Corporate Strategy Lead

MassMutual is a Fortune 100 company with scaled businesses spanning life insurance, annuities, wealth management, and asset management.

Our CFO organization is embarking on a transformative vision: To be known as trusted business partners to the company and stewards of long-term value creation for our policyowners by driving influence and impact through high-quality, timely insights.

Corporate Strategy contributes to this vision by identifying and analyzing emerging industry trends and competitive risks, recommending growth opportunities and ensuring business and corporate unit strategies align with the organizational vision and long-term aspirations. Corporate Strategy will also evolve its capabilities and develop a multi-year strategic planning framework, incorporating scenario-based planning.

Corporate Strategy accomplishes these goals by working with senior leaders to optimize our portfolio of businesses for the benefit of our participating policyholders. Corporate Strategy’s remit includes strategic planning, Board strategy, and internal consultancy all of which involves finding answers to top-of-mind business problems for senior leaders, including the CEO, Board of Directors, and Executive Leadership Team.

As a leader on the Corporate Strategy team, your efforts will focus on:

• Defining MassMutual’s strategy, including what metrics we use to measure success and optimizing our portfolio of businesses for long-term health and value
• Developing and collaborating with partners across the enterprise on Board strategy deliverables including macro analysis of the external and competitive environment
• Helping build out a robust strategic planning process tied to a refreshed annual planning process; including creating scenarios to pressure test strategic pathways
• Producing actionable business insights through in-depth knowledge of our existing businesses aligned with peer Consumer Insights and Market Insights organizations
• Scoping, designing and leading bespoke projects for senior leaders that solve key enterprise priorities
• Recruiting and developing iMMerse analysts with an emphasis on teaching them the strategy process and problem solving ((e.g., providing active coaching/feedback, serving as a developmental manager or mentor, leading part of our recruiting and training efforts).

MassMutual’s Corporate Strategy team adheres to a “classic” strategy process. We help the CEO, Board, and Executive Team on enterprise-level strategy and work with our CFO colleagues on building out a multi-year strategic planning process. We also serve as an “internal consultancy” where we help solve the most difficult business problems (typically cross-functional) facing our leaders.

The Corporate Strategy team is composed of high-performing professionals with a mix of top-tier financial services and management consulting experience. The Corporate Strategy team consists of the Strategy, Consumer Insights, and Market Insights functions. This role sits within the Strategy team, reports to the Head of Strategy, and works closely with the Head of Corporate Strategy. The team is aligned with MassMutual’s core values: focus on the customer, act with integrity, value people, work collaboratively, achieve results.

Characteristics of successful Strategy Leads include insatiable intellectual curiosity, courageous thought leadership, team leadership, relentless process and project management, and superior communication skills. The team is acutely aware that we are not professional problem solvers; we are professional communicators who solve problems to have our solutions adopted and drive value. Because we are reliant on peers across the organization for data and analysis, we approach each project humbly and as an opportunity to learn and collaborate knowing that we often co-present with our partners to senior leadership to diffuse the strategy process throughout the enterprise.

Cultivating, coaching, and mentoring of our Analysts is incredibly important. In turn, our Analysts provide our Strategy Leads with the leverage they need to grow and take on more responsibility. In addition, Strategy Leads take on leadership roles in the recruitment, training, and ongoing development of Analysts.

Strategy Leads will have compelling opportunities for significant professional advancement within the Corporate Strategy team and MassMutual more broadly.

This opportunity:

Takes the best aspects of external consulting, including high-value and leverage projects, exposure to senior executives, coaching, and team leadership Removes the downsides of external consulting, including most travel, non-strategic projects, “death by PowerPoint,” and potential misalignment of incentives All while working for a distinctive mutual life insurer with a portfolio of leading companies across financial services

The Minimum Qualifications

• 4+ years of strategy consulting experience (must be highly rated), inclusive of experience leading substantive portions of project teams or deep financial services industry knowledge (8+ years experience) and a proven ability to lead projects
• Strategy consulting experience should be from a top-tier management / strategy consulting firm or a similar role with a leading internal strategy function
• Bachelor’s degree from leading college or university; graduate degree is valued, but not a requirement
• Track record of developing Analysts through coaching and mentoring
• Ability to quickly break down problems in a structured manner, and prioritize analysis
• Ability to analyze complex data and draw out insights and implications
• Ability to create simple, powerful, and data-driven communications for senior leaders
• Ability to effectively communicate with senior leaders and build enduring, trust based and high-impact relationships with clients and other colleagues

What to Expect as Part of MassMutual and the Team

• Regular meetings with the Corporate Strategy team
• Focused one-on-one meetings with your manager
• Access to mentorship opportunities
• Networking opportunities including access to Asian, Hispanic/Latinx, African American, women, LGBTQ, veteran and disability-focused Business Resource Groups
• Access to learning content on Degreed and other informational platforms
• Your ethics and integrity will be valued by a company with a strong and stable ethical business with industry leading pay and benefits

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MassMutual is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer Minority/Female/Sexual Orientation/Gender Identity/Individual with Disability/Protected Veteran. We welcome all persons to apply. Note: Veterans are welcome to apply, regardless of their discharge status.
If you need an accommodation to complete the application process, please contact us and share the specifics of the assistance you need.