Business Strategy & Planning Manager

Job content

Job Description

The role of the Business Strategy & Planning Manager reports directly into the President and Managing Director GM Europe and serves as the strategic advisor and counsel to the senior leadership team of GM Europe.

This position takes a primary role in the strategic planning process for the organization and will plan, develop, and implement strategies for all facets of business operations, including budgeting, administration, product planning, personnel, sales, and logistics. The focus will be on long-term growth and identifying tactics and practices to accomplish those goals.

This position must live the GM behaviors at all times and uphold the team style and culture on all occasions even through the face of adversity.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES/ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Communicating with the leadership team to foster business growth across European markets.
• Support defining a coherent strategic direction in line with GM’s purpose and strategic vision and ways to drive strategic results forward.
• Assuming day-to-day responsibility for selected business operation and growth projects.
• Creating and maintaining cross-departmental and cross market relationships to enable business success in European markets.
• Facilitating regional business projects, measuring business and strategic objectives and establishing processes and frameworks to ensure cross-functional team integration.
• Managing various business and strategic initiatives to ensure timely and qualitative achievement of milestones across the organization.
• Leveraging comprehensive strategy insights, advanced analytics and state of the art tools to enable long term sustainable business success for the region.
• Ensuring action items are completed on time, performing competitive assessments, implementing process improvements, and facilitating communication across teams, the role delivers critical information to the Executive leadership team of GM Europe to ensure the fulfilment of business objectives and long-term growth business plans.
• Leveraging business projects within Europe, GM International and Global GM to share best practices and support the European leadership towards technology and business model transformation.

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS/REQUIREMENTS

Knowledge:

• Deep knowledge of business strategy, strategy definition and project management execution
• Strong knowledge of automotive product development and marketing as well as understanding of the disruptions and future trends impacting global automotive markets
• Broad knowledge of customers, competition, markets, brands, vehicle segments, trends, business case elements
• Broad knowledge of budgeting, financial planning, sales/marketing, distribution channel development, customer experience.
• Understanding of European regional operations and the Europe’s nuances

Skills:

• Strategic planning, project management, communication, organization, innovation management, relationship building and relationship management
• Strong project management skills: ability to conduct multiple complex and long-term tasks simultaneously, with strong cross-department collaboration and high time-management acumen, demonstrates sense of ownership and sense of urgency
• Strong teamwork skills and the ability to work with all levels within the organization
• Ability to lead and inspire others; articulate a vision
• Ability to collaborate successfully in cross functional and cross-regional teams
• Ability to work on both levels (Strategic and Operational)
• Seeks out experts/information and demonstrates intellectual curiosity and drive for innovation
• High level of analytical ability and interpret complex quantitative and qualitative data and recommend solutions to problems.
• Ability to translate data and consumer perspectives into insights and recommendation
• Strong consumer research, strategy and analytical skills.
• Ability to communicate complex concepts with compelling, simple and impactful delivery; and more importantly visualize it. Interpretation of the business strategy is key for this role.
• Ability to make/recognize effective trade-off decisions and negotiate skillfully to win concessions without damaging relationships
• Comfortable in leading discussion with senior leaders and external partners and owning issues through to conclusion and work effectively and collaboratively in and outside the business unit to align stakeholders and drive decisions
• Strong written and oral communication skills
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint

Experience/Education:

• Master / MBA
• Min. 8+ years automotive industry
• International / Global Experience
• Experience in strategy definition, planning & project management execution
• Experience in customer insights: Ability to turn data into insights and connecting the dots. Interpretation of the business strategy and need is key for this role
• European background and / or work experience is a plus