Director of Business Process Transformation

HHMI is focused on supporting and moving science forward in a variety of different ways ranging from conducting basic biomedical research, empowering educators, inspiring students, developing the next generation of scientists – even stretching into film and media production.  Our Headquarters is in the greater Washington, DC metro area and is home to over 300 employees with expertise in investments, communications, digital production, biomedical sciences, and everything in between.  The work housed here supports and augments the groundbreaking research conducted in HHMI labs across the nation.  As HHMI scientists continue to push boundaries in laboratories and classrooms, you can be sure that your contributions while working here are making a difference.

This is a role for someone who can run a function that cannot fail while rebuilding it at the same time.

HHMI is a nonprofit scientific research organization that supports scientists and educators across the country. Finance and People & Culture run the processes that pay, hire, reimburse, and support all of them. Most of those legacy processes were built for a world before Workday was mature and before AI could do real work. That world is gone. HHMI is moving procurement and expense onto Workday and is putting AI tools in the hands of every employee through EverydayAI. The open question is what the processes themselves should look like, and that is what this role answers.

HHMI’s EverydayAI initiative is putting AI tools and agents into operations across the institute. You will not need to build the business case for AI or convince leadership it matters. That work is done. What you will do is decide where AI belongs in payroll and finance processes, partner with the EverydayAI and Technology teams to build and pilot the first agents and be honest about what works and what does not.

You start with payroll, and you own it. You lead the payroll team and are accountable for every cycle running accurately and on time across the three populations. At the same time, you take the function apart end to end and redesign it: Workday-native, with AI and agents doing the work they are good at and people doing the work that needs judgment. Then you implement it with your team. You do not need to arrive as a payroll expert. You do need to learn the operation, exercise sound judgment, and lead changes that preserve accurate, on-time pay, working with an experienced payroll manager.

Once payroll is running the new way, you carry the same method into the rest of Finance and People & Culture.

You report to the Chief Financial Officer with a dotted line to the Chief of People & Culture (Human Resources). Your ideas earn their standing by making the work better for the people who do it and for the employees they serve, not by being new.

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  This is a director-level position based at HHMI headquarters in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with a hybrid schedule and occasional travel to Janelia Research Campus. You report to the Chief Financial Officer with a dotted line to the Chief of People & Culture (Human Resources), and you lead the payroll team. We expect roughly 10 to 15 years of experience in payroll, finance operations, process transformation, or management consulting focused on finance and HR operations, with meaningful hands-on AI work in the last few years. A bachelor’s degree is required.

• Multi-entity or multi-state payroll experience.

• Management consulting experience focused on finance, HR, or payroll operations, especially if you led the implementation and not just the assessment.

• Experience building or deploying AI agents in a live business process.
   

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