Director, Strategic Planning

GISP-Non-DGR•Charlotte, NC

10d

About The Position

The Director, Strategic Planning leads enterprise strategic planning, strategy execution, portfolio governance, and organizational performance under the direction of the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer. The role translates the organization’s mission, long-term vision, and strategic priorities into measurable outcomes, coordinated initiatives, implementation plans, and management routines. It facilitates cross-functional alignment, strengthens project and change-management discipline, advances continuous improvement and innovation, and provides analysis and follow-through to improve organizational effectiveness, mission impact, growth, and long-term sustainability. The Director oversees the Project Management Office and the portfolio of enterprise strategic projects and transformational initiatives; leads strategic planning, organizational performance, transformation, continuous improvement, research, innovation, and strategic insights; and establishes enterprise performance reporting and business-intelligence practices. The role works with organizational leaders, executive sponsors, project leaders, and internal and external stakeholders to align priorities, resources, accountability, and execution. The position directly supervises the Manager, Research & Analytics and the Manager, Transformation & Process Excellence. It is responsible for team direction, coordination, evaluation, hiring, training, performance management, and departmental budgets and resources. Other job-related tasks may be assigned by the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university in Business Administration, Organizational Development, Public Administration, Strategy, Project Management, or a related field, together with at least seven years of progressively responsible relevant experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
Relevant experience must be in strategic planning, strategy execution, enterprise project or portfolio management, organizational transformation, performance excellence, or a related area.

Nice To Haves

PMP certification.
Prosci or comparable change-management training.
Lean/Six Sigma credentials.
Balanced Scorecard credentials.
Performance-excellence credentials, where supported by relevant experience.

Responsibilities

Lead the development, implementation, and periodic refresh of annual and multi-year strategic plans in partnership with the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer and organizational leaders.
Translate strategic priorities into measurable goals, enterprise initiatives, performance outcomes, milestones, resource assumptions, and accountability structures.
Establish and manage an enterprise strategy-execution cadence, including progress reviews, status validation, issue identification, and follow-up with accountable leaders.
Prepare strategic progress updates, planning materials, and recommendations for the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer, Executive Leadership Team, President & CEO, and Board of Directors.
Direct the Project Management Office and govern the portfolio of enterprise strategic projects and transformational initiatives.
Establish and maintain portfolio intake, prioritization, project-charter, stage-gate, reporting, change-control, risk-management, and closeout standards.
Partner with executive sponsors and project leaders to align project scope, schedules, budgets, benefits, resources, risks, stakeholder engagement, communication, training, and adoption.
Evaluate portfolio capacity, dependencies, and competing priorities, and recommend project sequencing, reprioritization, escalation, or corrective action.
Lead cross-functional transformation and continuous-improvement efforts to strengthen effectiveness, efficiency, scalability, team-member and customer experiences, and mission impact.
Use structured methods to identify root causes, eliminate non-value-added work, standardize effective processes, and deliver measurable results.
Integrate change-management practices into initiatives to support stakeholder alignment, readiness, communication, training, adoption, and sustained results.
Establish ownership, performance measures, and follow-up routines to align improvement efforts with strategic priorities and sustain results.
Lead environmental scanning, research, evaluation, scenario planning, pilots, and test-and-learn efforts supporting innovation, sustainable growth, and community impact.
Analyze social, economic, workforce, retail, technology, nonprofit-sector, and organizational trends to identify opportunities, risks, and strategic implications.
Develop business cases and recommendations concerning investment, partnership, scaling, redesign, or discontinuation of initiatives, services, or operating approaches.
Lead organizational data-quality, analytics, performance-reporting, and service-impact analysis efforts, including social return on investment (SROI), and oversee identification, evaluation, and reporting of key performance indicators.
Develop and manage an enterprise business-intelligence methodology and design data-capture processes and operational reporting that inform decisions and track performance against organizational goals and strategic priorities.
Facilitate cross-functional planning and decision-making, build shared accountability, and help leaders resolve barriers to execution.
Build internal, community, industry, and professional relationships to identify practices, benchmarks, partnerships, and insights relevant to strategy and organizational performance.
Lead, develop, and hold assigned team members accountable, and manage departmental resources, budgets, consultants, and vendors in accordance with organizational policies and priorities.
Supervise the Manager, Research & Analytics and the Manager, Transformation & Process Excellence, including hiring, training, work direction, performance appraisal, counseling, complaint resolution, and budget development and management.
Perform other job-related tasks as assigned by the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer.