Director, Strategic Planning

Description

SUMMARY

Leads enterprise strategic planning, strategy execution, portfolio governance, and organizational performance efforts under the direction of the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer. The Director translates the organization’s mission, long-term vision, and strategic priorities into measurable outcomes, coordinated initiatives, implementation plans, and management routines. This role facilitates cross-functional alignment, strengthens project and change-management discipline, advances continuous improvement and innovation, and provides the analysis and follow-through needed to improve organizational effectiveness, mission impact, growth, and long-term sustainability by performing the following duties.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES are organized by functional category. The duties listed below are representative of the responsibilities assigned to this position and are not intended to be all-inclusive.

Strategic Planning and Organizational Performance

• Leads the development, implementation, and periodic refresh of annual and multi-year strategic plans in partnership with the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer and organizational leaders.
• Translates strategic priorities into measurable goals, enterprise initiatives, performance outcomes, milestones, resource assumptions, and clear accountability structures.
• Establishes and manages an enterprise strategy-execution cadence, including progress reviews, status validation, issue identification, and follow-up with accountable leaders.
• Prepares concise strategic progress updates, planning materials, and recommendations for the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer, Executive Leadership Team, President & CEO, and Board of Directors.

Enterprise Project and Portfolio Management

• Directs the organization’s Project Management Office and governs the portfolio of enterprise strategic projects and transformational initiatives.
• Establishes and maintains portfolio intake, prioritization, project-charter, stage-gate, reporting, change-control, risk-management, and closeout standards.
• Partners with executive sponsors and project leaders to align scope, schedules, budgets, benefits, resources, risks, stakeholder engagement, communication, training, and adoption.
• Evaluates portfolio capacity, dependencies, and competing priorities and recommends project sequencing, reprioritization, escalation, or corrective action as needed.

Organizational Transformation and Continuous Improvement

• Leads cross-functional transformation and continuous-improvement efforts that strengthen effectiveness, efficiency, scalability, team-member and customer experiences, and mission impact.
• Applies structured methods to identify root causes, eliminate non-value-added work, standardize effective processes, and deliver measurable operational and organizational results.
• Integrates change-management practices into strategic initiatives and improvement efforts to support stakeholder alignment, readiness, communication, training, adoption, and sustained results.
• Establishes clear ownership, performance measures, and follow-up routines to ensure improvement efforts are aligned with strategic priorities and sustained over time.

Research, Innovation, and Strategic Insights

• Leads environmental scanning, research, evaluation, scenario planning, pilots, and test-and-learn efforts that support innovation, sustainable growth, and community impact.
• Analyzes social, economic, workforce, retail, technology, nonprofit-sector, and organizational trends to identify opportunities, risks, and strategic implications.
• Develops business cases and strategic recommendations regarding investment, partnership, scaling, redesign, or discontinuation of initiatives, services, or operating approaches.
• Leads organizational data-quality, analytics, performance-reporting, and service-impact analysis efforts, including social return on investment (SROI), and oversees the identification, evaluation, and reporting of key performance indicators.
• Develops and manages an enterprise business-intelligence methodology and designs data-capture processes and operational reporting that track performance, inform decision-making, and maximize impact in alignment with organizational goals and strategic priorities.

Leadership and Stakeholder Engagement

• Facilitates cross-functional planning and decision-making, builds shared accountability, and helps leaders resolve barriers that affect execution of strategic priorities.
• Builds internal, community, industry, and professional relationships to identify emerging practices, benchmarks, partnerships, and insights relevant to strategy and organizational performance.
• Leads, develops, and holds accountable assigned team members and manages departmental resources, budgets, consultants, and vendors in accordance with organizational policies and priorities.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

Directly supervises the Manager, Research & Analytics and the Manager, Transformation & Process Excellence. Responsible for the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation in all areas of responsibilities. Carries out supervisory responsibilities in accordance with the Agency's policies and procedures. Responsibilities include interviewing, hiring, and training team members; planning, assigning, and directing work; appraising performance; rewarding and counseling team members; addressing complaints and resolving problems; and budget development and management.

ADDITIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES

Performs other job-related tasks as assigned by the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer. 

Requirements

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE

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 experience in strategic planning, strategy execution, enterprise project or portfolio management, organizational transformation, performance excellence, or a related area; or an equivalent combination of education and experience. 

CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS

No certification is required. PMP, Prosci or comparable change-management training, Lean/Six Sigma, Balanced Scorecard, or performance-excellence credentials are preferred where supported by relevant experience.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS

While performing the duties of this job, the team member is regularly (more than 2/3 of the day) required to sit. The team member frequently (1/3 to 2/3 of the day) is required to use hands to finger, handle, or feel and talk or hear. The team member is occasionally (less than 1/3 of the day) required to walk. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision. Occasional local travel required.