Sr. Manager, SAP Functional

LyondellBasell is a leader in the global chemical industry creating solutions for everyday sustainable living. With a nearly 70-year legacy that includes a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and our proprietary  MoReTec  recycling technology, LYB is enabling a more sustainable future for generations to come.  LYB develops high-quality and innovative products for applications ranging from sustainable transportation and food safety to clean water and quality healthcare. LYB places high priority on diversity, equity and inclusion and is Advancing Good with an emphasis on our planet, the communities where we operate and our future workforce. We're addressing the global challenges of ending plastic waste, taking climate action, and supporting a thriving society, while generating value for our customers, investors, and society. Come Join an Inclusive Team

The ideal candidate should have a proven track record of leading Global SAP Operations and/or leading global SAP talent for company with outsourcing environment, focusing on optimizing business processes, maximizing team potential and ensuring service excellence. The role has 7 direct reports and the location is in either Rotterdam (NL) or Wesseling (GE).  A Day in the Life

The SAP Functional Leader owns the stability, optimization, and continuous improvement of core functional SAP modules. This leadership role ensures that business operations across Record to Report, Lead to Cash, Source to Pay and Hire to Retire run seamlessly on the SAP platform. It is a pivotal leadership role that bridges the gap between business needs and technical execution, managing cross-functional support teams and Application Managed Services (AMS) vendors. The position emphasizes building and nurturing a high-performance team of SAP professionals. The position will provide leadership guidance on all strategic initiatives around growing and upgrading the core, promoting continuous improvement and operational excellence. The SAP Functional leader will direct and appropriately participate in envisioning, planning, designing, implementing and supporting all related processes necessary to manage LYB’s SAP technology platform. RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Operational Excellence

Own SLAs and KPIs across all production and non-production functional environments; Drive ITIL governance standards for incident, problem, change, and release management; Minimize business disruption by managing critical escalations and conducting root-cause analysis; Govern business continuity planning and disaster recovery tests for functional systems; Collaborate with Service excellence team and Business stakeholders to help drive operational excellence and continuous improvements; Support value driven enhancements by providing standard solutions.

Business Alignment and Stakeholder management

Act as the primary liaison between the SAP team, key business stakeholders, the Enterprise Architects and Digital Transformation Leader  ensuring effective communication and collaboration; Align SAP initiatives with business objectives, ensuring that the SAP CoE delivers value by improving performance, efficiency, and agility; Support relationships with  SAP as primary service provide, SAP partners, and service providers to ensure quality service delivery and cost-effectiveness.

Functional Optimization & Business Realization

Translate business needs into optimized, scalable SAP configurations and system improvements; Govern change requests to ensure standard SAP features are preferred over complex custom code; Oversee integration testing and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for functional patches or upgrades; Align business processes across modules including SAP R2R, L2C, S2P, H2R etc.

Vendor & Financial Management

Manage offshore vendors and third-party AMS partners to deliver high-quality support; Conduct service reviews to audit partner metrics against contractual obligations; Optimize