Director, Strategy & Operations
Location: Dallas, TX
Employment Type: Direct Hire
Work Arrangement: Hybrid
Reports to: Chief Operating Officer
Overview
We are seeking an experienced Director of Strategy & Operations to lead enterprise planning, executive governance, and business performance initiatives for a rapidly growing organization.
This highly visible role will work closely with the COO, CEO, CFO, and senior leadership team to translate long-term strategy into executable operating plans, measurable goals, and clear accountability across the business. The Director will lead key planning processes including the 3-Year Strategic Plan, Annual Operating Plan, Monthly Business Reviews, OKRs, executive reporting, and board and investor preparation.
This position also carries direct leadership responsibility for an experienced Strategy & Operations team. The ideal candidate combines strong strategic thinking, financial fluency, executive communication, and operational discipline with the ability to build scalable planning and governance processes in a fast-moving environment.
Key ResponsibilitiesStrategic Planning & Business Performance
- Lead the development and ongoing refinement of the company’s 3-Year Strategic Plan in partnership with executive leadership.
- Translate long-range strategic priorities into clear initiatives, resource requirements, milestones, and measurable outcomes.
- Own the Annual Operating Plan process, including planning calendars, target setting, cross-functional coordination, and reconciliation with financial and strategic objectives.
- Partner closely with Finance and FP&A to ensure operating plans, financial models, forecasts, and strategic priorities remain aligned.
- Support value-driver initiatives by identifying, tracking, and reporting on the key levers impacting business performance.
- Help maintain and improve enterprise business models used for scenario planning, forecasting, and executive decision-making.
Executive Governance & Business Reviews
- Own the structure, preparation, and operating cadence of Monthly Business Reviews.
- Synthesize financial, operational, and functional performance data into concise, decision-ready executive narratives.
- Develop dashboards, scorecards, and reporting frameworks that provide leadership with clear visibility into business performance.
- Identify emerging risks, performance gaps, and strategic tradeoffs, and drive follow-through on key leadership decisions.
- Design and maintain effective weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual business rhythms without creating unnecessary governance overhead.
OKRs & Organizational Alignment
- Lead the translation of enterprise-level priorities and OKRs into functional and team-level operating metrics.
- Ensure teams understand how their objectives connect to broader company goals.
- Establish mechanisms for tracking progress, reconciling competing priorities, and adjusting metrics as business conditions change.
- Partner with functional leaders to strengthen accountability and improve execution against strategic priorities.
Board & Investor Support
- Lead development of board decks, pre-reads, briefing materials, and supporting analysis in partnership with executive leadership.
- Prepare executive teams for board discussions by identifying gaps, challenging assumptions, and ensuring a clear and defensible narrative.
- Support investor meeting preparation by coordinating business, financial, and operational content across leadership and Finance.
- Help ensure consistency between internal operating metrics, financial reporting, and external executive communications.
Team Leadership
- Lead and develop a team of experienced Strategy & Operations professionals.
- Establish priorities, delegate ownership of major workstreams, and provide coaching on executive-level analysis and communication.
- Own team hiring, performance management, development planning, and succession.
- Build a culture of accountability, strong judgment, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Process & Operational Excellence
- Identify gaps and friction within planning, reporting, and governance processes and lead improvements.
- Develop scalable frameworks, templates, tools, and operating standards that improve organizational effectiveness.
- Build and maintain a centralized repository for core business processes, creating a consistent source of truth for how key activities are executed.
- Represent Strategy & Operations in cross-functional leadership forums and ensure alignment between enterprise plans and functional execution.
- Act as a connector across teams, helping resolve dependencies and improve collaboration.
- Support company-wide culture, engagement, and organizational effectiveness initiatives as needed.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Engineering, or a related field.
- 8+ years of progressive experience in corporate strategy, Strategy & Operations, FP&A, management consulting, investment banking, or a comparable function.
- Direct experience developing multi-year strategic plans and annual operating plans.
- Strong financial and analytical skills with the ability to connect strategic objectives to financial and operational performance.
- Experience preparing executive, board, and/or investor-level materials.
- Proven ability to synthesize complex and ambiguous information into clear recommendations and executive-ready narratives.
- Experience designing, implementing, or managing OKR or enterprise performance-management frameworks.
- Demonstrated experience leading experienced individual contributors and delegating meaningful ownership.
- Strong executive presence with the ability to work directly with C-suite leaders.
- Ability to manage multiple high-priority initiatives while maintaining strong attention to detail.
- Excellent written, verbal, analytical, and presentation skills.
Preferred Qualifications
- MBA or other relevant advanced degree.
- Experience within a high-growth technology, cloud, infrastructure, data center, or related environment.
- Experience building Strategy & Operations, planning, or governance processes within a scaling organization.
- Background in management consulting, investment banking, corporate development, or strategic finance.
- Experience with scenario modeling, enterprise forecasting, and value-driver analysis.
- Experience working within an investment-backed or rapidly scaling organization.
Ideal Background
Strong candidates may come from corporate strategy, Strategy & Operations, management consulting, strategic finance, FP&A, investment banking, or similar roles where they have owned enterprise planning, executive reporting, performance management, and cross-functional strategic initiatives.
The strongest profiles will combine executive-level strategic thinking with the operational discipline to turn strategy into measurable plans, operating rhythms, and accountability across the organization.