Director, Strategy & Corporate Development

Duties and Responsibilities

• Participate in and provide meaningful contributions to the strategic planning process and execution of strategic initiatives for Spire, its business units and emerging businesses.
• Lead or assist in identifying, analyzing, and assessing investment and business opportunities per Spire’s strategic plans, including a wide variety of corporate development initiatives. This includes detailed analysis of value drivers for multiple gas industry businesses, creation or review of business cases, and preparation or review of various financial analyses, in particular detailed asset/entity valuation models.
• Lead or assist in gas supply related initiatives, including various commodity and transportation/storage contract and asset analyses and valuations. This includes financial analysis and cost-of-service support for relevant FERC pipeline rate cases.
• Lead or assist in long-term financial analysis to support optimization of capital structure for regulated utilities and the consolidated Group, credit rating agency presentations and financing activities (both debt and equity).
• Lead or assist in preparing recommendations and making presentations on potential acquisitions, investments and other strategic initiatives to Spire’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors.
• Provide support to corporate shared services and business unit managers across Spire regarding their strategic decisions. This entails providing objective input on their business cases, modeling assumptions, and overall assessments of specific opportunities, projects and plans. It could also entail providing investor relations support.

Essential Characteristics

• Strong analytical, planning, and organizational skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Required Education (certifications, licenses)

• Bachelor’s Degree in finance, accounting, economics, or MBA (with concentration in finance), required.

Required knowledge, skill and abilities

• Minimum of 10 years of relevant experience in a strategic planning, corporate development, M&A execution, business development, financial planning and analysis, investment banking, investment analysis, or similarly intensive business or financial analytical role, required.
• Experience in the natural gas, energy or utility industry, preferred.
• Advanced capabilities using Excel, PowerPoint and Word, required.
• Strategic thinking and knowledge of business and financial concepts, principles, and practices as they relate to the strategy planning and corporate development processes.
• Comfortable with abstract concepts and complex technical issues, and demonstrated intellectual curiosity regarding business drivers, business strategies and investment performance metrics.
• Ability and commitment to develop a thorough knowledge of the gas industry (i.e., utility, midstream and upstream) and Spire over time, including its various business units, assets, operations, and shared services support functions.
• Ability to identify market trends and opportunities, understand strategic risks and opportunities, help develop and evaluate potential acquisitions and new business investments.