Director Strategic Initiatives, Digital Gaming

Mattel•El Segundo, CA

About The Position

Mattel’s Digital Gaming team is seeking a Director of Strategic Initiatives to play a central role in driving execution across a dynamic and growing digital portfolio. This role partners closely with the Head of Digital to translate strategic priorities into measurable outcomes, leading high-impact initiatives from planning through delivery. The Director will own cross-functional coordination, operating cadences, and governance across teams and external partners such as Mattel163, ensuring alignment on roadmaps, milestones, and decision-making. This position serves as a critical hub for visibility, execution, and collaboration—bringing structure to complex initiatives, accelerating decision velocity, and ensuring consistent progress across the product lifecycle. Mattel is hiring a high-agency operator to help the Head of Digital turn priorities into outcomes across Digital Gaming, Digital Experiences, and Future Lab. This role owns the planning, cross-functional execution, and operating mechanisms behind critical initiatives so leaders have clarity, teams have momentum, and work lands with measurable progress. You will lead high-priority initiatives end-to-end, create visibility across the digital portfolio, and improve decision velocity in a matrixed environment, including tight collaboration with Mattel163.

Requirements

7+ years in strategy, strategic initiatives/programs, business operations, product ops, program management, consulting, or equivalent, ideally in gaming, interactive experiences, tech, entertainment, or consumer digital.
Proven ability to lead complex, cross-functional initiatives with multiple senior stakeholders and ambiguous inputs.
Experience partnering with an internal or external studio/partner and driving outcomes across organizational boundaries (e.g., portfolio governance, planning cadence, shared metrics).
Strong structuring and problem-solving: you can turn messy problems into clear options, trade-offs, and decisions.
Demonstrated strength in executive communication (clear writing, sharp decks, decision-oriented readouts).
Comfort operating with ambiguity and urgency while maintaining high standards and strong follow-through.
Practical analytical and financial fluency (e.g., KPIs, business cases, scenario thinking)-depth required will depend on scope.
A track record of process design that teams actually adopt (rituals, templates, governance that reduces friction).
Domain curiosity and working knowledge of digital products, gaming, and interactive experiences (no need to be a career game designer).
Trusted partner style: you can influence without authority, give direct feedback constructively, and build alignment across functions.
Comfort working across geographies and time zones with an asynchronous-first approach when needed.

Responsibilities

Own the strategic initiatives portfolio "single source of truth" across Digital Gaming, Digital Experiences, and Future Lab (priorities, milestones, dependencies, risks, decisions) so leadership can make timely trade-offs.
Lead high-priority strategic initiatives end-to-end, from framing and planning through execution, stakeholder alignment, and delivery.
Own the operating cadence and collaboration model with Mattel163, including joint planning, roadmap and release alignment, monthly performance reviews, and a shared risk/decision log.
Coordinate cross-functional approvals and dependencies that sit between Mattel and Mattel163 (e.g., brand, legal, finance, marketing, product/tech), including clear handoffs, turnaround expectations, and escalation paths.
Build and run an operating cadence for the Head of Digital's leadership agenda (e.g., weekly leadership syncs, monthly initiative/performance reviews, quarterly planning/offsites), including agendas, pre-reads, decision logs, and follow-through.
Drive decision-quality by structuring options, surfacing constraints, and packaging recommendations into clear, executive-ready narratives and materials.
Partner with Finance and functional leaders to coordinate planning cycles, resource allocation conversations, and performance reporting (scope of ownership to be confirmed).
Create lightweight governance for cross-functional execution, including clear owners, timelines, and escalation paths, especially for initiatives that cut across product, tech, brand, legal, and finance.
Operationalize Future Lab work by setting a repeatable pipeline (e.g., intake, experiment design, learning review, scale/stop recommendation), ensuring experiments are purposeful and learnings are captured.
Coordinate stakeholder management on behalf of the Head of Digital: prepare briefings, synthesize updates, and ensure tight follow-through on action items.
(If applicable) Lead and develop program talent (project/program managers) by setting standards, coaching, and establishing reusable templates and rituals.