Director of Strategy and Business Excellence Automotive, Japan + ASEAN

Job Overview

The Director, Automotive JASEAN Strategy and Business Excellence is a member of the JASEAN Automotive leadership team and reports to Automotive JASEAN General Manager

The Director is responsible for accelerating organization performance and growth through cohesive strategy planning and execution, focus on value creation and by ensuring execution cadence through a framework of reviews, feedback and metrics for impact and effectiveness. In addition, the role is responsible for assessing other strategic initiatives, at all levels of the JASEAN organization. This will require the individual to gain a deep knowledge of the business and organization to effectively partner and consult. In this high visibility and high-impact role, the Director will drive the organic and inorganic growth process of Automotive in the JASEAN region and all strategy development and partner in M&A activities in business

In addition to the above, the role will be responsible for driving Pricing decisions in the region and leading distribution strategy.

Job Requirements

Market Sensing & Strategy Development Leadership:

• Acts as a key, trusted advisor to Auto JASEAN GM on critical changes in the competitive landscape, JASEAN marketplace and external business environment
• Articulate market trends, demand drivers, customer needs, industry trends, and competitive landscape
• Develop new ideas and constructively challenge existing ones, for the organization to refine its "where to play" and "how to win" choices to drive growth and sustain competitive advantage
• Lead market analysis, market sensing and scenario planning to plan for and countermeasure against impacts to the business related to the megatrends of electrification, data connectivity and autonomous driving in the broader automotive industry
• Conduct competitive analysis, benchmarking and market segmentation exercises that support country teams to develop strategies that look for opportunities that break new ground and expand addressable market.
• Ensure existing strategies are constructively challenged, improved, and presented in a manner that secures buy-in from key stakeholders and alignment on the quantum and timing of investment
• Drive efficient and effective use of capital investments to ensure they are aligned with strategy and financial expectations
• Identify strategic risks and help to mitigate or reduce these risks

Strategy Execution Leadership:

• Support Automotive JASEAN leaders and General Manager in designing and deploying a growth process / management operating system to drive consistent execution of the region’s growth objectives
• Champion and drive the growth process on behalf of the GM, including the selection of the topics, review format design, cadence, and ensuring follow-through on commitments. Ensures that appropriate metrics are in place to measure performance and progress towards strategic goals
• Act as the active leader to liaison with AP and global strategy function and to drive for cross global and cross region collaboration.
• Partner with Operations leadership to refine operational strategy and scale digital solutions.
• Help identify major technology and market inflection points in the short, medium, and long term, assess their potential business value and guide strategy development
• Manages several complex projects autonomously; escalating issues to the Global Automotive President as needed
• Creates and maintains cross-functional relationships to enable leadership success

Commercial excellence:

• Partner with country GM to create regional strategies (i.e. distribution, pricing, etc.)
• Identify opportunities to leverage scale, to create efficiencies across the region
• Manage cross regional processes e.g. incentive planning, goal setting, etc.
• Identify, deploy and reinforce best practices/ processes across the region
• Partner with AP S&OP teams and drive high quality inputs and outcomes

Mergers and Acquisitions:

• Partner with global and regional leadership, and other key stakeholders to develop the inorganic strategy and the M&A pipeline
• Act as the interface with corporate M&A team on the due diligence and deal approval processes
• Support the process of developing a detailed post-merger integration plan and lead the process of monitoring integration execution to facilitate achieving the targets outlined in the deal model

What your background should look like

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Science or Engineering is required. MBA from a top graduate program highly preferred
• Seasoned executive who has previously held several business and/or operational roles in fast paced, regional and complex environments. Work experience should include success in a period of growth and/or transition.
• Experience in more than one Asia country markets will be a plus
• Several years’ experience with strategic planning & execution with a global corporation, with at least 5 years of experience and success as a growth champion and a trusted advisor to senior executives in a large, global corporation
• Exceptional strategy development and communication skills — has track record of successfully leading and program-managing complex, high-stakes strategy and corporate development efforts which require high-levels of conceptual thinking, problem structuring and analysis, cross functional team leadership, and the ability to work across organizational boundaries
• Superior financial acumen — able to identify and articulate the value-creation drivers and advocate for the right bets and trade-offs in managing a complex business portfolio
• Leadership gravitas and communication skills to influence or challenge GM and executive teams on the investments and actions needed to accomplish growth objectives
• Skilled at taking complex concepts and communicating them effectively to diverse audiences
• Ability to influence on a global and virtual stage, combination of humility and demonstrating managerial courage, an approachable/ transparent style, inspiring confidence & trust
• Ability to attract, motivate, and develop a small, high-performing Strategy team.
• Ability to design the organization and performance goals for effective service to key internal customers.
• Experience in providing leadership to and developing functional skills in mid-to-senior level leaders outside the function.
• Experience in developing and rolling out strategy, industry-marketing, product management training programs and hands-on experience in leading the skills-development effort will be highly valued
• Willingness to travel (up to 25%) to Automotive locations within the region to work on growth and margin expansion initiatives with TE colleagues, to meet customers, distribution channel partners and potential M&A targets, and to attend industry conferences
• Skilled at working and leading in a multi-cultural environment
• Must have fluency in English.

Competencies