Senior Manager, Strategy Development

BT Group; City Of London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading telecommunications firm in London is seeking a Strategy Development Manager to shape and drive the strategic agenda. The role involves collaborating with diverse teams to translate strategy into action, manage key projects, and engage with senior executives. The ideal candidate will have a strong background in strategic planning and project management, along with excellent communication skills. This position offers a unique opportunity to influence the long-term strategy in a dynamic environment.

Benefits

15% on target bonus

Health Care

Car Allowance

BT Pension scheme

Enhanced women's health support

25 days annual leave

24/7 private virtual GP appointments

World-class training and development opportunities

Qualifications

• Proven track record of leading strategic initiatives.
• Experience in managing cross-functional project teams.
• Strong analytical skills with a focus on data-driven decision making.

Responsibilities

• Shape and drive BT Group's annual strategic agenda.
• Support translating the strategy into actionable plans.
• Lead cross-functional project teams and deliver high-impact outcomes.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Quantitative analysis

Communication

Project management

Agile methodologies

Education

Relevant degree in business or related field

Tools

Presentation software

Data analysis tools

Job description

The Corporate Strategy & Insight team is a central team with a remit across the whole business. Its role is to focus on the future, helping the company to identify opportunities, risks and challenges so that BT plc wins in the markets in which it operates. It provides thought leadership, market insight, and solutions to enable profitable revenue growth, and shareholder return. It does this through a focus on customers and competitors, enabling it to design winning strategies for our networks, products and brands. The Corporate Strategy & Insight team has a critical role to play as we continue to shape and deliver BT's long-term strategy and strengthen the alignment of our units around a single strategy. In a rapidly changing environment, it is critical that we take a more integrated approach to how we drive value out of our assets and transform our business. This integrated strategy will bring together commercial and business strategies and support long-term growth and profitability. This role in Strategy Development will focus on setting the Group strategic agenda and driving our strategy into action. This involves working with each of the Units across BT to determine the key strategic questions for the ExCo and Board. After the recent strategy refresh, the other critical element is that we are now ensuring that this strategy translates into robust plans through continued engagement with teams across the business. This will require an ability to turn strategic direction into action, including driving the right capex allocation decisions and having the right tracking in place, e.g. KPIs and use of ExCo agenda time. The role will also have an opportunity to work on answering a wide range of big strategic questions to develop the Group's long-term strategy. These projects will require an objective and independent view whilst typically engaging a multi-functional working team of experts across the business. You will be expected to develop innovative recommendations and solid business cases for decision and implementation to ensure BT continues to be a profitable, innovative, customer-focused organisation. You will be working in a fun, agile and fast-paced environment and you will be at the centre of key decision making, working directly with BT's senior executives with enterprise-wide accountability.

