Senior Director, Core & Ecosystem Strategy

About the role

Western Digital is entering a new chapter as an independent deep-tech company, built on decades of engineering breakthroughs in magnetics, photonics, nanofabrication, and machine learning. We power data centers, hyperscale clouds, and AI systems, and our technology has contributed to historic achievements such as the first picture of a black hole. The Strategy & Corporate Development team bridges our deep-tech capabilities to commercial impact, strengthening our core HDD business, setting long-term strategy, and executing partnerships, investments, and acquisitions that shape what we build next.

Responsibilities

• Define sales and commercial strategy for Western Digital’s core HDD business in partnership with commercial leadership to support long-term value capture.
• Support broader portfolio of strategic projects supporting Western Digital’s core business, including ecosystem activation, technology assessment, vertical integration strategy, international opportunities, and supply chain optimization.
• Build Western Digital’s ecosystem strategy across hyperscalers, neoclouds, sovereign clouds, OEMs, system integrators, and cloud infrastructure software vendors; develop frameworks for orchestrating WD’s role in the storage ecosystem to maximize value capture.
• Evaluate strategic partnership opportunities with cloud providers, OEMs, system integrators, and ecosystem players; develop deal structuring frameworks and partner models.
• Execute high-priority strategic projects end-to-end, including go-to-market strategy, customer and partner frameworks, business model evaluation, and build-vs-buy-vs-partner assessments.
• Translate long-term strategic priorities into actionable decisions and recommendations for the Executive Leadership Team.
• Partner closely with GTM and commercial leadership to co-develop strategies reflecting real customer needs and market dynamics.
• Collaborate across Product, Engineering, Commercial, Finance, and Legal teams to align strategy with execution and drive cross-functional alignment on high-stakes strategic questions.
• Deliver strategic briefings, deep dives, and recommendations on competitive dynamics, market trends, and long-term positioning for senior leadership and Board audiences.
• Serve as a trusted strategic thought partner to senior business leaders.

Qualifications

• Minimum 8–10 years of progressive experience in top-tier management consulting or in-house corporate strategy and GTM/commercial leadership roles.
• Required industry experience within a GTM, commercial, sales strategy, or related role at a data storage company (HDD, SSD, storage systems) or directly adjacent infrastructure company (semiconductors, memory, enterprise storage platforms).
• Deep domain experience in data storage, semiconductors, enterprise/cloud infrastructure, or broader AI infrastructure with fluency in technical and commercial dynamics.
• Proven track record running complex strategic projects end-to-end, from hypothesis development through analysis and recommendation, with output quality suitable for senior leadership and C-suite.
• Comfort operating with quantitative rigor in ambiguous, high-stakes strategic decisions.
• Strong financial acumen with the ability to evaluate business models and market economics.
• Exceptional strategic thinking and structured problem-solving skills.
• Outstanding executive communication, including materials development, narrative crafting, and live presentation to senior leadership (C-suite and Board).
• Proven ability to drive alignment and influence senior stakeholders.
• MBA or equivalent experience required.
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Economics, or a related analytical field.

Location

San Jose, California (must be willing to relocate). Flexibility for remote work within established company policies. 15–25% travel including domestic and international travel to meet with targets, advisors, investors, partners, and industry events.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $233,500–$311,300. An employee’s pay position within the range may be based on education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, job knowledge, performance, contribution, results, geographic location, internal and external equity, and business needs. The range is applicable for jobs performed in California, Colorado, New York or remote jobs that can be performed in those states.

Eligible for bonuses under WD’s Short Term Incentive Plan or Sales Incentive Plan based on company and individual performance. May be eligible for the annual Long-Term Incentive program consisting of restricted stock units or cash equivalents. RSU awards are available to eligible new hires.

Comprehensive benefits package includes paid vacation and sick leave; medical, dental, and vision insurance; life, accident, and disability insurance; flexible spending and health savings accounts; employee assistance program; voluntary benefits such as supplemental life and AD&D, legal plan, pet insurance, critical illness, accident and hospital indemnity; tuition reimbursement; transit; employee stock purchase plan; and the WD Savings 401(k) Plan.