Director, Strategy & Operations
NorthMark · Dallas
The Company
NorthMark Compute & Cloud (NMC²) is backed by dedicated leadership and investment, with a clear mission as it operates at the bleeding edge of technology. Its goal is to scale and enhance the high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud infrastructure that supports its clients' research, production, and delivery, enabling breakthroughs that shape the industries of tomorrow. Its engineers build critical infrastructure to eliminate friction in scientific research, simulations, analysis, and decision-making, accelerating discovery and driving faster innovation.
The Position
We are seeking a Director of Strategy & Operations, reporting to the Chief Operating Officer (COO), to drive the company's core planning and executive governance rhythms — from long-range strategy through to the metrics that hold teams accountable to it day to day. This role sits at the intersection of strategy, finance, and executive communication: you will build and run the company's 3-Year Plan and Annual Operating Plan processes, lead the preparation and synthesis behind Monthly Business Reviews, and drive the preparation of board and investor materials — working in close partnership with the COO, who owns final decisions and the direct relationship with the board and investors.
Beyond planning artifacts, you will drive the mechanism by which company-level strategy becomes team-level accountability — cascading OKRs into operating metrics that functional leaders can actually manage against — and you will help design and steward the broader cadence of business rhythms (weekly, monthly, quarterly) that keep the company aligned as it scales. This is a high-visibility role with direct, regular exposure to the COO, CEO, CFO, and executive leadership, and it carries direct people-leadership responsibility for a team of Strategy & Operations personnel — experienced individual contributors who can run workstreams independently and need coaching and prioritization, not step-by-step direction.
Responsibilities
- Assist the COO in developing and refreshing the company's 3-Year Plan, driving the underlying analysis and translating long-range strategy discussions into a coherent, resourced roadmap the COO can bring to the CEO and executive leadership.
- Drive the Annual Operating Plan process on the COO's behalf — setting the calendar, pushing functional leaders to submit and defend targets, and reconciling AOP commitments with the 3-Year Plan and available budget.
- Own the design and mechanics of Monthly Business Reviews, synthesizing performance data across functions into a clear, decision-ready narrative that the COO reviews and delivers to leadership.
- Assist the COO with investor meeting preparation, coordinating with Finance/IR to build materials, anticipate investor questions, and ensure the company's narrative and numbers are consistent across external touchpoints — while the COO owns the investor relationship.
- Assist the COO with board meeting preparation — building board decks, pre-reads, and briefing materials, and stress-testing them for gaps — while the COO owns the board relationship and final delivery.
- Drive the cascade of company-level OKRs into function- and team-level operating metrics, in partnership with the COO, ensuring every team can see how its work ladders up to company goals and that metrics stay reconciled as priorities shift.
- Help design and maintain the company's business rhythms and governance calendar (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual), ensuring the right forums, owners, and follow-through exist at each cadence — without over-proliferating meetings.
- Manage a team of Strategy & Operations personnel — setting workstream priorities, providing air cover and escalation support, and coaching on executive-ready synthesis rather than day-to-day task direction.
- Own hiring, performance management, and career development for the team, including calibrating what 'ready for more scope' looks like at that level.
- Partner closely with Finance/FP&A on the financial models and assumptions underlying the 3YP, AOP, and MBR processes, ensuring strategic and financial plans stay in sync.
- Serve as a trusted advisor and thought partner to the COO — and, as needed, the broader executive leadership team — on strategic priorities, tradeoffs, and organizational implications.
- Identify gaps or friction in current planning and governance processes and lead the redesign of frameworks, templates, and tools to close them.
- Represent Strategy & Operations in cross-functional leadership forums, ensuring consistency between company-wide planning artifacts and function-specific execution plans.
- Partner with senior management and the Centre of Excellence (CoE) to build, maintain, and enhance the company's stochastic business model, ensuring outputs remain robust, current, and decision-ready
- Design and build a centralized process repository covering core business processes, establishing a single source of truth for how the business operates
- Contribute to the design and delivery of company culture initiatives, supporting employee engagement and embedding company values across the organization
- Support value-driver initiatives by helping identify, track, and report on the key levers of business performance
- Act as a connector across teams, championing collaboration and continuous improvement
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Finance, Economics, Engineering, or a related field; MBA preferred.
- 8-12+ years of experience in corporate strategy, FP&A, investment banking, management consulting, or a comparable strategy & operations function, including direct experience building 3-year plans and annual operating plans.
- Demonstrated experience preparing materials for and presenting to boards of directors and/or investors, with strong command of what a board- or investor-level narrative requires.
- Prior experience managing experienced individual contributors (not entry-level analysts) — able to delegate real ownership, coach without micromanaging, and earn credibility with direct reports who already have deep functional expertise.
- Excellent executive presence and synthesis skills — able to distill ambiguous, cross-functional data into a clear, defensible narrative under time pressure.
- Experience designing or running OKR frameworks and translating company-level goals into team-level metrics.
- Comfort operating with significant autonomy and direct, regular exposure to C-level executives and the board.
- Bonus: prior experience in a high-growth infrastructure, cloud, or HPC business; experience standing up planning/governance processes from scratch at a scaling company.
It is impossible to list every requirement for, or responsibility of, any position. Similarly, we cannot identify all the skills a position may require since job responsibilities and the Company’s needs may change over time. Therefore, the above job description is not comprehensive or exhaustive. The Company reserves the right to adjust, add to or eliminate any aspect of the above description. The Company also retains the right to require all employees to undertake additional or different job responsibilities when necessary to meet business needs.
Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship, now or at any time in the future.
Benefits & Perks:
Company-Paid Lunch Stipend: Lunch is provided via GrubHub
Company-Paid Benefits: 100% Employer-Paid Medical in our High Deductible Health Plan, Dental and Vision benefits for employees and their families, 16 weeks of Paid Parental Leave, Employee Assistance Program, Life insurance, Short-Term Disability and Long-Term Disability
401(k): Company will match 100% of your contributions up to 6%
Optional Employee-Paid Benefits: Medical insurance in our PPO plan and a variety of other benefits such as Health Savings Accounts (with Company Contribution!), Flexible Spending Accounts, Supplemental Life Insurance, Wellhub and more.
Time Off: 25 days of Paid Time Off plus 12 company holidays
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER
NORTHMARK STRATEGIES LLC IS AN EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER. THE COMPANY'S POLICY IS NOT TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST ANY APPLICANT OR EMPLOYEE BASED ON RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, NATIONAL ORIGIN, GENDER, AGE, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, GENDER IDENTITY OR EXPRESSION, MARITAL STATUS, MENTAL OR PHYSICAL DISABILITY, AND GENETIC INFORMATION, OR ANY OTHER BASIS PROTECTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. THE FIRM ALSO PROHIBITS HARASSMENT OF APPLICANTS OR EMPLOYEES BASED ON ANY OF THESE PROTECTED CATEGORIES.