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Sabrina Carrión is the Global Accounts Payable Manager at Atlas HXM, a platform that helps organizations grow internationally by hiring, onboarding, paying, and managing international employees without setting up local legal entities.
She has had a unique and diverse career journey, initially as a scientist before pivoting to finance, holding a range of roles across multiple geographies.
From Biology to the Big Four
Nick Levine: What led you to seek out a career in accounting and finance? Was there a specific lightbulb moment, or did you fall into it?
Sabrina Carrión: I fell into it. My career has been very untraditional. I started out graduating in biology. However, I quickly realized biology was not for me, and shortly after, I had the chance to work in business and finance.
Nick Levine: What was it about biology that made you decide to pivot?
Sabrina Carrión: I tried both being a scientist and a teacher, but neither of them fulfilled what I wanted to do. I then had an opportunity to work on a sustainability project at Ernst & Young. I also worked on another finance-related project, which I was assigned to because, in science, you develop analytical skills. After falling into finance, I decided to pursue an MBA to deepen my technical accounting and finance skills.
Nick Levine: You completed your MBA while working. How did you handle that demanding balance?
Sabrina Carrión: It was tough. I studied in the evenings. I had to juggle my work during the day and my studies in the evening, but it was really interesting because I could apply what I was learning in the MBA.
Scaling the 2014 FIFA World Cup from Scratch
Nick Levine: You spent four years with the local organizing committee for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. What was that like from a finance perspective?
Sabrina Carrión: This allowed me to work as part of a team building a company from scratch. I was the first finance coordinator, so there was only the CFO and a finance manager initially. I started in 2010, and over four years, I saw everything and learned so much.
Nick Levine: How did the operations change as the tournament neared?
Sabrina Carrión: We started with three people in finance and doubled the team size as we got closer. At the beginning, everything was manual, including managing and processing invoices.
Nick Levine: And as a Brazilian, did you get to attend the matches?
Sabrina Carrión: I’m not a huge football fan, but I’m Brazilian, so football is everywhere. It was great because I was able to watch the matches and worked as a games host too. I got to go to stadiums in different cities across Brazil. It was a great experience.
The European Pivot: London and the Bank of Ireland
Nick Levine: After the World Cup project wrapped up, your career took an international turn. Can you give me a brief overview of how you ended up in Europe?
Sabrina Carrión: When the World Cup was over, I decided to move to the UK and went to London for six months to get my certificate in English. I then went to Ireland for a while to see a friend and got a job in finance there within two weeks. I ended up staying for five years.
Nick Levine: While in Ireland, you spent most of your time working at the Bank of Ireland, a major institution. What were you doing there?
Sabrina Carrión: Yes. Alongside one year at LinkedIn, my main experience in Ireland was at the Bank of Ireland, where I worked for around three and a half years. I was doing vendor management in finance. This is different from accounts payable but does have some similarities. I was able to engage with large vendors, including Accenture and Deloitte.
Connecting the Dots Globally at Atlas HXM
Nick Levine: You joined Atlas HXM in 2020. For those unfamiliar, what does Atlas do, and how has your role grown since stepping in?
Sabrina Carrión: Atlas, which has a presence in over 160 countries, helps other companies hire abroad. Typically, it’s very hard for companies to create a new entity, and it’s hugely time-consuming, often taking over 20 weeks. Atlas facilitates this by providing services that help organizations expand by recruiting internationally while remaining compliant. I joined as the first analyst, and initially, it was just me, the CFO, and senior management. I’ve used my time there to build my career by taking advantage of the opportunities that appeared. After several promotions, I’m now a Global Accounts Payable Manager. I grew with the company and made the most of every opportunity that came my way.
Nick Levine: As Global Accounts Payable Manager, what do your core responsibilities look like now?
Sabrina Carrión: Nowadays, my work is managing people and improving processes. And that’s where the Tipalti implementation came into play, as we needed to evolve our processes from manual to automated. Our payments were a mess, to be honest. It was very manual because we made payments in so many countries and currencies.
Driving Automation Across 160+ Global Entities
Nick Levine: Thanks for teeing that up so nicely, as I wanted to ask you whether you had an example of introducing automation in finance. Cross-border operational finance across so many jurisdictions sounds incredibly complex. What did implementing Tipalti do to change that workflow?
Sabrina Carrión: We had so many different payment methods and vendors across the globe, spanning different countries, currencies, and tax treatments. At the time, we were literally uploading payments to the bank manually. Since we’ve moved to Tipalti for payments, most of our processes are now automated and centralized.
Nick Levine: Beyond the sheer time savings, what has centralized finance automation unlocked for you as an AP leader?
Sabrina Carrión: It has improved accuracy, which is really important in accounting. We no longer have double payments as everything is connected and syncs from Tipalti to Sage Intacct. The connectivity means the approvals feed through seamlessly, too. Manual work related to invoice processing and payments has reduced by 80%. The wider team has benefited, as they can now focus on quality work rather than manual tasks.
Staying Curious
Nick Levine: Given your incredible path from biology to building an automated global accounts payable engine, what advice would you give to junior professionals looking to specialize in AP today?
Sabrina Carrión: My advice is to stay curious because technology is moving so fast nowadays, even for someone as experienced as I am. I’ve been working in AP for a long time now, and things are changing so quickly that I need to stay up to date on AI developments, for example. Stay curious, stay on top of new technology, and also learn how to speak to different people. This is definitely the case at Atlas, where a variety of backgrounds means people have different approaches. In a global role, technical skills only take you so far, and being able to work across cultures matters just as much.
Sabrina’s experience shows how a constant desire to learn and to leverage opportunities in finance can lead to new career paths. Her story is just one of many inspiring posts in our Next Gen Finance Leaders series.
