Public Service - State Government Consulting Senior Manager – Transformation Lead

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ABOUT THE PRACTICE

State and local government is in the middle of a generational shift in how it operates. Agencies and departments that have run on legacy systems for decades are now modernizing their finance, HR, payroll, and procurement functions, with legacy ERP migrations representing one of the largest replacement cycles the public sector has ever seen. All of this while the promise and reality of AI is changing the way we deliver and the opportunities for functional transformation inside and outside of the ERP.

The stakes are significant. These are not technology projects in isolation. They determine how a state pays its workforce, manages its budget, processes federal grants, and delivers services to the public. Done well, they free up capacity and give agencies the operational foundation to do more with what they have. Done poorly, they create disruption that is difficult to undo and politically costly to explain.

Our State Government practice is at the forefront in driving this reinvention, working with state agencies, departments, and county governments on the strategy, readiness, and implementations that matter most to them. If this market excites you and you have the experience to make a difference in it, we would like to meet you.

THE WORK

As a state government transformation lead, you combine state and local government functional expertise with the ability to lead complex, technology-enabled institutional transformation, from strategy and readiness through design, implementation, stabilization, and value realization. We are seeking individuals who have demonstrated this through overall program delivery or deep experience in a specific functional domain. Finance, HR, payroll, or procurement is where you built your career and where your credibility lives.

State government implementations fail for predictable reasons, and they are almost never about the technology. They fail because the complexity of civil service constraints was underestimated. Because change management in a government culture was treated as a project task instead of a sustained leadership responsibility. Because integration dependencies with statewide financial systems, federal reporting environments, and legislative systems were scoped too late. Because data migration, including payroll history, position control records, and appropriations structures, was underplanned and politically underestimated.

The practitioners we are looking for understand all of this before the project kickoff. We are looking for Finance leaders who know that a state close cycle feeds legislative reporting and audit requirements, and design accordingly. HR leaders who have navigated civil service frameworks and built adoption strategies that work in a workforce where change is viewed with skepticism. Payroll leaders who understand multi-jurisdiction compliance and deduction complexity from the inside. Procurement leaders who know what state agencies actually need from a sourcing system and how regulatory constraints shape every design decision.

You will own senior client relationships in your domain, lead high-stakes engagements, work collaboratively across teams and for our clients, help shape markets before the RFP is written, and raise the functional quality of everything the team delivers.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Lead Cloud ERP engagements, with a lens on business transformation, for state and county government clients, either as an overall delivery lead or as the senior owner of the functional tower in your domain, with accountability for quality, client relationships, and outcomes.

Own senior client relationships in your functional area, engaging as a peer who understands what they are managing, not just what they have asked for.

Drive functional design decisions that account for the full complexity of how state government actually operates: appropriations-driven budgeting, civil service workforce structures, multi-jurisdiction payroll compliance, procurement regulations, and legislative and audit reporting obligations.

Lead change management strategy within your domain, building adoption approaches that account for civil service culture, union considerations, and the reality that government workforces have seen technology promises come and go.

Own integration strategy within your tower, understanding how your functional domain connects to statewide financial systems, federal reporting environments, legislative systems, and other agency platforms, and ensuring those dependencies are designed for, not discovered late.

Lead data migration strategy within your domain, addressing payroll history, position control records, appropriations structures, and other historically and politically sensitive data with the rigor and stakeholder care that government environments require.

Bring AI-assisted delivery, platform-native AI capabilities, and responsible workflow automation into engagements as standard practice, and help clients think through what governed AI adoption looks like in a public sector context. Outside of ERP toolsets, bring modernization and functional opportunities for AI process redesign and automation.

Contribute to must-win pursuits and proposals, bringing the kind of domain credibility that changes what a state government evaluator thinks of us, because they can tell within the first ten minutes whether someone understands their agency or is pitching a generic playbook.

Help shape the market well before RFP: build relationships with state functional leaders, engage with platform account teams on joint pipeline, and represent the practice at NASACT, GFOA, NGA, and related forums.

Contribute to practice development including solutions, services, and client outcomes for use on future engagements.

Develop junior and mid-level practitioners in your functional area, helping them build the domain depth, change management instincts, and platform fluency that make the whole team more credible.

Travel: Ability to travel 50%+

WHAT YOU NEED

Required:

Minimum 7 years of consulting or functional experience in state or county government environments engaging directly with senior functional executives with Senior-level functional expertise in at least one domain: state government finance and budget operations, HR and workforce transformation, payroll administration, or procurement and contract management.

Minimum 7 years of hands-on delivery experience with Cloud ERP in a functional capacity, including demonstrated experience as a delivery lead or senior functional tower owner on large, complex ERP engagements or similar government-wide transformations, with accountability for design quality, senior relationships, and outcomes in your domain.

Preferred:

Prior experience in a senior functional operating role within state or county government, such as a state budget official, Controller, HR Director, Payroll Director, or Chief Procurement Officer. People who