Location: IB (International Baccalaureate®) Global Centre, The Hague (NL) or Cardiff (UK)

The Strategy Director is a key member of the IB Leaders Forum, responsible for shaping, influencing, and enabling delivery of the IB’s strategic vision. This role exercises director-level autonomy, leading cross-functional teams and decision-making forums to drive organisational transformation. The Director champions strategic foresight, integrating global trends and advanced analytics into long-term planning, and mentors senior leaders to foster a culture of innovation and shared leadership. With accountability for high-impact decisions and strategic outcomes, the Director ensures the IB is positioned to achieve its mission and expand its impact globally.

The Strategy Design and Delivery department is empowered with managing the entire strategy design and delivery cycle from end-to-end. This includes:

Defining long-term strategy outcomes and plans as well as initiatives to achieve
Setting initiatives up for success by clearly defining and enforcing best practices to start strategic initiatives on a solid foundation
Setting up and managing a governance structure that ensures initiatives receive the necessary guidance and monitoring
Providing the right strategic partnership and project management support to effectively drive the delivery and the execution of strategic initiatives and the strategy as a whole
Taking a step-back to align the portfolio of initiatives on intended outcomes

To do this, the Strategy Design and Delivery team is envisioned to have two “sub-functions”:

Strategy design
Strategy delivery

The Strategy Director is a key member of the IB Leaders Forum, responsible for shaping, influencing, and enabling delivery of the IB’s strategic vision. This role exercises director-level autonomy, leading cross-functional teams and decision-making forums to drive organisational transformation. The Director champions strategic foresight, integrating global trends and advanced analytics into long-term planning, and mentors senior leaders to foster a culture of innovation and shared leadership. With accountability for high-impact decisions and strategic outcomes, the Director ensures the IB is positioned to achieve its mission and expand its impact globally.

Proven track record of successfully leading strategy teams – through both design and delivery – ideally at international organizations generating $200M+ in revenue
Proven track record of successfully designing and delivering complex programmes of work
Experience in project monitoring and reporting
Experience working in a non-profit or educational environment is a plus.
Educational background in business, strategy, or a related field desirable; MBA or equivalent is desirable.
Deep understanding of strategy design and strategic planning methodologies
Strong data analysis skills, with the ability to derive insights and drive decisions.
Strategic Leadership: Demonstrated ability to inspire and mobilise senior leaders and teams, shaping organisational culture and driving transformational change.
Change Leadership: Advanced diplomacy and influencing skills, with a proven track record of leading change at the executive level and fostering alignment across diverse stakeholder groups.
Strategic Foresight: Expertise in scenario planning, global trend analysis, and integrating foresight into strategic decision-making.
Executive Communication: Outstanding ability to communicate complex strategic decisions to the Board, Executive Team, and external partners, and to listen actively and compassionately.
Innovation: Track record of driving innovation and continuous improvement within complex organisations.
Relationship building: Able to quickly build trust and credibility as a leader with diverse stakeholders who have very different experiences, contexts and expertise
Complex problem solving: able to take highly complex, undefined organizational challenges and structure, facilitate and synthesize discussions with organizational leaders that result in clear action

Strategic Leadership & Decision Making

Lead the Executive Team and Boad in setting and revising long-term (5-10 year) strategic outcomes / targets, and act as their main strategy counterpart to iterate on the strategic vision and its key tenets / goals over time
Lead the co-creation and revision of a comprehensive strategy map that provides a clear direction as to how long-term outcomes will be met, by facilitating senior leaders across the organization
Exercise director-level autonomy in shaping and executing the organisation’s strategic direction.
Accountable for the successful delivery of the full portfolio of ~15 high priority initiatives (joint accountability with the Chief Officer Sponsor of each initiative) - coherently with the IB's broader strategy
Lead cross-functional decision-making forums, ensuring alignment and buy-in from the Executive Team, Board, and senior leaders
Serve as the principal advisor to the Chief Strategy & People Officer, Executive Team and the Board on strategic matters, proactively identifying risks and opportunities.
Effectively communicate the strategy and progress against it, ensuring understanding and buy-in, as well as inspiring, motivating and recognizing our people and their contributions (e.g. through Town Halls, lunch and learns, IB Connect page updates)
Oversee annual planning and organization-wide progress reporting against the strategy, gathering inputs from senior leaders across all functions in a way that efficiently and usefully surfaces challenges, prompts adaptation at all levels of the organization, and prompts step-back conversations to align portfolio of initiatives on intended outcomes.

Strategic Foresight & Innovation

Champion strategic foresight by integrating global trends, scenario planning, and advanced analytics into the organisation’s long-term strategy
Drive a culture of innovation and continuous improvement, empowering teams to anticipate change and respond proactively
Lead the Executive Team and Board in setting and revising long-term (5-10 year) strategic outcomes and targets, acting as their main strategy counterpart to iterate on the strategic vision and its key tenets and goals over time.

Influencing & Developing Leaders

Mentor and develop senior leaders in terms of strategic planning/thinking, and design/delivery of initiatives - fostering a collaborative environment that encourages bold thinking and shared leadership.
Inspire and mobilise senior leaders and teams across the organisation, building trust and credibility through visionary leadership and strategic influence.
Provide support and guidance to Strategy Design Lead in deriving insights from business intelligence and foresighting activities, ensuring these shape strategic plans.

Leading a team

Recruit, develop and retain a high performing team of strategy design and delivery experts,
Drive organisational transformation by empowering teams to deliver on strategic priorities and adapt to emerging challenges.
Foster a culture of high quality delivery, partnership and solving problems through critical thinking and influencing skills, rather than escalations and authority

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About us

Work in Rotterdam – The Hague is collaborative effort between public entities, focused on facilitating the contact between companies with open positions located in our region and qualified international professionals. Our mission is to attract top talent to the Greater Rotterdam – The Hague area in the Netherlands and work together on creating a better, greener, smarter, cleaner and healthier world.