Principal Consultant (Strategic Advisory)

Coastal; United States; Remote; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote work

Bonus opportunities

Medical, Vision, & Dental coverage

Discretionary performance bonus

Job summary

Coastal is expanding its Strategy & Business Consulting team and is seeking a Principal Consultant (Strategic Advisory) to serve as an enterprise engagement leader responsible for delivering strategic advisory consulting through Coastal’s True North methodology.

This role partners with internal market sales/delivery leadership and client leaders to define direction, align stakeholders, shape executable strategies, and guide organizations through complex transformations—often in fast-moving,

Qualifications

• 10+ years of enterprise strategy and advisory consulting experience.
• Proven ability to advise C-suite and senior executives, drive high-stakes decisions.
• Experience leading complex, cross-functional enterprise transformations.
• Comfort working with ambiguity and imperfect information.
• Strong quantitative toolkit: business case, ROI, valuation, finance analyses.
• Exceptional executive communication and storytelling skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end delivery of enterprise strategy and transformation engagements using Coastal’s True North methodology.
• Translate complex business challenges into structured hypotheses and workplans.
• Translate enterprise strategy into technology-aligned transformation roadmaps and governance.
• Design and facilitate high-impact executive sessions with senior leaders.
• Mentor and coach consultants; contribute to Coastal’s strategy offerings and business development.

Skills

Enterprise strategy

Executive facilitation

Stakeholder management

Salesforce knowledge

Change management

Financial modeling

Tools

Salesforce

Job description

Principal Consultant, Strategic Advisory

Coastal is expanding its Strategy & Business Consulting team and is seeking a Principal Consultant (Strategic Advisory) to serve as an enterprise engagement leader responsible for delivering strategic advisory consulting through Coastal’s True North methodology.

This role partners with internal market sales/delivery leadership and client leaders to define direction, align stakeholders, shape executable strategies, and guide organizations through complex transformations—often in fast-moving, ambiguous environments—while maintaining momentum and adapting strategy quickly as market conditions shift.

Successful candidates blend classic consulting rigor and modern digital fluency with high emotional intelligence and executive presence. They can influence without authority, navigate ambiguity, and help leaders make high-stakes decisions—quickly adapting plans in response to market or organizational disruption without losing momentum.

Role Responsibilities:

• Enterprise Strategic Advisory Delivery –
  • Lead end-to-end delivery of enterprise strategy and transformation engagements using Coastal’s True North methodology, ensuring consistent quality, measurable outcomes, and executive-ready outputs.
  • Translate complex business challenges into structured hypotheses, analytic workplans, and clear decision points.
  • Translate enterprise strategy into Technology-aligned transformation roadmaps, ensuring business priorities, operating model changes, and governance are clear.
  • Facilitate leadership alignment on business capabilities and operating model implications of technology-enabled change (process, data, adoption, governance).
  • Partner with market sales & delivery leaders to ensure strategic intent, value realization, and executive decision needs remain central from pre-sales throughout delivery..
  • Create strategic narratives that connect business context, market dynamics, operational realities, and technology enablement into an actionable roadmap.
• Executive Facilitation & Stakeholder Alignment –
  • Design and facilitate high-impact working sessions with senior executives and cross-functional enterprise leadership teams.
  • Bring the right people into the room at the right time—ensuring clarity of roles, decisions, and ownership across stakeholders.
  • Influence without authority by building trust, navigating organizational politics, and managing stakeholder emotions with empathy and credibility.
• Strategy Development, Business Modeling & Decision Support –
  • Decompose ambiguous enterprise problems into manageable components and workplans by conducting internal capability assessments to inform strategic options and applying data-driven frameworks to generate actionable insights including strategic priorities, success metrics and outcomes.
  • Build business cases, valuation and ROI analyses, and scenario models to quantify options and support recommendations.
  • Quantify the impact of strategic recommendations and present trade-offs clearly to executives.
• Strategic Agility in Dynamic Environments–
  • Pivot strategies in response to new information or disruption while preserving strategic coherence, stakeholder alignment, delivery momentum and stakeholder confidence.
  • Make ambiguity manageable—setting direction with imperfect information while driving clarity.
  • Ensure quality and consistency across work products; uphold high standards for narrative, analysis, and client outcomes.
• Client Leadership & Relationship Management–
  • Serve as a trusted advisor to executives: build credibility fast, set and manage stakeholder expectations with transparency and precision and navigate organizational politics with empathy and discretion.
  • Anticipate and actively manage stakeholder emotions and resistance; maintain forward momentum through change.
  • Partner with project managers and client sponsors to establish governance, decision rights, and a cadence for execution oversight.
• Practice Building & Delivery Excellence –
  • Mentor and upskill consultants; model a high-bar coaching culture focused on delivery excellence and developing consultants skilled in structured problem solving, client management, and facilitation
  • Contribute to the evolution of Coastal’s strategy offerings, creation of reusable assets and thought leadership.
  • Support business development and contribute to account growth through identifying follow-on opportunities and shaping new work.

