bring to the Role (Job Qualifications / Education / Skills / Requirements / Capabilities)
Education
- Bachelor's degree in Information Systems, Computer Science, Business, Engineering, or related discipline required.
- Equivalent combination of education and relevant experience may be considered.
Experience
- 8+ years of SAP experience supporting enterprise SAP environments.
- 5+ years of experience in change management, release management, deployment management, application lifecycle management, or related IT disciplines.
- Experience supporting SAP S/4HANA, SAP ECC, and complex SAP landscapes across multiple environments.
- Experience managing enterprise change governance processes and leading Change Advisory Board (CAB) activities.
- Experience supporting multiple full lifecycle SAP implementations, upgrades, migrations, or major enhancement programs.
- Experience working within global manufacturing or complex multi-site organizations preferred.
- Demonstrated experience supporting production and project delivery activities simultaneously within dual-track delivery environments.
- Experience leading cross-functional teams and coordinating activities across technical, functional, operational, and business stakeholders.
Certifications
- ITIL Foundation certification preferred.
- SAP Cloud ALM, SAP Solution Manager, SAP Activate, Project Management, Agile, or related certifications preferred.
- Technical & Leadership Capabilities
- Strong knowledge of SAP Cloud ALM, SAP Solution Manager, SAP ChaRM, or comparable application lifecycle management platforms.
- Strong understanding of SAP landscapes, transport management processes, deployment coordination, and release governance.
- Knowledge of SAP S/4HANA implementation and support methodologies.
- Understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC), Agile delivery, release management, and operational support practices.
- Experience working with ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Azure DevOps, or similar tools.
- Ability to assess deployment readiness, identify risks, and drive issue resolution across technical and business teams.
- Strong project coordination, stakeholder management, facilitation, and organizational skills.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to communicate effectively with technical teams, business stakeholders, and leadership audiences.
- Demonstrated ability to establish structure, governance, accountability, and process discipline within complex delivery environments.
Competencies Desired
- Results-oriented with strong execution focus
- Risk identification and mitigation mindset
- Strong organizational and planning capability
- Collaboration and cross-functional influence
- Sound judgment and decision-making ability
- Continuous improvement and operational excellence orientation
- Accountability and ownership mentality
- Effective communication and stakeholder engagement
- Working Conditions / Physical Requirements / Travel Requirements
- Working Conditions / Physical Requirements:
- Remote work environment with extended periods of computer use, virtual collaboration, and participation in global meetings across multiple time zones.
Working Conditions / Physical Requirements / Travel Requirements
Working Conditions / Physical Requirements:
- Remote work environment with extended periods of computer use, virtual collaboration, and participation in global meetings across multiple time zones.
Travel Requirements:
- Up to 10% domestic and international travel. Occasional after-hours support may be required during critical releases, deployments, system upgrades, or major transformation milestones.