Director of Strategic Initiatives
About Toptal
Toptal is a global network of top freelance talent in business, design, and technology that enables companies to scale their teams, on-demand. With $200+ million in annual revenue and over 40% year-over-year growth, Toptal is the world’s largest fully remote company.
We take the best elements of virtual teams and combine them with a support structure that encourages innovation, social interaction, and fun. We see no borders, move at a fast pace, and are never afraid to break the mold.
Position Description
Toptal is a hypergrowth organization, which means that our core teams and operations infrastructure must constantly be evolving to sustain and further this growth. As a Director of Strategic Initiatives at Toptal, you will work on cross-functional initiatives across the company to help build strategic direction, execution frameworks, process automation and workflow enhancements, KPIs, and team structures necessary to drive Toptal’s growth. You will be trusted to tackle challenging and impactful problems at Toptal, working directly with the executives to achieve success.
This is a remote position that can be done from anywhere. Due to the remote nature of this role, we are unable to provide visa sponsorship. Resumes and communication must be submitted in English.
Responsibilities:
You will work with the Business Operations team to identify areas of highest impact across the company, define engagement scopes, and build comprehensive strategies to solve the underlying issues and execute.
In this role, you will partner with executives and other senior leaders to achieve successful outcomes through initiatives that result in enhanced infrastructure and processes. Your ability to drive order and create value by addressing root cause analysis will result in the scalability and desired business outcomes that prepare Toptal for continued hypergrowth.
The life cycle of your projects, at a high level, will be: Dive into a problem, team, or initiative as an internal consultant, asking questions to learn everything you can about the subject. Remove constraints and use non-incremental thinking to determine how to frame the engagement such that the project can deliver an order of magnitude greater impact. Execute on your plans, frequently doing things yourself as an individual contributor, and laying a solid foundation that can be built upon. Ensure that the project can be sustainable within the function or company without you - either by recommending hiring the right leader or by implementing processes that allow for its success into the future.
Example projects may include:
- Planning and executing the launch of a new operational business unit.
- Working with executives and other senior leaders to optimize outcomes and execute upon strategic and operational initiatives for the team.
- Planning and implementing a better workflow for collaboration between two key teams.
In the first week, expect to:
- Onboard and integrate into Toptal.
- Rapidly begin learning about Toptal’s history, culture, and vision.
- Shadow Business Analysts across the company to learn the core of Toptal’s operations, goals and measurable outcomes.
In the first month, expect to:
- Undergo a deeper training and mentorship period with Toptal’s Business Operations team, including existing Directors of Business Operations.
- Begin working on projects alongside other Directors of Business Operations designed to provide you exposure and learnings about the multiple functions within Toptal.
In the first three months, expect to:
- Continue working alongside other Directors of Business Operations to support current and new initiatives.
- Begin partnering with company leaders to assist with problem resolution and other ‘change the business’ initiatives.
- Experiment and learn rapidly as you build solutions, adapting your approaches in real-time by incorporating your learnings and doing everything it takes to make sure the KPIs of your projects begin moving in the right direction.
- Gain a detailed understanding of the primary functions within a two-sided marketplace - Revenue and Talent Supply.
- Work with the Business Operations team to continuously stay up-to-date on the status and evolution of ongoing operations projects and areas of need across the organization, contributing to team discussions by surfacing ideas and best practices from your current project focuses.
In the first six months, expect to:
- Complete your first solo operations projects successfully, as evidenced by the associated teams operating efficiently and effectively, relevant KPIs trending up and to the right over time, and value-driven by this area of the company being a step function greater than it was when you started.
In the first year, expect to:
- Successfully have completed 2-4 operations projects, every 3-6 months in length and actively delivering impact for Toptal, enabling the organization to scale further.
- Work with the team members you partnered with to ensure their future success.
- Establish yourself as a trusted, general-purpose problem solver at Toptal, capable of tackling any high-impact problem through a rigorous, analytical, creative problem-solving methodology.
Requirements:
- 8+ years combined business operations and consulting experience.
- At least 1 year working for a major consulting firm with expertise in development of strategic operational frameworks and executive presentations.
- Leadership experience with responsibility for business results in a fast-paced, multi-function environment.
- Creative problem solver with proven results in improving processes in a business operations and/or sales environment.
- Ability to leverage data to perform root cause analysis and address the source of issues.
- Proven ability to develop creative solutions that result in measurable transformative outcomes that reach beyond incremental improvements.
- Strong collaboration skills and demonstrated ability to influence and execute effectively in a cross-functional environment.
- Impeccable organization skills and attention to detail.
- Ability to apply effective change management principles and consider the human element of change.
- A knack for being able to convey complex information and recommendations in a clear, logical, understandable manner to stakeholders at executive levels.
- Excellent presentation, written and verbal communication skills.
- Must be a high integrity, team player with flexibility to meet the demands of changing business priorities.
- You must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do.
