karen twomey

A Senior Change Manager with over 20 years of Change Management experience in Global ERP Transformation 

Programmes within a variety of sectors. Extensive experience of managing organisation, process and technology change within FTSE 100 organisations. Predominantly providing leadership & acting as a bridge between design/technical teams & impacted businesses to ensure requirements are understood and changes are planned, executed and deployed successfully to achieve the projected benefits.  

Key areas of expertise include all elements of Change Management, Process architecture and design, UAT Testing and Post Go Live support.  I also have general Programme Management and PMO capabilities and experience. Adept at partnering with external consultants (Accenture, E&Y, Deloitte, KPMG, Capgemini) and internal business leaders to drive the best outcomes whilst minimising impacts to day-to-day operations.

Confident, capable communicator with ability to flex style to culturally & geographically diverse stakeholder groups as well as engagement at executive board level. Having experience as both permanent employee & contractor/ consultant, I am able to apply practical operational experience to complex change initiatives.  Industry experience in Banking, Telecommunications, Energy and Manufacturing and have worked across Finance, HR, Procurement and Customer Services functions. 

Vast experience across end-to-end programme lifecycle in both Agile and Waterfall methodologies.  My key strengths are my years of experience that enable me to define and drive the appropriate change strategy based on the varying scope, size, scale and resistance factors. Frequently able to absorb other activities, as the need arises, to support successful implementation such as design and requirements workshops, process design and managing and executing testing.

Equally comfortable moving from strategic planning and definition to ‘doing the doing’. Very much a hands-on style and approach from the get-go which enables me to address resistance and barriers with gravitas. 

Demonstrable examples of challenging the status quo whilst maintaining good working relationships with senior leaders both in the impacted business and across the programme.  A veteran of large scale programmes with the ability to keep a cool head when working in fast paced, ambiguous and challenging environments

November 2020 – present – HSBC - Third Party Risk Management Change and Implementation Manager 

Key accountabilities 

Change and Implementation activities for set up of 5 Global Third-Party Risk Management Hubs including:

• Senior Stakeholder Analysis and engagement
• Change approach and plan including Comms, Training and Change Impact Assessment
• Training design and delivery 
• UAT management 
• Transition, deployment and transition planning
• Post Go Live support

June 2019 to May 2020  - Rolls-Royce - Global Transformation Business Partner 

Project 1 – Oracle Hyperion Planning (OHP) – Change Manager

Key accountabilities 

• Senior Stakeholder Analysis and engagement
• Change approach including Comms, Training and Change Impact Assessment
• Post Go Live support
• Post Go Live 3/6-month KPI review

Project 2 – SAP - (Change Manager & UAT Lead)

 Key accountabilities 

• Senior Stakeholder Analysis and engagement
• Change approach including Comms, Training and Change Impact Assessment
• Post Go Live support
• Additional role: UAT test manager (phase 1)
• Additional role: Solution Design support and process development (Phase 2)

March 2019 – May 2019 - P&O Ferries – Change Manager 

Short 3-month assignment covering change management activities for deployment stage of a SAP change           programme taking over from an unexpected exit of previous change manager. Progressed the completion of      business readiness, comms and training ahead of launch.

November 2017 to December 2018 - Merlin Entertainments PLC – Global HR Change Manager/Regional Project   Manager  

Implementation of SaaS cloud-based HR solution from Cornerstone to Global locations and attractions. This      technology is aimed at HR teams, Managers and every employee of Merlin globally.

Key Accountabilities and deliverables:

Change Manager role 

• Global Communications Strategy and approach
• Senior Stakeholder Analysis and engagement
• Change approach including Comms, Training and Change Impact Assessment
• Works council engagement (Germany) 
• Transformation Target setting and tracking 
• User Acceptance Testing approach
• Post Go Live support

Regional Project Manager

• Redesign of Programme plan & status reporting to critical path
• Identification of dependencies and resource pinch points across releases
• Senior Business Board chair
• Accountable for driving 3 key work streams to delivery to planned milestones

Oct 2016 to September 2017 - Honda of the UK Manufacturing LTD - Pan European Deployment Lead 

Deployment Lead accountable for deploying SAP SRM to multiple European countries. Also, optimisation of a new Central  Procurement Function for Category Management, Strategic Sourcing and a Shared Service for transactional procurement activity.

HSBC Group Procurement - Change Manager 9th March 2015 - Oct 2016

Change Lead responsible for project managing and supporting the successful implementation of Oracle 

Fusion (Travel & Expenses and Procure to Pay) to 50k expenses users in the UK and Accounts Payable teams in UK and India.

Vodafone Group Finance - Change and Transformation Manager - Aug 2012 - April 2014

Change and Transformation Manager responsible for change & transformation strategy, plan and activities for the roll out of Oracle Hyperion Planning technology to Finance teams in multiple global locations.

Centrica Energy - Business Readiness Project Manager - Jan 2008 – July 2012

The Programme was an aggregation of a number of projects to deploy technological and process solutions across the Trading, Optimisation, Risk Management & Back office functions within Centrica Energy in the UK and Germany.

British Gas Business - SAP Training Manager - Beacon Transformation Programme - April 2006 - Dec 2007

Lead the design and deployment of SAP training to 900 employees across 3 UK locations.

British Gas Residential - SAP Training Deployment Project Manager (Release 3) - Jan 2005 - April 2006

Project Manager accountable for the deployment of SAP training modules to 10k British Gas employees in over 15 locations

• British Gas Residential - SAP Training Design Manager (Release 2) - July 2004 - Jan 2005

• British Gas Residential - Various Training Design roles (Release 1 and 1.2) - July 2001 - July 2004

• British Gas Residential - Various customer services roles within British Gas - Nov 1995 - July 2001

Training Qualifications

• Understanding Energy Markets – Oxford Princeton

• People , Process, Systems – Henley School of Management

• Prince 2 Foundational certificate, Prince 2 Practitioner certificate

• QA-iQ Modelling Business Processes certification

Tools/software experience

SAP, • Oracle, • Siebel, • Endur (ETRM), Cornerstone

Education St Anne’s Convent school

O levels English Language, English Literature