Strategy Execution & Strategic Projects Lead

EY; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 1,500,000 - 2,100,000; Full time

Job summary

EY Africa Tax in Johannesburg seeks a Strategy Execution & Strategic Projects Lead to sit near the Tax Leader and drive execution across strategy, market operations and leadership enablement.

You will own cross-functional initiatives, build decision-ready views, and embed practical operating models for growth and AI-enabled delivery. The role requires seniority, strategic judgement and strong executive communication to navigate complex, sensitive projects.

Qualifications

• Typically 8+ years of relevant experience in strategy, transformation, programme leadership, or executive office.
• Experience leading cross-functional work with senior stakeholders.
• Strong track record in executive writing, PowerPoint development and decision support.

Responsibilities

• Translate strategic priorities into an execution portfolio with outcomes, owners and milestones.
• Lead cross-practice initiatives from framing through implementation and benefits tracking.
• Create decision-ready views of sales, pipeline, and market performance for leadership.
• Embed a practical operating model for growth, AI-enabled delivery and efficient information flow.
• Manage sensitive assignments and ensure momentum with disciplined follow-through.

Skills

Strategic judgement

Commercial and analytical fluency

Executive communication

Ambiguity handling

Digital and AI fluency

Discretion and maturity

Working style

Education

Law / business / management degree

Job description

Strategy Execution & Strategic Projects Lead

Location: Johannesburg

Full-time

The opportunity

EY Africa Tax is building the next phase of a large, complex professional-services business. The agenda spans growth, market performance, technology and AI, productisation, talent, risk and the day-to-day operating disciplines required to sustain execution. The successful candidate will sit close to the Tax Leader and work across the leadership team to connect these moving parts.

The role combines three mandates that are often separated: strategy execution, market and commercial operations, and leadership-office enablement. It offers unusual exposure to how priorities are set, trade-offs are made and a practice is led, while carrying real accountability for the quality of information, decisions and follow-through.

What you will own

1. Strategy execution and portfolio control

• Translate strategic priorities into a single, coherent execution portfolio with outcomes, owners, milestones, dependencies and measures.
• Run the execution rhythm, surface delivery risk early and ensure decisions move through to action and closure.
• Lead selected cross-practice initiatives from framing through implementation, including governance, stakeholder alignment and benefits tracking.

2. Market and commercial operations

• Create a decision-ready view of sales, pipeline, backlog, account activity, conversion and market performance.
• Maintain the integrity of scorecards and dashboards, challenge weak data and distinguish activity from commercial insight.
• Coordinate pipeline and priority-account reviews, identify stalled pursuits, clarify next actions and bring the right interventions to leadership.
• Connect account plans, propositions, alliances and reusable IP to named pursuits and measurable market outcomes.
• Frame complex issues clearly, assemble the right evidence, test assumptions and set out practical options and recommendations.
• Prepare concise executive briefings, presentations, papers and talking points for leadership, partner and market-facing forums.
• Shape agendas around decisions and outcomes, not updates, and capture the implications of what has been agreed.
• Provide a joined-up view across markets, finance, people, technology and AI, operations, governance and risk.
• Coordinate high-priority leadership forums and partner sessions, ensuring strong preparation, clear ownership and disciplined follow-through.
• Act as a trusted connector across local, regional and global stakeholders, often without formal authority.

5. Transformation and better ways of working

• Help embed a practical operating model for growth, products, innovation and AI-enabled delivery.
• Simplify processes, improve information flows and introduce data- and AI-enabled ways of working where they materially improve speed, quality or insight.
• Build reusable management content, decision logs, playbooks and knowledge assets so that execution becomes institutional rather than person-dependent.

6. Special projects and sensitive matters

• Take ownership of selected urgent, ambiguous or confidential assignments that do not fit neatly into one function.
• Create structure from an incomplete brief, find the right contributors and keep momentum until the issue is resolved.
• Handle commercially and organisationally sensitive information with discretion and sound judgement.

What the role feels like

You will need to...

Because the environment...

Move between altitude and detail

Requires both strategic framing and exacting follow-through.

Prioritise continuously

Contains several live priorities and changing deadlines.

Depends on clearer updates, stronger evidence and early escalation.

Write and present with executive clarity

Uses slides, briefs and dashboards to drive decisions.

Influence through trust

Works across partners and functions without relying on hierarchy.

Be hands-on

Rewards someone who will solve the problem, not merely coordinate it.

What success looks like

• Leadership has one reliable, decision-ready view of the most important strategic and commercial priorities.
• Pipeline, account and growth reviews focus on quality, conversion, blockers and intervention, not data compilation.
• Strategic initiatives have clear outcomes, owners, milestones and measures, with risks raised early and actions closed.
• Executive materials are concise, analytically sound and consistently ready for senior internal or external audiences.
• Key programmes across growth, operations, people, technology and transformation operate through an integrated cadence rather than separate reporting streams.
• The role holder is trusted to handle ambiguity and sensitive matters, and is known for creating momentum without creating bureaucracy.

The person we are looking for

The core profile

Capability

What strong evidence looks like

Strategic judgement

Identifies the real decision, separates signal from noise and makes sensible trade-offs.

Commercial and analytical fluency

Understands revenue, margin, pipeline, backlog, conversion and account dynamics; turns data into intervention.

Executive communication

Produces crisp briefs and polished presentations with a clear point of view and audience logic.

Builds an integrated plan, manages dependencies and uses governance to accelerate rather than burden delivery.

Earns credibility with senior leaders and follows up firmly without damaging relationships.

Ambiguity handling

Creates structure and forward motion when the brief, data or ownership is incomplete.

Digital and AI fluency

Uses technology to improve decision support, workflow and knowledge reuse, while applying judgement and controls.

Discretion and maturity

Handles sensitive business and people matters carefully and knows when to listen, challenge or escale.

Working style

High standards, low ego, calm under pressure, curious, resilient and accountable.

Experience and qualifications

• Relevant law, business or management degree. A postgraduate qualification is advantageous but not essential. There is no need to have tax technical expertise.
• Typically 8+ years of relevant experience in strategy, transformation, programme leadership, consulting, business operations, commercial operations or an executive office. Exceptional candidates with a different trajectory will be considered on evidence of capability.
• Demonstrated experience leading complex, cross-functional work involving senior stakeholders.
• Strong track record in executive writing, PowerPoint development, analytical problem-solving and decision support.
• Experience with commercial performance, sales operations, CRM or pipeline analytics is strongly advantageous, but not a requisite.
• Professional-services, regulated-industry or knowledge-business experience is useful, but learning agility and business judgement matter more than tax technical expertise.

Level and career proposition

The role is expected to operate at Manager, Senior Manager or Associate Director level, depending on the candidate. It is designed as a high-profile leadership-development platform with direct exposure to the Tax Leader, the practice leadership team and business-critical decisions. For the right person, it offers a rare opportunity to broaden from a functional or client-facing portfolio into enterprise leadership, commercial operations and transformation.

Application challenge
Shortlisted candidates will complete a practical case exercise designed to test business judgement, strategic thinking, market-operating insight, PowerPoint craft and executive presentation. The exercise does not require prior access to EY data or tax technical knowledge.