Kering SAP Demand and Release Manager

About Kering

Kering is a global luxury group that manages a portfolio of high-end maisons across fashion, leather goods and jewellery. The organisation emphasizes creative excellence, sustainability and international growth and operates a dedicated technology arm (Kering Technologies) to deliver digital and ERP transformation across the group.

Role & Responsibilities

• Lead a change and release management team distributed across EMEA, AMER and APAC to ensure follow-the-sun support for release activities.
• Manage the portfolio of change requests and define/implement change management processes for SAP project and maintenance workstreams.
• Implement, configure and operate change request management tools such as JIRA and maintain integration with SAP change tooling.
• Orchestrate delivery of releases (urgent fixes, weekly/monthly releases, project deliveries) and coordinate cut-over and retrofit activities.
• Maintain SAP release-management tooling (SAP ChaRM / SAP CHARM) and ensure end-to-end integration with change management processes.
• Plan, prepare and coordinate release deployments with domain managers, project managers and technical teams across environments (DEV, INT, UAT, PROD).
• Drive the Change Approval Board (CAB) interactions with functional domains (Finance, Retail, Supply) and validate release contents.
• Establish, maintain and communicate the release calendar and follow associated deliverables and acceptance reports.
• Prepare communications to IT and business stakeholders regarding system availability, refreshes and upgrades prior to deployments.
• Manage third-party suppliers delivering support and enhancements to the SAP toolset for release management.
• Define and monitor KPIs for change request and release management activities and support annual audits of the change process.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5+ years of professional experience with SAP in both project and maintenance contexts, including hands-on release management.
• Proven experience with SAP ChaRM / SAP CHARM and JIRA for change and release control; ServiceNow knowledge is a plus.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and coordinate distributed teams and manage offshore subcontractors and third-party suppliers.
• Excellent English (written and spoken) is essential; Italian and French are advantageous.
• Experience working on international, multicultural projects and comfortable engaging with stakeholders across functions and levels.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to identify complex problems, propose pragmatic solutions and document recommendations.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills and the capacity to produce accurate reports and status presentations.
• Customer-oriented mindset, strong interpersonal skills and ability to work autonomously or as part of a multidisciplinary team.

Skills

Experience

At least five years of SAP experience spanning project delivery and maintenance activities, with demonstrable release and change management responsibilities in an international environment.

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, Business or equivalent professional experience in IT.

Workplace

Culture

Kering fosters a creative, international and sustainability-minded workplace where maisons retain artistic autonomy while benefiting from group-wide programmes. The technology organisation prioritises collaborative transformation, internal mobility and diversity of perspectives across global teams.

About Cerulean

Cerulean is the definitive career portal for the global luxury industry. We match exceptional professionals with exclusive opportunities at the world's most prestigious brands. From haute couture and fine watchmaking to prestige beauty, hospitality, and boutique retail, Cerulean centralises luxury employment to help you find the career for which you were destined.