Transition Manager Finance Operations

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Job Title: Transition Manager Finance Operations
Location: Porto, Portugal
Type: Fixed-Term contract (18 months)
Work arrangement: Full-time – Hybrid working (3 days/week in office)
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About Unilabs

Headquartered in Geneva and part of the A.P. Moller Group, Unilabs is one of Europe’s leading medical diagnostics companies, offering a complete range of laboratory, pathology, genetics, and imaging services to patients across 14 countries. Unilabs invests heavily in technology, equipment, and people – using digital technologies in its state-of-the-art laboratories and imaging institutes – to improve the lives of close to 100 million people every year.

Summary

The Transition Manager, Finance Operations, is responsible for planning, managing, and successfully implementing one or more transition projects in the Accounting department. The focus is on transferring financial processes from local country organizations to the Unilabs Business Service Center in Porto.

The position is responsible for end-to-end project management for transitions in areas such as General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Treasury, Tax, and Financial Reporting. They ensure that processes are transferred in a structured, timely, and controlled manner without disrupting day-to-day business operations.

The Transition Manager reports the head of the Business Service Center and works closely with local CFOs, finance leadership teams, process owners, IT, HR, compliance, external consultants, and the receiving teams in Portugal.

The role combines in-depth accounting knowledge with project management, change management, and strong stakeholder management skills. Candidates are expected to have more than three years of professional experience, preferably at one of the Big Four accounting firms or in a comparable consulting environment.

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Key Responsibilities

Transition and Project Management

• Assume end-to-end responsibility for one or more concurrent accounting process migration projects.
• Develop detailed transition plans, including project scope, milestones, timeline, resources, dependencies, and success criteria.
• Managing all project phases, from analysis and preparation through knowledge transfer and parallel operation to stabilization and handover to line operations.
• Defining project governance, as well as organizing and facilitating steering committees, status meetings, and decision-making forums.
• Preparing regular status reports for local and global executives.
• Monitoring the schedule, budget, resources, quality, and agreed-upon project scope.
• Identifying, assessing, and actively managing project risks, issues, and dependencies.
• Developing and implementing appropriate measures in the event of deviations or delays.
• Ensuring complete project documentation and a controlled project closure.
• Conducting lessons-learned workshops and applying the insights to future transitions.

Accounting and Process Relocation

• Analysis of existing accounting processes, organizational structures, systems, controls, and responsibilities in the transferring country organizations.
• Preparation and validation of process inventories, as well as definition of the specific transition scope.
• Coordination of the relocation of processes in areas such as:
• General Ledger and Record-to-Report
• Accounts Payable and Procure-to-Pay
• Accounts Receivable and Order-to-Cash
• Treasury and Cash Management
• Tax and Statutory Reporting
• Intercompany Accounting
• Fixed Assets
• Month-end and Year-end Closing
• Ensuring that IFRS, local GAAP requirements, tax regulations, and internal guidelines are taken into account during the process transfer.
• Defining clear roles and responsibilities between the Business Service Center and the local finance organizations.
• Ensuring the continuity of critical financial processes during the transition, particularly for monthly and annual closings.
• Coordinating data migrations, system access, authorization models, and relevant interfaces.
• Supporting the standardization and harmonization of processes across multiple companies and countries.

Knowledge Transfer and Operational Readiness

• Development and management of a structured knowledge transfer approach.
• Creation of knowledge transfer plans, training plans, and readiness criteria.
• Ensuring complete documentation of processes, work instructions, controls, schedules, and escalation procedures.
• Coordination of training, shadowing, reverse shadowing, and parallel runs.
• Assessing the knowledge level of the receiving teams and tracking identified gaps.
• Defining and monitoring quality and acceptance criteria for each project phase.
• Conducting formal readiness assessments prior to go-live.
• Managing the hypercare and stabilization phases following the transition.
• Ensuring a structured handoff to the responsible team leaders and process owners.

Stakeholder and Change Management

• Building trusting relationships with the transferring country organizations, the Business Service Center, and local and global management.
• Serving as the central point of contact for all transition-related issues.
• Proactively communicating project progress, decisions, risks, and escalations.
• Managing diverse interests and expectations across countries, functions, and hierarchical levels.
• Supporting the affected teams through organizational and procedural changes.
• Developing and implementing communication and change management plans.
• Facilitating conflict resolution and fostering constructive collaboration between the transferring and receiving organizations.
• Escalating critical issues at an early stage with clear proposals for action and decision-making.

Process Optimization and Transformation

• Identifying opportunities for standardization, automation, and digitization as part of the transition.
• Avoiding the thoughtless adoption of inefficient or non-standardized processes.
• Developing future target processes in collaboration with process owners and operational teams.
• Promoting a culture of continuous improvement, collaboration, and operational excellence.
• Developing reusable transition methods, templates, and best practices.

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in accounting, finance, business administration, auditing, or a related field.
• More than three years of relevant professional experience, preferably at a Big Four accounting firm or a comparable management consulting firm.
• Demonstrable experience leading or playing a key role in accounting, finance transformation, or process outsourcing projects.
• Very strong knowledge of accounting processes and financial closing procedures.
• In-depth knowledge of IFRS; knowledge of local GAAP and tax requirements is a plus.
• Experience in shared service center, business service center, or BPO environments is desirable.
• Experience managing multiple projects, countries, or workstreams simultaneously.
• Knowledge of established project management and change management methodologies.
• Proficiency in working with project plans, risk and action item lists, status reports, governance structures, and decision-making templates.
• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and decision-making skills.
• Excellent communication, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Confident demeanour when interacting with CFOs, finance directors, local management teams, and other senior stakeholders.
• High degree of personal responsibility, resilience, pragmatism, and a results-oriented mindset.
• Willingness to travel internationally as part of transition and knowledge-transfer activities.
• Fluency in English; very good knowledge of German and/or French is a plus.

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Measuring Success

The success of this role is measured based on the following criteria:

• On-time transition: Achievement of agreed-upon milestones and go-live dates.
• Budget and scope compliance: Implementation of projects within the approved budget and project scope.
• Operational Readiness: Successful completion of knowledge transfer, documentation, training, testing, and readiness assessments.
• Business Continuity: No significant disruptions to closing, payment, reporting, or compliance processes.
• Quality and Stability: Achievement of the agreed-upon quality and performance metrics within the stabilization phase.
• Risk Management: Early identification, transparent escalation, and effective resolution of risks and issues.
• Stakeholder Satisfaction: Positive evaluation of the collaboration by both the transferring and receiving organizations.
• Standardization and Improvement: Demonstrable implementation of process improvements, automation, and harmonized work practices.
• Sustainable Handover: Complete and accepted handover of processes to the operational line organization.

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