Responsibilities

• Shape and drive BT Group's annual strategic agenda by leading the annual planning cycle and orchestrating strategic topic reviews for senior forums including the Strategy Committee, the ExCo, and the Board.
• Support translating the strategy into action by embedding the Group strategy into each Unit's strategies and financial (via MTP) and operational (via product-market strategies) plans, ensuring alignment and execution across the business.
• Help address critical strategic questions/projects by: breaking down a key question and framing the approach to tackle it; identifying strategic options to resolve the issue; assessing the issue through in-depth quantitative and qualitative analyses; developing recommendations and associated business cases; ensuring appropriate ownership and key stakeholders to drive execution.
• For select strategic questions/projects, manage the project and the supporting team end-to-end.
• Contribute to long-term strategy design by helping define and articulate the Group's strategic priorities and ensuring they are embedded in decision-making and performance tracking.
• Lead strategic governance and reporting, including: driving the annual goal-setting process for BT Group and its Units; overseeing the Strategy, Technology and Competition Group Risk Category; leading the development of the strategic report, a core part of the annual report, in partnership with Group Internal Audit.
• Foster Group-wide collaboration by partnering with Strategy teams, Group Finance, and Group Insight to ensure cohesion and shared accountability.
• Lead and inspire cross-functional project teams and workstreams, promoting a high-performance culture and delivering results in a fast-paced, agile environment; break down and structure complex strategic problems for senior stakeholders and ExCo; apply a strategy consulting toolkit, including hypothesis-driven thinking, framework development and analysis; conduct robust quantitative and qualitative analysis, including financial modelling and working with complex data sets; frame issues clearly, write compelling "answer-first" narratives, and drive to well-supported conclusions with clear implications; comfortable navigating ambiguity and defining requirements to deliver timely, high-quality outputs.
• Communication: create ExCo-ready presentations and memos that tell a compelling, insight-led story; communicate complex ideas with clarity and authority, adapting style to suit diverse audiences; influence and engage senior stakeholders with gravitas, credibility, and commercial acumen; synthesize issues to get to the "so what?", landing key messages and responding effectively to challenge; communicate effectively across all levels of the organisation, including via email and informal channels.
• Agile Planning & Delivery: take full ownership of project planning, scoping, and delivery of strategic initiatives; define clear objectives, deliverables, and critical path activities; lead cross-functional teams to deliver high-impact outcomes on time; proactively identify risks and roadblocks, proposing pragmatic solutions; balance short-term tactical needs with long-term strategic goals.
• Deep understanding of enterprise-wide dynamics and the complexities of a commercial business; strong grasp of key trends shaping the TMT sector; relevant TMT industry experience is preferred, though a demonstrated interest and awareness of sector dynamics is essential; familiarity with telco-specific KPIs (e.g., market share, financial metrics, regulatory impacts).

About BT Group

BT Group was the world's first telco and our heritage in the sector is unrivalled. As home to several of the UK's most recognised and cherished brands - BT, EE, Openreach and Plusnet, we have always played a critical role in creating the future, and we have reached an inflection point in the transformation of our business. Over the next two years, we will complete the UK's largest and most successful digital infrastructure project - connecting more than 25 million premises to full fibre broadband. Together with our heavy investment in 5G, we play a central role in revolutionising how people connect with each other. While we are through the most capital-intensive phase of our fibre investment, meaning we can reward our shareholders for their commitment and patience, we are absolutely focused on how we organise ourselves in the best way to serve our customers in the years to come. This includes radical simplification of systems, structures, and processes on a huge scale. Together with our application of AI and technology, we are on a path to creating the UK's best telco, reimagining the customer experience and relationship with one of this country's biggest infrastructure companies. Change on the scale we will all experience in the coming years is unprecedented. BT Group is committed to being the driving force behind improving connectivity for millions and there has never been a more exciting time to join a company and leadership team with the skills, experience, creativity, and passion to take this company into a new era.

What’s in it for you

• 15% on target bonus
• Health Care
• Car Allowance
• BT Pension scheme, minimum 5% Employee contribution, BT contribution 10%
• From January 2025, equal family leave: receive 18 weeks at full pay, 8 weeks at half pay and 26 weeks at the statutory rate. It's for all parents, no matter how your family is made up.
• Enhanced women's health support: including help with menopause symptoms, cancer screenings, period care and more.
• 25 days annual leave (not including bank holidays), increasing with service
• 24/7 private virtual GP appointments for UK colleagues
• 2 weeks carer’s leave
• World-class training and development opportunities
• Option to join BT Shares Saving schemes.

Our leadership standards Looking in: Leading inclusively and Safely I inspire and build trust through self-awareness, honesty and integrity. Owning outcomes I take the right decisions that benefit the broader organisation. Looking out: Delivering for the customer I execute brilliantly on clear priorities that add value to our customers and the wider business. Commercially savvy I demonstrate strong commercial focus, bringing an external perspective to decision-making. Looking to the future: Growth mindset I experiment and identify opportunities for growth for both myself and the organisation. Building for the future I build diverse future-ready teams where all individuals can be at their best.