Sr. Director, Product Strategy & Operations

The Opportunity

Firefly Foundry is seeking a strategic, results-oriented leader to serve as Head of Product Strategy & Business Operations. This role sits at the center of our product organization, ensuring operational excellence at scale, shaping long-term strategy, and driving portfolio performance.

You will partner closely with Product, Engineering, Finance, Sales, Marketing, and Executive Leadership to translate vision into measurable outcomes. This is a highly visible role requiring structural thinking, strong financial acumen, and the ability to influence at the executive level.

What you'll do

• Translate Strategy into measurable outcomes: Convert long-term strategy into actionable operating plans, investment priorities, and performance targets.
• Lead annual planning, quarterly prioritization, and long-range strategic planning processes.
• Ensure every major initiative has clear business cases, defined ROI, and measurable success criteria.
• Drive disciplined tradeoff decisions across the portfolio based on impact, capacity, and financial return.
• Own Portfolio Performance & Capital Allocation: Oversee portfolio-level margin, cost structure, ROI, and investment efficiency.
• Partner with Finance to manage budgeting, forecasting, and resource planning.
• Implement capital allocation frameworks that optimize return on product investments.
• Establish leading and lagging indicators that connect execution to financial outcomes.
• Lead quarterly business reviews with clear performance narratives and corrective actions.
• Design and implement the Operating Model: Build and continuously improve the Firefly Foundry operating rhythm (OKRs, governance forums, intake processes, roadmap reviews).
• Define decision rights, escalation paths, and accountability mechanisms.
• Standardize planning artifacts, KPI dashboards, and reporting structures.
• Increase transparency and predictability across product development cycles.
• Identify operational inefficiencies and implement process improvements to improve velocity and output quality.
• Drive Cross-Functional Execution Excellence: Align Product, Engineering, Design, and GTM around shared objectives and measurable outcomes.
• Ensure roadmap commitments are realistic, capacity-aligned, and financially justified.
• Improve cross-functional handoffs and reduce execution friction.
• Establish performance management mechanisms that surface risks early and enable course correction.
• Lead with Accountability: Build and lead a high-performing product strategy and business operations team.
• Set clear performance expectations and measurable objectives for the team.
• Foster a culture of data-driven decision-making, ownership, and continuous improvement.

What you'll need to succeed

• 12+ years of experience across product strategy, business operations, product management, finance, or consulting.
• 5+ years in Director/Sr. Director-level leadership roles with enterprise impact.
• Demonstrated experience owning portfolio-level business performance and operational governance.
• Track record of leading annual planning, resource allocation, and budgeting processes at scale.
• Experience operating in complex, multi-product organizations.
• Operational & Financial Discipline: Expertise in P&L management, forecasting, cost modeling, and ROI analysis.
• Experience building KPI frameworks and performance dashboards that drive executive decisions.
• Strong understanding of capacity planning, investment tradeoffs, and capital efficiency.
• Ability to create structure in ambiguous environments and improve organizational predictability.
• Leadership & Influence: Executive presence with the ability to influence senior stakeholders.
• Structured, analytical thinker with strong judgment and decisiveness.
• Proven ability to hold teams accountable while maintaining trust and alignment.
• Skilled at driving change across matrixed organizations without direct authority.

Education

• Bachelor's degree; MBA or equivalent operational experience strongly preferred.

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