Director, Corporate Strategy (San Diego / Hybrid)

Illumina•San Diego, CA

13d•$187,400 - $281,000•Hybrid

About The Position

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. Business and functional leaders own execution; Corporate Strategy supports decision clarity and follow-through without owning enterprise transformation or day-to-day implementation.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in business, economics, finance, engineering, life sciences, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Typically requires 15-18 years of cumulative relevant experience. This range reflects the expected career stage rather than a rigid minimum or maximum; selection will be based primarily on the depth and relevance of the experience below.
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. Experience must include progression to project or engagement leadership, hypothesis-driven problem solving, work with senior executive sponsors, multi-workstream delivery, and development of consulting teams.
Directly relevant strategy depth: Demonstrated experience addressing enterprise, market, growth, portfolio, business-model, and capability decisions through corporate strategy, top-tier strategy consulting, or equivalent strategic roles.
Executive advisory experience: Within that experience, 3+ years directly advising C-suite executives or equivalent enterprise decision-makers, including framing decisions, developing recommendations, and presenting decision-ready materials.
End-to-end strategy leadership: 3+ years independently leading complex, cross-functional strategy engagements from problem definition and analysis through recommendation and senior executive decision.
Project-team leadership and coaching: 2+ years leading and coaching multi-person strategy project teams, with demonstrated impact on analytical quality, synthesis, and the effectiveness of other contributors; direct-report management is not required.
Practical AI application: Demonstrated direct use of AI-enabled approaches to accelerate strategy development, with compelling proof points such as reusable skills, plugins, agentic workflows, or equivalent solutions applied to research, analysis, synthesis, scenario development, or executive communication. Experience must reflect responsible handling of confidential information, validation of outputs, and sound human judgment.
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 and translate them into enterprise implications.

Nice To Haves

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, or equivalent breadth across enterprise and business-level questions.
Executive governance exposure: Experience developing ELT materials and contributing to Board-level strategy work in a public-company or similarly complex environment.
Inorganic strategy: Experience evaluating partnerships, acquisitions, or other inorganic options as part of a broader strategy, without requiring transaction-execution specialization.

Responsibilities

Lead enterprise strategy engagements. Independently lead cross-enterprise strategy projects from initial framing through recommendation and executive decision. Topics may include growth strategy, business-model evolution, new-market entry, technology disruption, competitive response, enterprise capability choices, or other high-priority questions sponsored by the ELT or Enterprise Strategy leadership.
Shape the strategic question. Translate an executive mandate or emerging concern into a defined decision, meaningful alternatives, decision criteria, hypotheses, and an integrated workplan. Reframe the mandate when evidence shows that a different question is more consequential, and align the revised framing with the senior sponsor.
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. Recommend what Illumina should start, stop, accelerate, deprioritize, or sequence differently within the project scope.
Integrate enterprise perspectives. Engage functional, domain, product, and regional leaders to incorporate expertise without defaulting to the loudest organizational view. Surface disagreements, test them through evidence and explicit decision logic, and build a recommendation that reflects the enterprise rather than one function.
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. Contribute to Board-ready materials under the direction of the Senior Director or Vice President.
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 that improve problem solving, synthesis, executive communication, and project leadership across Corporate Strategy.
Support decision follow-through. Translate approved recommendations into clear implications, owners, milestones, assumptions, and measures of value. Identify when changed conditions threaten the decision logic or require sponsor intervention while keeping implementation accountability with business, functional, and transformation leaders.