Job Description
The Director, Business Strategy & Investment Management Office is responsible for driving the development, execution, and continuous refinement of the organization’s long-term vision and business strategy. This leadership role oversees planning, investment management and value realization initiatives that support sustainable growth and operational excellence.
The Director will lead cross-functional teams to assess market trends, forecast industry shifts, and align organizational priorities with emerging opportunities. In addition to spearheading enterprise-wide strategic initiatives, this role will provide oversight for the Investment Management Office (IMO), ensuring the effective planning, allocation, and administration of funding to optimize the return on investment for key programs and services.
This position works closely with Finance and department heads to integrate strategic objectives into annual budgeting and resource allocation processes. The Director, Business Strategy & Investment Management Office is responsible for applying deep expertise in corporate strategy, business transformation, investment governance, and financial planning to drive innovation and organizational expansion.
Major Areas of Responsibility (MAR):
Strategy Development - 15%
- Develop, in collaboration with other departments, the overall vision and strategic goals of the organization, ensuring alignment with long-term business objectives, market opportunities, and investment priorities to drive sustainable growth and value creation.
- Generate strategy documents that can clearly communicate how to achieve goals, foresee risks and address challenges for key internal and external stakeholders.
- Create a governance model to manage strategy execution across the organization.
- Quantify business impact and strategy effectiveness with KPI target setting, alignment, and progress monitoring.
- Provide advisory to the execution of projects supporting MNAO strategy
Market and Competitive Research - 15%
- Establish deep understanding of evolving trends in the automotive and adjacent industries, focusing 5-10 years into the future to inform strategy development and long-term planning.
- Gather intelligence and insights, identifying customer value shifts, competitive dynamics and assessing risks and opportunities.
- Establish a common source for comprehensive future intelligence that is systematically updated to align understanding of future assumptions across stakeholders.
- Establish a centralized source for future intelligence, ensuring systematic updates and alignment of key assumptions across all stake holders.
- Oversee and conduct market research and analysis, gathering data on industry trends, growth rates and market size, while analyzing customer preferences, purchasing behaviors and emerging technologies – particularly in electrification and related trends.
- Define market boundaries, identify key segments, target geographies, vehicle types, and other relevant market dimensions.
- Estimate market potential, leveraging data and analytical techniques to estimate the total addressable market (TAM), calculate market share and growth projections for various segments.
- Collaborate with Marketing and Customer Experience teams to identify customer segments, develop customer profiles and refine market positioning.
Investment Portfolio Management - 15%
- Lead and oversee portfolio of new ideas and backlog of cross-company large investments ensuring data integrity and accuracy.
- Conduct executive investment reviews and provide strategic insights to support decision making, investment prioritization and program selection with business owners.
- Facilitate and lead vetting of proposed investment concepts, ensuring alignment with strategic objectives.
- Partner with Finance and business units to guide new investments projects through the approval process.
Performance Monitoring and ROI Analysis & Assessment - 15%
- Develop effective framework and methodologies for tracking and managing the value and performance of strategy execution and approved investments
- Maintain a current view of return on investment (ROI) as projects progress toward launch and beyond.
- Identify and leverage tools to enhance investment tracking and management processes.
- Analyze data to track project ROI, identify areas for improvement and support investment priorities in alignment with overall company strategy.
- Partner with the Executive PMO team to conduct regular reviews, assess portfolio health, identify opportunities for improvement, recommend adjustments, and develop comprehensive action plans.
Stakeholder Communication & Alignment - 10%
- Prepare reports and presentations to senior management and stakeholders, effectively communicating portfolio performance, risks and recommendations.
- Collaborate with other Mazda entities (e.g., Mazda Corporation, Mazda Motor Europe, etc.) to understand and align with global goals and strategies
- Organize executive forums to facilitate executive-wide discussions and strategic alignment
Idea Generation and Strategic Alignment - 15%
- Leverage tools to crowdsource ideas, facilitate collaboration, and capture valuable insights from stakeholders.
- Lead the evaluation, prioritization, and selection of investment ideas ensuring measurable results align with organizational objectives.
- Promote a culture of innovation and encourage stakeholder participation in the ideation process.
- Oversee strategic alignment, prioritization, and project integration to maximize returns and manage capacity.
- Manage investment program project plans, identify and track interdependencies, and facilitate communication between project stakeholders.
Staff Management - 10%
- Build, mentor, and inspire a high-performing team of enterprise architects and digital transformation professionals, fostering professional growth and accountability.
- Oversee and manage team performance by setting clear objectives, providing career development opportunities, and ensuring adherence to policies.
- Foster a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, and innovation within the digital and IT teams, encouraging cross-functional alignment across the organization.
- Build and promote cross-functional collaboration within the Investment Management Office and other departments to support enterprise-wide objectives.
Third-Party Management - 5%
- Establish relationships with key third party vendors to gain external knowledge and support
Qualifications and Other Requirements:
Education:
- Bachelor’s degree in business administration, finance, economics, engineering, or related field or equivalent combination of education, training and/or work experience in lieu of degree.
- MBA preferred.
Experience:
- 10 years in Corporate or Business Strategy with a focus on strategic planning and execution; to include the following:
- 8 years of experience in the automotive industry, with a deep understanding of market trends and industry dynamics.
- 5 years of experience in conceptual development and mid-to-long-term strategic planning.
- 5 years of experience leading effective strategic planning and implementation initiatives.
- 3 years of experience managing direct reports and leading cross-functional teams.
Knowledge, Skills, Abilities:
- Strong strategic thinking and vision to develop business strategies and identify opportunities for improvement and optimize investment management practices.
- Demonstrated success in managing complex portfolios and interdependent projects, ensuring alignment with strategic priorities and other stakeholders.
- Expertise in project management methodologies and tools, including cost estimation, resource allocation, timelines, risk assessment, and issue resolution. Knowledge of project management methodologies and tools outlining project plans to include costs, resources, timelines, risks, and issues.
- Exceptional leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to influence and collaborate across functions.
- Proven ability to select, train, develop, supervise, motivate, and evaluate staff.
- Advanced knowledge of investment management best practices and industry trends.
- Analytical mindset with the ability to analyze complex information, make data-driven decisions and solve problems effectively.
- Ability to handle multiple priorities and thrive in a fast-paced environment, maintaining focus and efficiency under pressure.
- Extensive knowledge of business process change management, including transformation strategies and implementation.
Travel:
Required 1-2 times a year
#LI-Remote
We support Remote work in the following states:
Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
Pay Range
Salary to be determined by education, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data.
Learn more about MNAO’s comprehensive benefits package here