Director, Corporate Strategy (San Diego / Hybrid)

Position Summary

The Director, Corporate Strategy is a senior member of the Enterprise Strategy team who independently leads high-priority, cross-enterprise strategy engagements and serves as a strategic advisor to senior leaders. Working within enterprise priorities established by the Vice President and Senior Director, the Director sharpens the decision to be made, designs the problem-solving approach, integrates evidence across the company, develops credible alternatives, and owns the recommendation for assigned engagements. The role operates across R&D, Product, Commercial, Finance, Corporate Development, Medical, Operations, and regional leadership in a global, science- and technology-driven environment. The Director is an individual contributor who is expected to lead a complex strategy question from framing through executive decision, develop an independent enterprise point of view within the engagement mandate, and lead cross-functional strategy project teams without relying on formal reporting authority.

Essential Functions

• Lead enterprise strategy engagements. Independently lead cross-enterprise strategy projects from initial framing through recommendation and executive decision.
• Shape the strategic question. Translate an executive mandate or emerging concern into a defined decision, meaningful alternatives, decision criteria, hypotheses, and an integrated workplan.
• Own the enterprise fact base. Determine which market, customer, competitive, scientific, technology, operational, and financial evidence is required; direct the analysis; pressure-test assumptions; and remain accountable for the integrity of the project fact base and strategic conclusion.
• Develop options and recommendations. Create real strategic alternatives and quantify implications for growth, investment, risk, capabilities, organizational requirements, and opportunity cost.
• Integrate enterprise perspectives. Engage functional, domain, product, and regional leaders to incorporate expertise without defaulting to the loudest organizational view.
• Advise senior leaders. Lead sponsor working sessions, develop concise decision-ready materials, present recommendations to senior leaders and the ELT as appropriate, and respond credibly to challenge.
• Lead cross-functional strategy project teams and strengthen the craft. Set direction for multi-workstream project teams, coordinate functional and specialist contributors, review and improve analytical quality, provide project-based coaching, and develop reusable approaches.
• Support decision follow-through. Translate approved recommendations into clear implications, owners, milestones, assumptions, and measures of value.

Key Competencies

• Enterprise strategy judgment: Connects external change, internal capabilities, and economics to enterprise choices and develops an independent point of view within the engagement mandate.
• Problem framing under ambiguity: Turns a broad mandate into a decision architecture, identifies the highest-value questions, and adapts the framing when evidence requires it.
• Analytical and financial rigor: Directs and interrogates market models, business cases, scenarios, and value-creation analyses; distinguishes facts, assumptions, and organizational beliefs.
• Executive synthesis and influence: Builds concise decision narratives, leads senior working sessions, presents recommendations credibly, and challenges assumptions constructively.
• Scientific and technology fluency: Learns complex science- and technology-driven markets rapidly and translates technical developments into commercial and strategic implications.
• Project-team leadership: Leads multiple workstreams as one engagement, sets a high quality bar, and directs cross-functional contributors without relying on formal authority.
• AI-enabled strategy development: Uses AI as a practical strategy accelerator, designing responsible workflows that improve research, analysis, synthesis, scenario development, and decision materials.
• Judgment and working style: Demonstrates intellectual curiosity, pragmatism, resilience, sound judgment, and low-ego collaboration in high-stakes settings.

Minimum Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in business, economics, finance, engineering, life sciences, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience profile: Typically requires 15-18 years of cumulative relevant experience.
• Top-tier strategy consulting apprenticeship: 4+ years in a top-tier global strategy consulting firm, such as McKinsey, BCG, or Bain, or a directly comparable firm.
• Directly relevant strategy depth: Demonstrated experience addressing enterprise, market, growth, portfolio, business-model, and capability decisions.
• Executive advisory experience: 3+ years directly advising C-suite executives or equivalent enterprise decision-makers.
• End-to-end strategy leadership: 3+ years independently leading complex, cross-functional strategy engagements.
• Project-team leadership and coaching: 2+ years leading and coaching multi-person strategy project teams.
• Practical AI application: Demonstrated direct use of AI-enabled approaches to accelerate strategy development.
• Analytical and influence capability: Advanced structured problem-solving, quantitative analysis, financial modeling, scenario development, synthesis, executive communication, and matrixed influence skills.
• Commercial and technology judgment: Strong commercial and financial judgment and the ability to understand complex scientific and technology-driven markets.

Preferred Credentials

• Advanced degree: MBA, master’s degree, or other relevant advanced degree.
• Sector experience: Experience in genomics, life sciences, diagnostics, healthcare, or another technology-intensive industry.
• Perspective breadth: A combination of external advisory and in-house corporate strategy experience.
• Executive governance exposure: Experience developing ELT materials and contributing to Board-level strategy work.
• Inorganic strategy: Experience evaluating partnerships, acquisitions, or other inorganic options as part of a broader strategy.

Other Requirements

• Travel: Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 20%.
• Executive cadence: Flexibility to support time-sensitive executive decision cycles across global time zones.