Principal Specialist, Finance AI & Automation Enablement

Your role at a glance

The Principal Specialist, Finance AI and Automation Enablement (m/f/d), is a hands-on Finance transformation role focused on helping NTT GDC Finance identify, shape, test, and adopt practical AI-enabled productivity, process improvement, reporting, and decision-support use cases. Positioned within Finance, the role translates real Finance pain points into clear business requirements, controlled proof-of-concepts, reusable templates, prompt libraries, adoption materials, value measures, and executive-ready recommendations. As NTT GDC expands into new geographies and grows its data centre development pipeline, this role helps surface Finance process, reporting, data-definition, approval, and control implications early so they are clearly framed for Finance leaders, process owners, and technology partners. This role is Finance-led and business-outcome focused; it does not own enterprise technology strategy, architecture, production deployment, or platform governance.

Key Responsibilities

AI, Automation & Finance Use-Case Enablement

• Identify and prioritize AI and automation opportunities by grounding use cases in real workflow friction, manual effort, recurring reporting needs, and data-quality pain points.

• Scope Finance use cases, create low-risk prototypes, mockups, examples, or proof-of-value materials using approved enterprise tools, and coordinate with technology owners before any broader deployment or production use.

• Develop business-owned templates, analytical models, trackers, prompt libraries, reporting concepts, and workflow improvement ideas that improve Finance speed, consistency, and transparency.

• Apply practical product-style ways of working to Finance use cases, including user stories, backlog prioritization, iterative testing, user feedback, adoption planning, and value measurement.

• Document business purpose, Finance requirements, data sources, assumptions, limitations, control considerations, adoption needs, and handoff requirements for sustainment or scaling.

Finance Process, Data & Technology Partnering

• Represent Finance business needs by translating process pain points, reporting gaps, control considerations, and user requirements into clear Finance-side inputs for technology, data, reporting, and automation partners.

• Assess current-state Finance pain points, process dependencies, data flows, reporting gaps, and manual workarounds to inform Finance Transformation priorities and technology-enabled improvement opportunities.

• Support Finance stakeholders in articulating requirements for ERP, reporting, automation, AI, and data-definition initiatives, ensuring Finance process, reporting, and control needs are represented.

• Promote stronger Finance data discipline by helping teams define trusted sources, standard definitions, reporting logic, quality checks, and ownership expectations across Finance processes.

• Partner with technology, data, ISO, and change teams where appropriate to ensure Finance use cases are reviewed, governed, tested, adopted, and sustained through the right channels.

Strategic Initiatives, Governance & Executive Storytelling

• Support strategic Finance initiatives that connect organization, process, systems, data, and business-growth priorities into executable plans.

• Translate ambiguous business needs into problem statements, solution options, value cases, and decision-ready recommendations.

• Develop executive-ready narratives for Finance Transformation–what changed, why it matters, what value is being created, and what decisions are required.

• Create high-quality materials for CFO, Finance leadership, and SteerCo audiences, including transformation updates, business cases, roadmaps, and value-realization reporting.

• Maintain a prioritized backlog of AI, automation, and strategic-initiative opportunities, and run disciplined governance routines (cadence, RAID and decision logs, dependency and benefit tracking, escalation).

Capability Building, Adoption & Value Realization

• Build practical AI and automation capability across Finance through peer learning, office hours, use-case showcases, templates, and hands-on experimentation sessions.

• Coach Finance users on responsible AI and automation use–data sensitivity, review discipline, tool limitations, control requirements, and appropriate human judgment.

• Partner with Change Management and Communications so new tools and process changes are clearly explained, adopted, and sustained.

• Define and track success metrics–adoption, cycle time, manual-effort reduction, decision speed, data quality, and business value.

• Identify risks to value capture (low adoption, unclear ownership, weak data quality, limited IT support) and drive mitigation with initiative owners.

Knowledge & Attributes:

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Business, Information Systems, Analytics, Engineering, Economics, or related discipline (or equivalent experience).

• Multiple years of progressive experience across finance transformation, finance systems, strategic initiatives, FP&A, controllership, business operations, process improvement, analytics, or technology-enabled Finance change.

• Multiple years of supporting enterprise-scale transformation involving Finance processes, ERP or adjacent Finance systems, automation adoption, reporting, operating-model change, or shared services.

• Demonstrated experience shaping, testing, documenting, or operationalizing Finance use cases, templates, dashboards, workflow concepts, automations, or AI-enabled prototypes, in partnership with technology owners where appropriate.

• Demonstrated experience translating business needs into problem statements, Finance requirements, use-case briefs, roadmaps, KPIs, adoption plans, and executive-ready materials.

• Experience representing Finance users in technology-enabled initiatives by clarifying requirements, validating outputs, coordinating testing feedback, supporting adoption, and tracking business value.

• Experience in a global, matrixed organization; experience in a data centre, infrastructure, real estate, construction, or other capital-intensive, high-growth environment preferred.

• Strong understanding of Finance transformation, operating-model design, process standardization, ERP-enabled change, automation adoption, reporting, controls, and value realization.

• Intermediate-to-advanced practical fluency with AI-enabled work, prompt design, approved low-code tools, workflow concepts, and data visualization.

• Strong Finance data literacy, including working with structured data, defining business requirements, spotting quality issues, and translating business questions into analytical outputs.

Who we are

As the third largest data centre provider, we operate over 150 data centres in more than 20 countries and regions. We understand that every business – large and small – has its own unique needs and goals. We offer local-to-global data centre expertise, aligned with our connected platform of AI-ready data centres to create solutions that enable our clients to seamlessly scale their digital businesses, anywhere and anytime