Overview Manager - Operations Excellence (AI & GenAI) About Catalyst Brands Catalyst Brands is a leading U.S.-based retail organization formed in 2025 through the merger of JCPenney and SPARC Group, combining multiple iconic fashion brands under one umbrella. The company manages a diversified portfolio of well-known brands including Aéropostale, Brooks Brothers, Nautica, Lucky Brand, and JCPenney. Headquartered in Plano, Texas, Catalyst Brands focuses on delivering modern retail experiences while leveraging the heritage of established global brands.

With a workforce of over tens of thousands and multi-billion-dollar revenue, the organization operates at a large scale across retail, e-commerce, and supply chain domains. The company emphasizes innovation, digital transformation, and customer-centric strategies to enhance brand value and consumer engagement.

Catalyst

Brands is expanding its global presence, including a growing capability centre in India that supports technology, digital operations, and analytics. It aims to drive operational excellence and business growth by integrating technology, data-driven insights, and efficient retail practices.

Role Summary Lead the Finance AI and Transformation agenda across Catalyst Brands Finance by identifying, prioritizing, implementing, and scaling AI-, automation-, and agentic workflow-driven solutions. Partner with Finance leaders to transform manual processes into intelligent, scalable, and measurable digital capabilities while ensuring business value realization. Core Responsibilities AI Strategy & Transformation Develop and execute Finance AI roadmap

Identify and prioritize AI opportunities across Finance functions

Build Finance AI adoption framework and governance

Drive Finance transformation initiatives aligned with CFO priorities

Establish Finance AI Center of Excellence (CoE) capability AI Use Case Discovery Conduct structured discovery sessions with Finance leaders

Evaluate opportunities based on value, feasibility, and data readiness

Build and maintain AI opportunity portfolio

Develop business cases and implementation roadmaps Operational Excellence & Transformation Partner with AP, Payroll, GL , Inventory and Credit/CSA managers to define annual productivity, cycle-time, and quality improvement goals.





Conduct process diagnostics, maturity assessments, and root cause analysis to identify systemic inefficiencies and eliminate waste.

Lead Lean-driven improvements that enhance throughput, SLA performance, stability, and control posture across all three functions.

Establish enterprise-aligned governance rhythms — weekly dashboards, KPI packs, exception logs, audit readiness scorecards.

Ensure standardized execution of Ops Excellence frameworks across towers, reducing variation and strengthening process predictability. Controls, Compliance & Quality Strengthen maker-checker, exception governance, reconciliation controls, and audit preparedness across all three operational towers.

Identify control gaps, analyze exceptions, and implement systemic fixes to reduce defects, rework, and audit observations.

Drive compliance with SOPs, DoA policies, reconciliation timelines, data-quality requirements, and regulatory expectations.

Partner with Quality/Controls teams to embed preventive controls, enhance evidence trails, and support certifications and audits. People, Capability & Change Management Coach tower managers and teams on Lean, structured problem solving, AI literacy, process thinking, and automation-first ways of working.

Conduct Kaizens, workshops, learning sprints, and capability uplift initiatives that build CI culture across AP, Payroll, General Accounting End to end process and Inventory End to End and Credit/CSA.

Develop change adoption plans, communication packs, and updated SOPs/playbooks to ensure successful rollout of recent processes/tools.

Stakeholder

Management & Collaboration Engage closely with US/SLC stakeholders, Finance Ops leadership, IT/Access, Procurement, HR, Merchant Services, Accounting/GL, and other upstream/downstream partners.

Drive structured issue triage, escalation management, and cross-functional alignment on volume spikes, close cycles, and system changes.





Provide leadership with data-backed recommendations, trend insights, and process/automation opportunity identification. Automation & Agentic Workflows Lead implementation of AI agents and workflow automation

Design agentic workflows across Finance processes

Drive process simplification before automation

Scale successful pilots into enterprise-wide solutions Change Management Drive AI adoption across the Finance organization

Build training and capability-building programs

Track adoption and value realization

Partner with leadership to remove barriers to adoption KPI & Value Realization Establish productivity, quality, cycle-time, and adoption KPIs

Measure benefits at 30/60/90 days

Report outcomes to Finance leadership

Ensure realized business value from investments Systems Exposure Preferred Experience With OneStream

Oracle EBS

Kyriba

Esker

Infor Nexus

Power Platform

Microsoft Copilot

Power BI

SharePoint

Teams

AI Agent Platforms

Workflow Automation Platforms Experience 8-12+ years experience

Finance Shared Services / Controllers / FP&A; / Transformation

Experience leading digital transformation initiatives

Process Excellence and Automation experience

Exposure to AI, Machine Learning, Copilot, or GenAI programs preferred Qualifications CA / CMA / MBA Finance / Commerce Graduate

Lean Six Sigma preferred

AI, Data Analytics, Power Platform certifications desirable

Program Management experience preferred Competencies Analytical rigor and structured problem-solving

Digital-first mindset with strong curiosity and experimentation orientation

Influential communicator with strong stakeholder management

Strong execution discipline and data-backed decision making

Ability to simplify complexity and drive clarity in ambiguous environments

Innovation, creativity, and solution-oriented thinking Behavioral Expectations High ownership, accountability, and proactive risk management

Transparent communicator; escalates early and clearly

Inclusive leadership that builds capability across teams

Calm under pressure; thrives in high-volume, fast-paced operations

Demonstrates continuous learning and embraces emerging technologies Pay Range INR ₹0.00 - INR ₹0.00 /Yr.

📌 Accounting Manager (Bengaluru)
🏢 Catalyst Brands India
📍 Bengaluru