Director, Transformation & Strategy

Job Purpose

This position is a key enabler of enterprise-wide strategic initiatives development and execution.

At the onset, the priority will be orchestrating the operationalization of Panera Bread’s business transformation strategy, while continually evaluating the strategic priorities based on guest feedback, market information and internal capability development. 

In addition, this role will gather strategic insights and work with internal and external stakeholders to enable and facilitate annual (or more frequent) strategy evaluation and re-fresh sessions.

Location: Newton, MA/Hybrid

Strategy Execution

Responsible for Strategy Program Management, the Director will be the end-to-end process orchestrator to ensure that Panera Bread’s strategy execution initiatives and workstreams are consolidated, planned, sequenced, executed, and measured to deliver the strategic business outcomes.

They will partner closely with Strategy Pillars leads, Enabling Function leads, and other stakeholders to  create intentional cross-functional interlocks ensuring that initiatives are connected and paced, RACI’s and stage gates are in place, risks are identified and communicated, and performance is visible for multiple audiences.

This role is responsible for managing complex, cross-functional programs and ensuring alignment between strategic goals and execution. The leader will be highly engaged in facilitating cross-functional planning sessions, executive alignment meetings, and initiative follow-ups.

Strategy Development

Strategy is never static. As we progress our strategic ambitions, this leader will coordinate the information gathering and analysis to evaluate and refresh our strategic initiatives, develop new strategies and ensure strategic planning is dynamic and evolving.

Duties & Responsibilities – Strategic Transformation Execution

Transformation Portfolio Leadership

• Drive the design, execution, and governance of an integrated portfolio roadmap and calendar with milestones, interdependencies and clear ownership of workstreams aligned with enterprise priorities.
• Work with strategy leaders to develop an integrated transformation scorecard with relevant KPIs (financial, operational, engagement, etc.) and track progress, risks, “workstream collisions” and dependencies.
• Provide executive-level visibility adapted to different audiences (for Steering Committee, Executive Team and other stakeholders) into initiative status, risks, and business impacts through dashboards and reporting cadences.
• Lead the build out the program management tool capabilities to track the multiple workflows and ensure that all program participants adopt the program management tool.  If feasible, integrate the tool outputs into presentation templates.

Governance and Operating Cadence

• Ensure decision-making clarity with clear RACI frameworks and Delegation of Authority matrices to accelerate decision-making velocity.
• Lead and facilitate Governance forums in a focused, action-driving manner. Lead development of template and document formats for the Governance Forums (e.g. weekly progress sync, bi-weekly cross-functional steering committee meeting, monthly executive committee update)
• Drive standardization in tools, processes and reporting mechanisms to increase efficiency and transparency; maintain the TMO SharePoint collaboration drive.
• Ensure decision-making is consistently guest-centric and informed by the “voice of the café” and franchise feedback loop.

Risk, budget and capacity management

• Working with the finance leads, develop budgets and tracking mechanisms for sources and used of funds; ensure appropriate visibility for sources and uses of funds.
• Create and oversee a centralized list of risks, issues, dependencies & decisions (RIDD log) to mitigate overall program blockers & delays.  
• Working with the initiative and workstream leads, align capacity planning across functions and capture constraints (RSC and field)

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner with key departments and ensure intentional cross-functional interlocks among Operations, Operations Support, Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, Culinary, HR, IT, Communications, Field Leadership and Franchise Development to ensure cohesive execution.
• Build the awareness and framework of using agile business principles in decision-making (e.g. Minimal Viable Product, iterative decision making, fail fast and forward, develop alternative plans)
• Facilitate alignment across stakeholders to ensure pre-deployment readiness – they need to answer the question “How will this show up for the guest, and how will the café bring it to life?”.
• Act as a liaison between corporate strategy and field execution, ensuring feedback loops and continuous improvement.
• Build strong relationships with Restaurant Support Center and field leadership and franchisees to ensure joint accountability for results.

Change Management & Communication

• Working with the Panera Bread communications and HR teams, develop an integrated change management strategy (across multiple stakeholder groups) to support adoption strategic initiatives.
• Ensure we are agile and iterative in making decisions based on outward-in feedback loops

Duties & Responsibilities – Strategy Development

Periodic strategy evaluation and refresh

• Working closely with our guest & market insights and data & analytics teams, ensure continuous evaluation and potential evolution of our strategic initiatives
• Coordinate and facilitate the annual strategic planning process (objectives, information, materials, participants)
• Input into our long-term Objectives and Key Results development and measurement

Develop and organize execution of new strategy frameworks and initiatives

• As the environment and business evolves (e.g. new markets, assets, products), develop the strategies and execution frameworks to successfully achieve results 

Qualifications (Education & Experience)

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Strategy, or related field (MBA preferred)
• 10+ years of experience in strategy and broad scale transformation, ideally within the restaurant, retail, or hospitality sectors.  Top tier consulting background preferred.
• Strong program management skill and proven track record leading large-scale, cross-functional initiatives in a matrixed environment.
• Strong understanding of (or willingness/ability to rapidly learn) café operations and franchise system dynamics.
• Exceptional communication, influence, and stakeholder management skills.
• Boston based, willingness and ability to travel for strategic engagements.
• Ideal team-player qualities:  humble (don’t think less of yourself, think less about yourself than the team success), hungry (to learn, contribute, take on challenges), and people-smart (able to adapt approach& communication depending on audience)
• Familiar and comfortable with agile for business working practices

Working Conditions

• 3-4 days in office/week

Physical Requirements

• While performing this job, the incumbent is regularly required to stand, sit, talk, hear & use hands, and fingers to operate keyboards.

Direct Reports

This position will have approximately 2 direct reports.

Equal Opportunity Employer: Disabled/Veterans

Competitive Pay $177,243- $248,140 annually.

The actual pay offered will be determined by multiple factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s relevant experience, job-related knowledge, skills, and geographical location. Individual compensation decisions are dependent upon the facts and circumstances of each position and candidate.