Senior Corporate Strategy & Development Manager

Microsoft is on a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Our CEO’s vision of Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge world. The Microsoft Corporate Strategy Team is a small, specialized group that advises our CEO and executive leadership team on driving, assessing, and prioritizing the long-term strategic direction and growth for the company across its portfolio of existing and new offerings. The team has built a track record of spotting trends early and subsequently leading change throughout the company. The group broadly focuses on three sets of activities:

• Thought leadership on the future state of the industry (e.g., economics of the cloud) and potential impact to Microsoft’s overall strategy
• Counsel to executives on multi-billion dollar decisions (inclusive of “needle moving” growth drivers, large strategic acquisitions and partnerships, portfolio optimization, etc.)
• Internal projects to ensure Microsoft’s processes and operations enable the company to grow and achieve our mission

This role puts you in the middle of one of the world’s largest companies ($130B+ revenue) in the midst of several of the biggest disruptions the technology industry has ever seen. As a Senior Corporate Strategy & Development Manager, you will drive formal quantitative and qualitative analytical decision support on high-priority, cross-company strategic issues. Example project areas include: strategic acquisition evaluation, value chain assessment, white space opportunity sizing, business model analysis, new initiative ideation, and competitive analysis and game theory.

Responsibilities

Corporate Strategy

• 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.
• 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.

Research, Analysis, & Framing

• Conducts market-based research by identifying and gathering information (e.g., financial statements, reports, analyses, stakeholder feedback, expert calls); interprets information with guidance from tenured colleagues as needed, including researching existing business and identifying new spaces for Microsoft; conducts analyses (e.g., financial modeling) to validate proposed ideas and inform business decisions.
• Assists in refining initial framing established by project lead for strategic questions and applies structure to analysis.

Problem Solving & Insight

• 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 support strategic recommendations for Microsoft, with guidance from project leads.

Communication

• Produce high-quality executive communications and arguments to facilitate discussions and decision making
• Deliver project findings, recommendations, and implications to executives clearly and succinctly
• Communicates and advocates insights to business leaders (e.g., Senior Managers, Directors) and conveys viewpoints through written documents (e.g., memos, reports) and influence models (e.g., meetings, presentations) through multiple iterations of feedback and vetting, creating and executing outlines.
• Delivers project findings, recommendations, and implications to business partners to facilitate discussions and decision making.

Business Partner Relationships

• Deliver project findings, recommendations, and implications to executives clearly and succinctly