Senior Strategy & Decision Analyst

USA Rare Earth, LLC

About The Position

The Senior Strategy & Decision Analyst is responsible for ensuring the Group’s most consequential decisions meet the six elements of Decision Quality: an appropriate frame, creative and doable alternatives, meaningful and reliable information, clear values and trade-offs, sound reasoning, and commitment to action. The role has primary responsibility for elaborating the Group’s and Business Units’ cascading strategies in ongoing collaboration with their leaders, integrating strategy development with the decisions that implement it. Acting as a neutral, honest broker, the analyst upholds rigorous decision processes and embeds risk-based and optionality-oriented thinking into decisions and execution plans. The role supports strategy definition and implementation, structures and analyzes complex decisions, evaluates strategic alternatives quantitatively, and facilitates decision processes with decision-makers and analysis teams. It also supports decision governance, M&A, and major capital projects; builds organizational decision-making capability; and will build and lead a small decision-support team over time. The successful candidate will join the Group’s Corporate Development team and champion the Group’s values in strategy facilitation, decision analysis, and stakeholder interactions.

Requirements

At least 10 years of experience in decision analysis or decision science, or strategy consulting with a demonstrable decision-analysis practice.
Deep practical command of decision framing and structuring, probability elicitation and debiasing, Monte Carlo simulation, decision trees and influence diagrams, real options, value of information, multi-objective trade-off analysis, financial modelling, and valuation.
Proven experience facilitating executive-level decision and strategy processes, including leading workshops with business-unit, operating-unit, and function leaders and challenging senior leaders on framing and logic while remaining neutral on content.
Strong communication skills, including the ability to explain probabilistic and abstract concepts clearly to Boards and operational leaders, both in materials and in person.
Track record of building decision competency within organizations, not only delivering analyses.
English fluency.
Commitment to integrity, transparency, accountability, accuracy, ethics, stakeholder responsibility, excellence, innovation, agility, entrepreneurial drive, partnership, and shared value.

Nice To Haves

Experience in natural resources, energy, or capital-intensive industries is ideal.
Affiliation with the Society of Decision Professionals or an equivalent organization is valued.
SDP certification, such as Decision Analysis Affiliate or Practitioner, is a plus.
Portuguese and/or French language skills are an advantage.

Responsibilities

Meet regularly with organizational leaders to elaborate and implement cascading strategies, identify growth initiatives and strategic issues, and gather bottom-up input for Group strategy iteration.
Assist the Board and CEO with defining Group strategy and contribute to negotiating key agreements.
Work with Finance and operations to translate growth initiatives and strategic issues into budget inputs.
Continuously shape strategy based on developments on the ground and stakeholder interactions, coordinating strategy work with decision support.
Frame consequential decisions with the executive team by defining decision hierarchy, clarifying what is being decided and by whom, and identifying relevant values before analysis begins.
Structure complex decision situations into decisions, risks and uncertainties, and values using influence diagrams, decision hierarchies, and strategy tables.
Develop creative and distinct alternatives for major decisions, including hybrid strategies, and preserve optionality in execution.
Lead quantitative evaluation of strategic alternatives using stochastic analysis, probabilistic financial modelling, Monte Carlo simulation, decision trees, tornado and sensitivity analysis, and real options valuation.
Elicit calibrated probability assessments from technical and commercial experts, quantify uncertainty, and counter cognitive and motivational biases.
Apply value-of-information and value-of-control analysis to direct study, piloting, and de-risking expenditure toward decision-relevant uncertainties.
Make value trade-offs explicit, including NPV versus risk, growth versus resilience, and short-term cash versus strategic positioning.
Embed risk-based analysis into strategy, budgeting, capital planning, project analysis, and M&A analysis; stress-test strategic assumptions and support resilience.
Design and facilitate decision dialogue between decision-makers and project or analysis teams, iterating framing, alternatives, analysis, and commitment with decision-makers.
Support decision review boards and stage-gate governance for major capital projects, and provide independent Decision Quality assessments of decisions prepared elsewhere.
Help leaders structure, analyze, and present difficult decisions, including providing negotiation support for key agreements.
Support strategy and M&A work, including decision-analysis input to M&A screening, evaluation, and post-merger integration planning.
Train executives and analysts in Decision Quality concepts and establish common standards, templates, and language for framing, analyzing, and documenting decisions and risks.
Establish proportionate Decision Quality standards for major strategic and capital decisions and recurring decisions, and embed them in planning and budgeting cycles with Finance.
Build and lead a small decision-support team over time and manage external decision-analysis and consulting support as needed.
Model and champion the Group’s values in strategy facilitation, decision analysis, and stakeholder interactions.