Product Strategy and Planning Lead

About
The candidate will support the Products Strategy, Planning lead across various initiatives within the Product & Solutions Organization by coordinating across varied stakeholders (product leads & functional verticals) on financial planning, go-to-market strategies, and business reporting.

Job Description
Primary responsibilities of this position are:

• Market research, trend analysis, competitor benchmarking and performance benchmarking for key products
• Support the efforts and go-to-market strategies to ensure clearly defined business and investment plans are in place to drive strategy execution
• Assess how innovative business models can be applied to key new product offering to enhance value
• Lead & develop strategies to compete with alternatives in regions and globally
• Work with Global and regional product teams to support use case selection, opportunity assessment, competitor analysis, marketing, etc.
• Support preparation of business case, financial model, value proposition and execution plan for key strategic initiatives
• Support with coordinating budgeting for CEMEA Products and ensure optimal investment of resources to finalize the operating plan for CEMEA Products
• Develop content for client events with product narratives, business updates and client presentations
• Support executive market visits on content briefing
• Work with minimal direction, usually within a complex and often ambiguous environment, to drive rigorous, fact-based recommendations to product leadership

Work Conditions
This is a hybrid position. Expectation of days in the office will be confirmed by your Hiring Manager.

Qualifications
Basic Qualifications:

• 8 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor Degree or at least 5 years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 2 years of work experience with a PhD

Preferred Qualifications:

• 9 or more years of relevant work experience with a Bachelor Degree or 7 or more relevant years of experience with an Advanced Degree (e.g. Masters, MBA, JD, MD) or 3 or more years of experience with a PhD
• BA, BS in Business, Economics, Finance or Strategy
• MBA in a business relevant discipline preferred
• Minimum 6 to 8 years of experience, with significant exposure to Management Consulting & Strategy work
• Experience in and/or significant exposure to the financial services/payments industry required
• Global or multi-national business experience strongly preferred
• Superior analytical and financial analysis skills
• Strategic thinking, strong organization skills, ability to summarize findings from data, curiosity to deep dive on root cause of trends
• Personal presence and ability to clearly communicate, verbally and in writing, compelling messages to senior managers and other stakeholders
• Self-confident and hands-on, with the ability to operate in a fast-paced and constantly changing work environment
• Excellent problem-solving skills with a strong focus on clients
• Ability to rally corporate resources and functional experts to drive business objectives
• Strong interpersonal and leadership skills to influence and build credibility with various CEMEA functions and Country teams, in order to work in a matrix organization
• Ability to quickly assess an opportunity, using industry experience and fact-based analyses
• Passionate about what you do and fired up about the opportunity to transform payments working for the industry leader
• Strong team player, self-motivated and the ability to work independently at coordinating cross-functional activities, obtain buy-in and elevate issues at critical junctures appropriately
• Ability to learn quickly, deal with complexity and lead change
• Aptitude to source relevant information and make timely decisions, tolerance for ambiguity
• Expert level Excel and PowerPoint
• Excellent communicator, with strong English written and verbal skills

Location
AE - Dubai, United Arab Emirates