Workday FSI Financials Solution Architect

Overview

This role involves owning end-to-end finance solution design for Financial Services and Insurance (FSI) customers. You will translate finance outcomes into decisions about processes, accounting, data, and systems, guide teams through delivery, and support account teams with sector solutions, reference designs, and reusable assets.

Responsibilities

• Lead discovery and Phase 0 engagements, producing a target architecture, key design decisions, delivery options, and a phased roadmap; clearly communicate assumptions, dependencies, trade-offs, and readiness gaps to customer sponsors.
• Own end-to-end Financials design with depth in record to report, the Foundation Data Model (FDM), chart of accounts, work tags, multi-entity and multi-currency accounting, intercompany and reporting.
• Define how Workday Financials, Prism Analytics, and Accounting Center fit alongside operational platforms, specialist accounting engines, and reporting tools; explicitly allocate responsibility for accounting generation, data enrichment, reconciliation, and settlement.
• Translate sector requirements into practical design choices, including for insurance: premium and claim flows, commissions, reinsurance balances, and reporting dimensions with relevant business and accounting specialists.
• Establish design governance across functional, data, integration, reporting, and security teams; resolve cross-workstream decisions and ensure designs address control evidence, access, traceability, transaction volumes, and operational support.
• Guide delivery from design through testing, cutover, and stabilisation; review critical configurations and prototypes, challenge unresolved assumptions, and assure reconciliations and readiness evidence before recommending design acceptance.
• Support FSI go-to-market and account teams with discovery, demonstrations, proposals, and estimates; explain solution value and delivery risks and agree achievable scope and assumptions with delivery leaders.
• Develop sector reference architectures, decision guides, and recipe cards; set quality standards for model-tenant scenarios and accelerators, documenting validation, applicability, and limitations before reuse.
• Coach lead consultants and architects; review solution quality and feed delivery lessons into the practice; assess relevant Workday releases and automation opportunities with appropriate specialists.

Working Relationships and Accountability

• Partner with the FSI sector lead, Financials capability and delivery leaders, account teams, and customer finance leadership.
• Own solution coherence for assigned engagements; project managers own delivery plan and budget, while account leads own commercial relationships.
• Ensure customer approvals follow agreed design governance; plan time for sector assets and presales alongside delivery commitments.

Requirements

• Substantial Workday Financials experience across multiple deployments, including ownership of cross-functional solution design and experience through go-live or major post-deployment change, or significant client-side experience in a relevant sector.
• Deep practical knowledge of FDM, financial accounting, and reporting, with breadth across procure to pay, customer to cash, banking and settlement, and assets to manage design dependencies.
• Direct finance transformation or delivery experience in at least one FSI subsector; ability to explain how its business model, accounting flows, and control requirements change a Workday design.
• Strong accounting fundamentals, including general ledger and subledger relationships, reconciliations, close and consolidation requirements, and multi-entity or multi-currency reporting.
• Ability to assess when Prism Analytics and Accounting Center are appropriate, distinguish data preparation from accounting rule execution, and define requirements with specialist delivery teams.
• Experience assessing integration, migration, security, and reporting dependencies, including source data quality, audit trails, reconciliation controls, and the granularity needed for finance reporting.
• Evidence of leading senior customer workshops, resolving competing requirements, documenting decisions, estimating work, and explaining commercial consequences clearly.
• Experience coaching consultants and reviewing delivery quality; relevant current or previous Workday Financials certification, with commitment to maintain or renew the certifications required for the role.

Preferred Qualifications

• Insurance depth in one or more general insurance, life and pensions, health insurance, broking or reinsurance; understanding of how applicable accounting and regulatory reporting requirements affect finance data.
• Hands-on delivery experience or certification in Workday Prism Analytics or Accounting Center, including operational data ingestion, accounting rules, and reconciliation.
• A recognised accountancy qualification such as ACA, ACCA, CIMA or CPA, or equivalent professional experience; exposure to Adaptive Planning, Workday Extend, or finance automation.
• Experience building reusable sector assets, leading finance architecture across jurisdictions, or supporting customer finance teams after deployment.

Compensation & Benefits

• Not specified in the provided job description.

Location

• Not specified in the provided job description.