SAP Testing Lead

Our Client is undertaking the most significant digital transformation, where a cornerstone is the delivery of consistent, accurate, and trusted data into the future SAP S/4 HANA-based ecosystem and associated technology stack. The Testing Lead is responsible for end-to-end testing governance, coordination, and business validation across the program. This role provides program-level visibility, alignment, and readiness assurance across all testing phases, with a primary focus on User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and business process validation. This is not a hands-on test-execution or quality-engineering role. Instead, it is a senior leadership and orchestration role that ensures clarity of scope, ownership, readiness, and decision-making across workstreams, product teams, SAP CoE, and external partners. The role is critical to enabling confident Go-Live decisions for pilots and the multi-year European rollout. The project team has more than 200 people. - Define, own, and maintain the Testing Strategy, aligned with the overall program delivery and rollout approach. - Establish clear testing principles, scope boundaries, and success criteria across all testing layers. - Define and maintain a clear testing governance model, including decision rights, escalation paths, and readiness gates. - Define, document, and maintain a clear RACI for testing across the program. Align responsibilities across teams (Product Teams, Platform (QA & SRE), SAP CoE, External partners and System Integrators) - End-to-end Testing Visibility (Program Level) - Provide a single, consolidated view of testing status, quality, and readiness across all workstreams. - Track and report readiness across Integration Testing, End-to-end Testing, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), ,Non-functional Testing - Proactively identify, assess, and escalate risks, gaps, and dependencies impacting delivery milestones. - Ensure senior leadership has a reliable, transparent, and decision-ready view of testing progress. - Own and coordinate UAT across the program. - Ensure solutions are validated against business processes, requirements, and expected outcomes. - Define and enforce clear UAT entry and exit criteria, including data readiness and defect thresholds. - Align and mobilize business stakeholders, SMEs, and process owners for UAT participation and formal sign-off. - Lead and support the Test Manager for SAP, who owns and coordinates SAP-related testing activities across domains (e.g., Finance, Supply Chain, HR, Commercial). - Ensure alignment with SAP CoE, Enterprise Architecture, and System Integrator teams. - Ensure SAP testing cycles are fully aligned with program milestones and cutover readiness. - Lead Testing Workstream for our Program. - Own and communicate the Testing Workstream Charter, roadmap, and key milestones. - Ensure testing plans are fully integrated with overall program planning and release cycles. - Report testing status, risks, and decisions to the Leadership Team and SteerCo. - Serve as the single point of contact for program-level testing topics. - Lead, coach, and coordinate a team of Technical Test Coordinators supporting SAP and non-SAP testing activities across the program. - Provide clear direction on scope, priorities, and ways of working for Technical Test Coordinators, ensuring alignment with the overall Testing Strategy. - Ensure consistent application of testing standards, entry/exit criteria, and reporting across all technical test streams. - Act as the escalation point for technical testing issues, dependencies, and resourcing constraints. - Foster strong collaboration between Technical Test Coordinators, Product Teams, Platform (QA & SRE), SAP CoE, and System Integrators. - Support capability building and knowledge sharing within the testing community across the program.