Strategy Manager

Job description

About the role

We have a unique opportunity for a Strategy Manager to join our Strategy Team here at the John Lewis Partnership. In this role, you will be a strategic business partner, supporting business leaders and their teams with enterprise and line of business strategy, as well as strategically prioritised projects and business planning activity. You will use a combination of your natural curiosity for understanding the internal and external market conditions in which we trade, your aptitude for synthesising complex data and insight into clear choices and recommendations, and your ability to work collaboratively with senior business leaders to provide clarity and to enable the right decisions to be made quickly and confidently.

This role operates across all areas of the Partnership (i.e. John Lewis, Waitrose, Enterprise, shared capabilities), bringing strategic thinking and analysis to critical business questions. Your work will ensure we stand apart from our competitors and will directly impact on the strategic choices the Partnership makes.

· 
Salary - £70,000 - £100,000. Expected salary - middle of the pay range (dependent on experience).

· 
Contract type - This position is a permanent contract.

· 
Working pattern/flexible working - The Partnership has adopted a hybrid working approach, meaning you'll be able to work a mixture between the office and home based upon your personal needs whilst balancing the needs of the business. The Strategy team aims for around 1-2 days a week in the office to connect and on a more ad-hoc basis to attend key meetings. 

· 
Location - This role will be based at our Head Office in Pimlico, London, with occasional travel to other Partnership locations.

· 
We recommend that you apply as soon as possible, as it is likely that this vacancy will close early should we see a high volume of applicants.

Key responsibilities

· 
Working across a number of individual and overlapping projects, whilst continuously defining and improving the strategy, planning and decision making processes for the Partnership.

· 
Understanding Internal and External Conditions: Supported by expertise in the team, build an evidence-based understanding of the internal and external environment across the dimensions of business, customer & Partner, to contribute to the ongoing development of a set of strategic assumptions. Using this insight to facilitate business strategy updates, discussions and decisions. This includes contributing to and creating compelling discussion papers that aid Executive and Senior Leadership debate and decision making.

· 
Strategic Choices: working collaboratively with e.g. Data, Insight & Analytics, Finance and others, to produce analysis and research which enables the creation of robust strategic options. Engaging in problem solving and idea generation, and building models to develop strategic options which include risks and opportunities for the Partnership strategy.

· 
Business Partnering and Stakeholder Management: working collaboratively with stakeholders of all levels, including the Executive, and across all areas of the business to develop strategy and deliver specific strategic projects.

· 
Strategy and Planning Alignment; defining success criteria for the Partnership, line of business, and strategy projects. Working with the Strategic Planning team to align with plans, activities and scorecards to ensure success tracking can take place, encouraging an agile mindset and enabling course corrections where required.

· 
Strategic Narrative and Communication: supporting the creation and communication of a clear and cohesive strategic narrative for individual projects, lines of business and the overall Partnership, working with the team to bring together key elements of the strategic story.

· 
Centre of Professional Excellence: inputting into the development of the strategy team as a centre of excellence, creating and maintaining a Partnership approach to strategy that enables consistent application and a central store of key questions/decisions.

Essential skills/experience you’ll need

● Demonstrable experience of strategy consulting or strategy training, advising Director, Executive Team, and Board level leaders on corporate strategy

● Demonstrable experience of framing strategy, conclusions and recommendations, leveraging strategy theory and best practice, to enable quick and sound decision making

● Demonstrable experience of influencing and working collaboratively with stakeholders at all levels and in a range of business contexts, in particular at Director, Exec and Board level

● Demonstrable experience of being a self-starter, independent worker and with experience of leading major projects and programmes influencing strategy

● Excellent written communication skills, experience of writing reports and presentations that are presented to and used at Director, Exec and Board level

● Highly numerate, confident building quantitative (including financial) models and sizing the impacts of enterprise strategic choices

● Demonstrable experience developing clear point of view of market, competitive strategy and macro landscape and confidently summarising and sharing this with business leaders

 

Desirable skills/experience you may have

● Degree level education or equivalent relevant experience

● Knowledge of one or more of the following sectors: Retail (Grocery and/or General Merchandise), Financial Services

 

The Partnership

We’re the largest employee owned business in the UK and home of our cherished brands, John Lewis and Waitrose. We’re not just employees, we’re Partners, driven by our purpose to build a happier world. As we look to our future, there’s never been a more exciting time to join us.  

We’re ruthlessly focused on being brilliant at retail. We continue to innovate, adapt and diversify. Never Knowingly Undersold on price, quality and service in John Lewis and passionately serving food-lovers in Waitrose.   

As Partners we all share the responsibility of ownership and in its rewards. We use our voices to contribute to our success, working together through the good and challenging times, holding true to our behaviours and treating everyone with kindness and respect. 

We all own making the Partnership somewhere we belong. Embracing our differences and creating an environment where we’re free to be ourselves and can THRIVE. Growing ourselves individually, and as a collective. 

As Partners, we make all the difference. And, we all own it.  

Important points to note:   

It’s important to note that some of our roles are subject to pre-employment vetting (which may include DBS checks for successful candidates). If required, you’ll be informed and provided with information about vetting during the recruitment process and we encourage you to complete any vetting documents quickly to avoid delays. Any DBS checks required will be carried out by a third-party registered body and financial probity checks may also be required for some of our roles.   

We also recommend that you apply as soon as possible as vacancies can close early if we see a high number of applicants.   

We want all of our Partners to have a good work-life balance and we support flexible working. This might mean flexible or compressed hours, job sharing or shorter hour contracts, where possible. Please discuss this further with the hiring manager during your interview.  

 

Attachment: Download Job Attachment