Associate Director - Corporate Strategy & Development

• Leads key strategy projects and orchestrate workstreams across the Corporate Strategy team
• owns overall efforts (i.e., full accountability of projects), including project plans, recommendations, impact, and syndication across groups
• Coaches and mentors team members. Provides professional development guidance and opportunities to project team members
• Develop and deliver divisional level analysis, options, execution plans, and recommendations based on analytical rigor, logic, and subject matter expertise
• Proactively spot strategic opportunities missed by others and plot insightful approaches to address them
• Investigates and provides an analysis of competitors, partners, business models, market sizing, and industry trends. Investigates and provides analysis of the merger and acquisition (M&A), venture funding, and public market environment and trends. Conducts market landscape analyses and reviews of companies of potential interest. Provides guidance to business partners to inform decision-making
• Develops an understanding of Microsoft’s product portfolio, strategic priorities, competitive position, gaps, and potential opportunities. Investigates and provides an analysis of the merger and acquisition (M&A), venture funding and public market environment and trends. Supports and reviews product roadmap, go-to-market, integration plans, and related Issues
• Defines initial framing of strategic questions and analyses for project team to conduct
• Leads project team and/or independently conducts market-based research, including identifying and gathering information (e.g., financial statements, reports, analyses, stakeholder feedback, expert calls)
• interprets information with guidance from senior colleagues as needed, including researching existing business and identifying new spaces for Microsoft
• structures and conducts analyses (e.g., financial modeling) to validate proposed ideas and inform business decisions
• Guide project team problem solving through development of frameworks/methodologies to create insightful analysis and recommendations
• identify the right question to frame the team’s work
• Synthesizes findings into insights within a project, including implications that inform business decisions
• leverages insights to develop recommendations and provide thought leadership (e.g., trend identification, implications of competitor moves) around potential future growth opportunities and strategic issues for Microsoft
• Communicates and advocates insights to executive business leaders (e.g., GM+) and conveys viewpoints through written documents (e.g., memos, reports) and influence models (e.g., meetings, presentations) through multiple iterations of feedback and vetting, building and executing end-to-end storylines
• Delivers project findings, recommendations, and implications to senior executives and business partners clearly and succinctly to facilitate senior discussions and decision making
• Establishes and maintains key points of contact with internal teams (e.g., Finance, Marketing, Engineering). Builds working relationships with executive stakeholders and business partners (e.g., GM+). Shares knowledge with business leaders (e.g., Senior Managers, Directors) on a particular area of expertise, leveraging and broadening deep technical/product knowledge and market awareness for a domain to inform strategic business decisions.

Master's Degree in Business Administration or related field AND 3+ years marketing, strategy, business planning, consulting, banking, finance, economics, and/or partner organization experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Liberal Arts, Computer Science, or related field AND 4+ years marketing, strategy, business planning, consulting, banking, finance, economics, and/or partner organization experience OR equivalent experience.

• Master's Degree in Business Administration or related field AND 6+ years marketing, strategy, business planning, consulting, banking, finance, economics, and/or partner organization experience OR Bachelor's Degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Liberal Arts, Computer Science, or related field AND 8+ years marketing, strategy, business planning, consulting, banking, finance, economics, and/or partner organization experience OR equivalent experience
• 6+ years experience in Strategy, Management Consulting, and/or Finance
• 1+ years experience leading project teams in consulting, corporate strategy, or related function
• 1+ years experience in tech-related roles (e.g., tech corporate strategy, tech consulting, software engineering) or on tech-focused projects in consulting, banking, strategy, or related fields