What Success Looks Like (Outcomes & Indicators):

• Within 6 months, you are consistently delivering:
• Executive alignment on clear strategic direction, priorities, and measurable outcomes
• Decision-ready deliverables (options, trade-offs, financials, risks, recommendations) that accelerate leadership action
• Realistic roadmaps that translate strategy into operating model and implementation plans
• High client confidence, strong stakeholder sponsorship, and repeatable demand for advisory support
• Strong internal team performance through coaching, clarity, and quality management

Experience/Skills Required:

• 10+ years of experience in enterprise strategy and advisory consulting (e.g., top-tier consulting firm, internal strategy or equivalent client-facing advisory roles).
• Demonstrated expertise advising C-suite and senior executives, driving high-stakes decision-making, alignment and facilitation/decision design.
• Proven track record leading complex, cross-functional enterprise transformations and operating model shifts.
• Comfort working with imperfect information and ambiguity.
• Strong quantitative toolkit: business case development, ROI modeling, valuation methods, and financial analysis that support executive decision-making.
• Exceptional executive communication and storytelling skills across written and visual formats—able to translate complexity into concise, persuasive executive narratives.
• Proven ability to influence without authority and build trust quickly in high-stakes, politically complex environments.
• Working knowledge of Salesforce as a business platform and ecosystem sufficient to:
  • Understand core CRM concepts and enterprise use cases (e.g., sales, service, experience/digital, analytics, platform).
  • Engage credibly with Salesforce stakeholders to connect strategy to value realization and adoption outcomes.
  • Identify common transformation risks (governance, data quality, process standardization, change adoption) and structure executive decisions accordingly.
  • Experience advising leaders in (or adjacent to) Salesforce-enabled transformations where outcomes depend on aligning people, process, and technology.
• How You Lead -
  • Intellectual curiosity; constantly learning the “why” behind challenges
  • Humility; Willingness to challenge assumptions—including your own—and adapt based on evidence
  • Consistency; ability to produce high-quality delivery under pressure
  • Proactive, forward-thinking, and oriented to long-term value creation
  • Trusted advisor presence rooted in active listening, empathy, reliability, and credibility
  • Must have full-time permanent US work authorization

Additional Preferred Experience/Skills:

• Deep business, enterprise consulting, and industry acumen in one or more of the following: Healthcare and Life Sciences; Manufacturing; High-Tech & SaaS; Public Sector; Non-profit & Education; Financial Services; and Communications & Media
• Experience consulting in or with Fortune 500 and 100 companies
• Experience leading organizational transformation, operating model design, governance, KPI/OKR design, or enterprise change initiatives that tie Salesforce-enabled transformation to measurable business outcomes.
• Familiarity with operating models and governance patterns commonly used in Salesforce program environments (e.g., product vs. project orientation, CoE concepts, value-realization tracking).
• Experience rapidly learning new industries and business models and producing credible, value-added guidance.
• Education & Credentials:
  • Undergraduate degree preferred, or equivalent experience
  • Professional certifications in strategic consulting are highly desirable (ie CMC, SPP, SMP, Six Sigma, etc.)

Why Coastal, and what we offer:

• Flexible working hours with an emphasis on a life-work balance (in that order!)
• Fully remote work; “Live by the beach, work in the Cloud,” plus company office locations in Palm Coast, FL; Atlanta, GA; Tysons, VA; Lexington, KY & Louisville, KY
• Unlimited Paid Time Off (RTO), 401K with Company Match, and Medical, Vision, & Dental coverage
• Competitive quarterly and annual bonus opportunities
• Continuing education & certification reimbursements, specifically within the Salesforce & Snowflake ecosystems; plus occasional in-house competitions with spot bonuses
• A flexible and fun team culture! We value transparency, support, flexibility, growth, teamwork, fun, and so much more
• Frequent team and culture activities, virtual & in-person, including Lunch and Learns, Happy Hours, team-building events, and the Holiday Party to Top All Holiday Parties
• Quarterly All-Hands calls to bring the company together, and an open-door leadership policy with access to mentorship and guidance
• Opportunities for accelerated growth, networking, and career guidance and support
• Trust, transparency and respect across all levels of the company

Coastal provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.