SAP Upgrade Planning-Deputy Director

Overview

The size and complexity of our SAP landscape with 20+ SAP products & 800+ instances, combined with multiple deadlines for patching / versioning & end of life and deep dependencies across strategic programs—make SAP Upgrades a mission‑critical function.

Over the next 5+ years, we will have to efficiently run all the large business critical upgrades with 100% efficiency & no disruption to business – factoring in the deeply integrated global landscape.

The upgrade planning manager is a strategic role which develops and maintains the PepsiCo SAP multi year upgrade strategy in collaboration with SAP and PepsiCo teams

Responsibilities

Primary

• 'Own the multi-year SAP upgrade roadmap across all PepsiCo platforms, markets and regions
• Prioritize upgrade initiatives based on risk, business value, innovation, and SAP support deadlines
• Identify and resolve cross-program dependencies and conflicts before execution begins
• Align with SAP/vendor roadmaps, licensing changes, and product lifecycle milestone
• Develop AOP plans including funding, resources, environments, and governance approvals
• Maintain and promote a single source of truth at the system ID level in the applications' inventory

Shared

• Partner with Infrastructure and Cloud teams to align upgrade roadmaps with hosting capacity, environment strategy, and platform modernization plans
• Partner with Functional/DSO teams and Product Owners to prioritize upgrades based on business value, risk, and operational calendars
• Partner with Testing teams to estimate effort and reserve test windows, environments, and long-range regression capacity for upcoming releases
• Partner with SAP/Vendors and Architecture teams to assess dependencies, product lifecycle changes, and required remediation actions-
• Partner with Modernization team ensuring there is a wholistic view of the global SAP roadmap and north start which includes not only Upgrades but also modernization re-platform applications

Decision Rights

• Approve and maintain the multi-year SAP upgrade roadmap, sequencing, and prioritization of initiatives
• Decide go/no-go for entering execution based on readiness, dependencies, funding, and resource availability
• Decide whether upgrades priorities should be changed, accelerated or deferred based on risk and business priorities

Qualifications

• 12+ years in SAP programs, ERP transformations, or enterprise technology strategy-Proven experience building multi-year roadmaps for SAP ECC, S/4HANA, cloud, and adjacent platforms
• Strong knowledge of SAP product lifecycle, maintenance deadlines, licensing, and vendor governance
• Experience managing cross-functional dependencies across infrastructure, security, data, testing, and business teams
• Executive presence with ability to influence senior leadership, secure funding, and drive prioritization decisions