Strategy Manager - Hampshire

Strategy Manager
Hampshire

Work with appropriate members of the organistions leadership team to develop the group strategic plan and business unit strategies. Manage the exploration and assessment of a pipeline of new strategic opportunities and strategic research projects designed to help deliver the strategic ambition for the business.

* Work collaboratively with senior leaders to build group strategy and supporting documentation (including annual and multi-year business plans)
* Work collaboratively alongside business unit leaderships teams to facilitate considered, structured and robust strategic planning as part of the regular annual business planning cycle
* Provide expert support to business units as they develop strategic thinking outside formal annual activity - eg in reviewing pilot activity, assessing market changes, prioritising activities and developing scenario analyses, etc.
* Work with others within the strategy team to maintain and develop the strategic framework and processes used within the strategy team and more broadly across the business
* Collaborate closely with finance, risk and other central team colleagues to help present a coherent approach to developing plans and monitoring progress, avoiding duplication of workload for business units
* Work with colleagues in Innovation and Business Unit Teams to explore prioritised strategic opportunities. As appropriate, build actionable recommendations on if and how to take forward and present to senior stakeholders, identify key areas we need to understand more deeply (or test) and key risks we will need to consider (and manage)
* Where appropriate investigate more specific opportunities, including presenting evidenced business cases and recommendations, or taking part in due diligence on relevant potential acquisition targets, or being part of Steering Groups for initiatives born out of strategic exploration
* Quickly develop and maintain a strong understanding of the business, its products, customers, services and business plans
* Build and maintain a strong internal network to be able to identify key sources of information, knowledge and stakeholder input, developing strong commercial and strategic credibility across the Group
* Develop and maintain an external network to help maintain understanding of different approaches to strategy and strategic tools
* Develop briefs for internal Insight teams or external partners, and manage external providers to ensure delivery to the specified quality of output, time and budget
* Collate internal opinions, facilitate and advance internal debate with key stakeholders, including the Leadership team to enable effective decision making
* Where appropriate support implementation of strategic initiatives, using expertise gained through exploration stages to act as a subject matter expert / provide continuity / identify criteria for stage gates / hold to account / ensure focus is maintained

Experience required:

* Experience of working in a Strategy role either within a consultancy or in-house
* Experience of working in a relevant related sector (likely to be financial services)
* Experience of synthesising multiple sources of insight and information and producing evidenced recommendations
* Experience of presenting to and managing senior stakeholders and team
* Experience in identifying opportunities, risks and mitigants
* Ideally experienced in managing external parties (eg consultancies / agencies / partners)