SAP Domain Leader - Controlling (CO-PA) - 12 months - Paris, France

SAP Domain Leader - Controlling (CO-PA) - 12 months - Paris, France

Location

Paris, France - Hybrid/Remote options available

Role Summary

We are seeking an experienced SAP Domain Leader for Controlling (CO-PA) to own and evolve our profitability and margin management capabilities across a complex retail and fashion value chain. This is a senior leadership role responsible for domain strategy, end-to-end solution design, and global template governance, partnering closely with Finance, Merchandise Planning, Supply Chain, and Digital teams.

You will lead the CO-PA roadmap, drive harmonized processes across regions and brands, and ensure that SAP Controlling solutions enable commercial decision-making in areas like assortment profitability, channel margin, markdown impact, and inventory performance.

Key Responsibilities

Domain Strategy & Ownership

• Define and own the CO-PA domain vision, roadmap, and global solution standards aligned to business strategy.
• Serve as the single point of accountability for profitability reporting and margin analytics across channels and regions.
• Lead continuous improvement and innovation in CO-PA, including S/4HANA capabilities, margin-by-dimension modelling, and data product thinking.

Business Partnership & Process Leadership

• Partner with senior stakeholders in Finance, FP&A, Merchandise Planning, Pricing, and Supply Chain to translate business goals into scalable CO-PA solutions.
• Drive harmonization of profitability processes, including:
• Net sales and margin calculation
• Markdown and promo impact attribution
• Returns, allowances, freight, and duty allocation
• Channel and customer profitability
• Store, region, and E-commerce performance
• Act as a trusted advisor to commercial teams on profitability insights and data interpretation.

Solution Design & Delivery Leadership

• Lead end-to-end CO-PA solution design; ensure fit-for-purpose configuration and integration with FI, SD, MM, PP, and BW/SAC.
• Oversee key design areas such as:
• Operating Concern structure, value fields, characteristics, and derivation rules
• Cost/Revenue element mapping, settlement, and allocations
• Margin analysis reporting (account-based CO-PA preferred)
• Product hierarchy, brand, season, collection, and channel modelling
• Guide delivery teams through blueprinting, build, testing, cutover, and hypercare.

Governance & Global Template Management

• Maintain global CO-PA template with clear governance for enhancements and regional adoption.
• Own design decision boards, solution documentation, and change control.
• Ensure solutions are audit-ready and aligned with internal controls.

Team & Vendor Leadership

• Lead a multi-disciplinary team of internal experts and SI partners.
• Coach and develop functional CO consultants and business analysts.
• Manage vendor performance, scope, and quality outcomes.

Required Experience & Skills

SAP & Functional Expertise

• 10+ years of SAP Controlling experience, with deep specialization in CO-PA.
• Proven leadership on S/4HANA implementations or large ECC's/4 migrations.
• Strong working knowledge of:
• Account-based CO-PA (preferred) and/or costing-based CO-PA
• Results Analysis, settlements, top-down/bottom-up allocations
• Product costing and actual costing integration
• CO-OM, PCA, ML, FI-GL, SD billing flows
• Exposure to BW/4HANA, SAP Analytics Cloud, or other profitability reporting layers.

Retail & Fashion Domain Experience

• Significant experience in retail and/or fashion environments, with hands-on understanding of:
• Multi-channel profitability (stores, wholesale, E-commerce, marketplaces)
• Seasonality, collections, and product life cycle (carryover, end-of-season)
• Markdown, promotions, and price architecture
• Returns, reverse logistics, and concession models
• Inventory valuation impacts on margin (eg, landed cost, duty, freight, write-offs)

Leadership & Delivery

• Demonstrated ability to lead global domain teams and govern complex templates.
• Strong stakeholder management skills; comfortable influencing C-level finance and commercial leaders.
• Excellent problem-solving and communication skills; able to translate technical CO-PA concepts into business language.
• Experience working in Agile/SAFe or hybrid delivery modes.

Preferred Qualifications

• SAP CO certification or S/4HANA Finance/Controlling accreditation.
• Experience with Retail industry solutions (eg, SAP Retail, AFS, CAR, VMS, Omnichannel architectures).
• Knowledge of profitability analytics and KPI frameworks for fashion (eg, full-price sell-through, GMROI, net margin by season/channel).
• Exposure to data governance and master data design for product and customer hierarchies.

Start: ASAP - 8th December

Duration: 12 months

Location: Paris

Languages: French and English