Our client is a Series-C funded Enterprise SaaS company, making critical infrastructure industries climate resilient and sustainable with satellites and AI. Using its full-stack SaaS solutions, customers in electric, gas, water utilities, transportation, and construction are transforming asset inspection and maintenance while complying with biodiversity net gain mandates and carbon capture goals.

Customers achieve ROI in their first year of deployment through reduced costs, improved reliability, and successful sustainability initiatives.

Why This Role Exists:

Our client's R&D organization is a 100+ people serving over 70 enterprise customers. Our portfolio spans 4 vertical products, built on a common platform & proprietary AI models, and is coordinated across Product, Engineering, Data Science, QA, Design, DevOps, Professional Services, and Field Services teams. As our customers and products grow, we are looking to redefine and build the future R&D operating system for excellence & scale -from the ground up.

We're establishing this Strategy & Operations function to drive cross-functional coordination, lead high-impact strategic programs, and provide data-driven insights that inform how we structure, invest in, and scale our R&D organization. As our Senior Manager, Strategy & Operations, you'll be one of the first hires on this team-a true 0-to-1 opportunity to define how a fast-growing AI company coordinates complex work across a 200-person technical organization.

This isn't a typical strategy role. You won't hand off recommendations for others to execute. You'll own strategic programs end-to-end-from business case through delivery-while simultaneously building the strategic insights, governance frameworks, and operational infrastructure that enable a world-class R&D organization.

The Role

As Senior Manager - Strategy & Operations, you will drive impact across the organization and own:

Strategic Programs

You'll own multiple high-impact, cross-functional initiatives with measurable business outcomes. This would entail building the business case, coordinating pilots across functions, tracking ROI, and scaling successful initiatives. Examples include AI Adoption, COGS Reduction, Annual Planning Process Redesign, Platform Adoption

Strategic Analysis & Insights

You'll provide data-driven insights that inform R&D strategy and organizational decisions.

- Organizational Effectiveness

- Conducting regular assessments of or team structure, capacity utilization, benchmarking productivity metrics and tracking R&D efficiency metrics to recommend improvements

- Competitive Intelligence & Market Benchmarking

- Research industry best practices for R&D organization, processes, and tooling; Analyze competitor capabilities and positioning to inform strategic priorities; Monitor emerging technologies and methodologies

- Strategic Investment Analysis

- Build financial models for technology investment decisions, Lead build vs. buy evaluations, Track R&D investment allocation across innovation, platform, vertical products, and maintenance, Ensure strategic initiatives connect to company-level OKRs with clear progress tracking

- Executive & Board Communication

- Own R&D narrative for quarterly business reviews and board presentations

- Synthesize complex technical and organizational topics into executive-ready insights

- Report portfolio health with accuracy, objectivity, and persistence-building trust through fact-based truth-telling

Operational Excellence:

You'll design the coordination mechanisms that enable cross-functional work & setup governance mechanisms for visibility & risk management.

- Process Design

- Create lightweight cross-functional workflows for recurring activities: planning cycles, customer onboarding, product launches, imagery acquisition coordination

- Build playbooks and templates that teams actually use (not binders that collect dust)

- Governance & Decision Frameworks

- Establish decision rights, RACI matrices, and escalation paths for cross-functional scenarios

- Create forums that enable fast, informed decision-making (steering committees, working groups)

- Performance Tracking & Visibility

- Build dashboards providing executive visibility into program health, dependencies, and bottlenecks

- Define success metrics for cross-functional initiatives (cycle time, on-time delivery, automation rate)

- Identify and mitigate risks early to keep initiatives on track

- Change Management

- Drive adoption of new processes through stakeholder engagement, training, and communication

- Measure adoption metrics and iterate based on feedback

- Act as liaison between functions to build cross-functional trust and understanding

What you'll love about the role:

- High visibility and impact: your work will involve working closely with the executive team and will directly influence the product, cost, schedule, and customer outcomes across the entire portfolio

- Mission-driven company: join a team that is securing tomorrow by making critical infrastructure more reliable, resilient, and sustainable in the face of climate change

What This Role Is NOT:

- Pure strategy role: You won't just create PowerPoint recommendations-you'll drive execution

- Traditional PMO: We're not managing Gantt charts and sending status reports-we're leading strategic transformation

- Process police: We're not enforcing compliance-we're enabling better outcomes through smart coordination

Minimum Qualifications:

- 4-6+ years at top-tier management consulting firms or 6-8+ years in internal strategy, strategic operations, or chief-of-staff roles at high-growth tech companies

- Proven ability to lead complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives without direct authority

- Proven program and project management experience with evidence of delivering results and driving impact

- Meticulous, data-driven planning with comfort building and running dashboards

- Strong leadership without direct authority, able to influence and redirect stakeholders across silos

- Ability to cut through competing narratives and create a clear, fact-based view for ambiguous problem statements of varying nature

- Self-starter who drives their own work with minimal supervision

Preferred Qualifications:

- Experience in technology sector, ideally with B2B SaaS, AI/ML, or platform companies

- Exposure to program and portfolio tools such as Jira, Smartsheet, MS Project, PowerBI, or Tableau