Strategic Planning Director

Cox Enterprises; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Cox Enterprises seeks a Director, Strategy to accelerate growth across its portfolio. You will partner with the CEI Strategy team, shaping investment themes, capital allocation, and market analysis for telecom and other verticals.

The role requires advanced problem-solving, leadership, and the ability to influence internal clients. Travel is expected (<20%).

Qualifications

• BA or BS Degree required +10 years of relevant experience.
• MS degree + 8 years of experience.
• Ph.D. degree + 5 years of experience.
• OR 14+ years of experience with no degree.
• Strong analytical, modeling, and research skills.
• Excellent organization and project management skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead strategic planning and influence across CEI Strategy and portfolio management.
• Incorporate quantitative analyses and market studies to drive insights.
• Define projects, scope and success metrics to ensure timely execution.
• Collaborate with CEI C-suite and boundary partners to guide strategic initiatives.
• Develop and sustain relationships with internal clients and leaders.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Analytical skills

Modeling

Research skills

Communication

Project management

Cross-functional collaboration

Executive influence

Data-driven decisioning

Education

BA or BS degree

MS degree

Ph.D. degree

14+ years of experience with no degree

Tools

MS Office

Job description

The Director, Strategy will be a key resource to accelerate the growth and strategic ambitions of Cox Enterprises and their portfolio of businesses. The Director will be deployed against several focus areas of the CEI Strategy team, including Enterprise Strategy, Portfolio Management, Growth Operations support, Corporate Functions support, and the Market and Strategic Intelligence function.

Initially, the Director will support the development and implementation of CEI’s Enterprise Strategy and approach to portfolio management (e.g., investment themes and capital allocation). In addition, the Director will support market analysis, insights, and strategic choices within the telecom vertical.

This position requires creative problem-solving and comfort with uncertainty to help drive effective strategic planning in a portfolio with diverse businesses in different stages of their lifecycle. This position requires the candidate to possess well developed skills in core strategy, analysis, and influence and leadership. Candidate should have ability to lead and influence others by acting as a strategic partner to internal clients.

Skills and Responsibilities:

Strategy Skills

• Leverage strategic planning methodology
• Understand how internal and external assessments shape our opportunities, risks & ability to win
• Recommend choices
• Articulate our strategy for "where to play", "how to win" & "what to do"
• Utilize core strategy skills and frameworks to drive strategic decisioning, effective portfolio management, and market assessments (as needed)
• Proficiency with hypothesis-driven analysis
• Ability to quickly drive towards insights relevant for strategic decision-making in the absence of complete data

Analysis

• Incorporate quantitative analyses through data, market studies and external research to drive insights
• Identify root causes, drivers, or critical assumptions related to a specific topic of inquiry
• Rapidly develop initial perspectives and assess relative importance of potential areas for further analysis
• Ability to build financial models with key drivers to align on sensitivities
• Synthesize detailed analysis into highlights, actionable insights and key implications

Execution

• Responsible for execution and removing barriers to execution
• Define projects, scope and success measures to provide visibility into workstream process and cadence
• Ability to keep workstreams and team members and boundary partners on task, focused, and on time

Leadership & Influence

• Lead, partner and advise strategy team, boundary partners, the businesses and CEI C-suite
• Be a thought leader/partner, bringing new insight and perspective to clients
• Utilize strategic thinking and analyses to guide and drive decision making
• Develop and sustain effective relationships
• Ability to leverage strategic and analytical skills to effectively consult with boundary partners, business leaders, and CEI C-suite on strategic initiatives, topics, and decisioning
• Work across teams in order to leverage expertise from the broader organization, gathering strategic feedback and support necessary to drive strategic outcomes

Work Deliverable Examples Include but not Limited to:

• Support the strategic planning process and ideation sessions
• Preparation of communications, meeting materials and formal meeting summary deliverables that drive the strategic planning process forward
• Development of strategic analysis for decision support that drives successful investment decisions
• Development of a strategic scorecard and signposts to monitor the telecom vertical

Qualifications:

• BA or BS Degree required +10 years of relevant experience upon completing undergraduate degree, or minimum 2-3 years post MBA. Strategic Planning and/or management consulting experience required. Telecom experience preferred.
• OR MS degree + 8 years of experience
• OR Ph.D. degree + 5 years of experience
• OR 14+ years of experience with no degree
• Experience in operations and business execution preferred
• Experience in strategic business transformation preferred
• Strong analytical, modeling, and research skills. Excellent organization and project management skills. Concise and clear verbal and written communication skills.
• Comfort challenging, in a respectful manner, positions or perspectives using both analysis and judgement
• Utilize critical thinking to apply findings to make recommendations and articulate next steps in ambiguous or emerging opportunities
• Ability to establish credibility as an internal thought leader on strategic and business issues.
• Ability to work cross-functionally and collaboratively.
• Ability to interact with leadership at all levels of the organization.
• Ability to interpret complex data and distill it into concise relevant documents and presentations for an executive audience
• Ability to think strategically, abstractly, in broad concepts and terms and apply to tangible business plans.
• Passion for storytelling, developing concepts for fresh ideas, and translating market insights into compelling pitches
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic, diverse portfolio of businesses and markets
• Proficient in MS Office including Word, Excel, PowerPoint
• Travel as needed (<20%)