Director, Corporate Strategy

Scotts Miracle-Gro•Marysville, OH

2d•$175,700 - $206,700•Remote

About The Position

As the Director of Corporate Strategy & AI Intelligence, you will serve as "The Scout" for the Strategic Acceleration Business Unit. You will lead the charge in researching, piloting, and leveraging emerging AI tools and Large Language Models (LLMs) to uncover new growth opportunities, map competitive intelligence, and provide automated workflow insights. Your primary mandate is to define whether the company should "Partner, Build, or Buy" when evaluating new concepts to expand our home, lawn, and garden footprint.

Requirements

7–10+ years of progressive experience in Corporate Strategy, Management Consulting (e.g., McKinsey, BCG, Bain), Venture Capital, or Corporate Development/M&A.
Proven track record of designing and executing "Partner, Build, or Buy" frameworks, market sizing (TAM/SAM), and commercial due diligence.
3+ years of experience directly managing and developing high-performing teams of analysts or strategic managers.
Bachelor’s degree in Business, Economics, Engineering, or a related field.
Demonstrated experience piloting and deploying LLM-powered solutions, custom GPTs, or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows to solve business problems.
Proficiency with Python or R for data analysis, market scraping, or API utilization (e.g., interacting with OpenAI, Anthropic, or Hugging Face APIs).
Familiarity with modern data architectures, including vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Chroma), business intelligence tools (Tableau, PowerBI), and workflow automation platforms (e.g., Make, Zapier, LangChain).
Deep understanding of current AI capabilities, limitations (hallucinations, data privacy, security restrictions), and cost structures (token management).

Nice To Haves

An MBA or advanced degree is highly preferred.

Responsibilities

Research and pilot cutting-edge AI tools to uncover potential corporate partners, conduct market forecasting, and deliver deep competitive intelligence.
Formulate data-driven strategic recommendations for the Business Development and M&A teams based on AI insights and market analysis.
Operate as a centralized technical resource, providing technical insights to the M&A team (for due diligence) and the New Business Development team (for product enhancement).
Directly manage the AI Market Intelligence team, including Managers and Analysts focused on M&A, Strategic Planning, and Portfolio Enhancement.
Integrate advanced AI tools and automated workflows into daily strategic operations to maintain a high-velocity innovation pipeline.
Cross-functional collaboration with the Directors of M&A and New Business Development.
Participation in monthly "Sync-and-Accelerate" meetings.