Vice President, Strategy and Enterprise Integration

Brief Description

Responsible for ensuring SME’s strategy, growth ideas, and new initiatives are market-validated, economically viable, organizationally integrated, and designed to scale. The role collaborates with the CEO to translate mission and vision into a prioritized, integrated portfolio of initiatives.

MAJOR FUNCTIONS

• Co-own SME’s enterprise strategic plan facilitation and development with the CEO, including product roadmaps, annual updates and long-range growth priorities.
• Architect and maintain a portfolio view of strategic initiatives, ensuring alignment across technology, workforce, events, membership, and partnerships.
• Identify opportunities for cross-vertical leverage (e.g., medical, automotive, defense, energy) where shared platforms, partners, or capabilities create compounded impact.
• Develop and maintain clear manufacturer segmentation strategies that differentiate how SME serves small and mid-sized manufacturers versus large manufacturers, ensuring enterprise coherence while allowing for tailored engagement and delivery models.
• Own and operate SME’s enterprise stage-gate process for new business, program/product expansion, and strategic partnerships and pilots.
• Lead structured evaluation of ideas by assessing market demand and customer need, strategic alignment and differentiation, and organizational readiness and resource requirements.
• Ensure leadership focus is inclusive of idea generation to disciplined prioritization and follow-through.
• Lead market feasibility analysis, including market size and demand validation, competitive analysis, and buyer and stakeholder discovery.
• Monitor competitive landscape and market dynamics and provide ongoing insights to the CEO and SME executive leadership team.
• Oversee the organizational market intelligence function informing SME product roadmaps and strategies as well as thought leadership and messaging with external affairs.
• Develop business cases and operating models that define how initiatives scale sustainably.
• Identify and prioritize strategic funding pathways required to enable SME’s growth initiatives and develop high-level funding roadmaps in partnership with Finance and External Affairs to support pilots, scaling, and long-term sustainability.
• Partner closely with the CFO to structure blended funding approaches (public, private, philanthropic, industry), seed pilots and design pathways for scaled investment, and evaluate business opportunities.
• Support early execution through initial pilots or market entry, then transition ownership to operational leaders for ongoing delivery.
• Ensure SME offerings are designed and positioned as integrated solutions tied to measurable industry outcomes, rather than standalone products or programs.
• Strategically convene industry members and experts to support market validation, solution shaping, and ecosystem alignment, in coordination with the CMO and other leaders.
• Establish and maintain a strategic performance framework that tracks progress against SME’s enterprise strategic plan and priority initiatives.
• Maintain an enterprise view of how SME’s assets combine to deliver differentiated value by target audiences.
• Define and track strategy-level, outcome-oriented metrics, such as market validation, adoption readiness, funding pathways identified or secured, and cross-enterprise leverage achieved.
• Provide the CEO and executive leadership with decision-oriented insights on strategic progress, risks, and trade-offs, enabling timely prioritization and course correction.
• Partner with the Vice President, Organizational Impact & Strategic Initiatives to ensure a clear handoff from strategic outcomes and intent to execution metrics and delivery accountability once initiatives are approved.
• Provide direction, coaching and leadership, ensuring effective recruitment, retention, talent development, performance management and alignment with SME’s strategic and cultural priorities.
• Foster a high-performance culture of collaboration, accountability and innovation, that drives impact and is market driven, and advances SME’s mission and strategic priorities.
• Negotiate and approve agreements and contracts in accordance with SME’s policies to ensure strategic alignment, financial stewardship and regulatory compliance.
• Prepare and oversee annual department budget.

Requirements

• Minimum Education: Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred (MBA, Organizational Leadership, Engineering, or related fields).
• Minimum Experience: At least 12 years of progressively responsible experience in enterprise strategy, corporate development, business planning, management consulting, portfolio management, venture building, or growth leadership.
• Team Management: At least 5 years of experience managing and leading high-performing teams, including recruiting, developing and retaining talent and aligning team performance to organizational strategy and culture.
• Strategy Development: Proven ability to develop and implement growth strategies, particularly expanding into new markets and emerging industries.
• Industry Knowledge: Demonstrated success leading organizational initiatives, strategic partnerships, and externally funded programs.
• Understanding: Deep understanding of manufacturing industry dynamics, workforce and advanced technology.
• Leadership Skills: Exceptional cross-functional leadership skills and external relationship management.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Experience working with academia, government, and corporate stakeholders.
• Funding Mechanisms: Familiarity with federal and state funding mechanisms and industry consortia.
• Strategy Execution: Proven ability to develop, refresh, and operationalize enterprise strategy in a complex organization.
• Portfolio Management: Strong capability in portfolio prioritization, strategic trade-off decisions, and aligning cross-functional leaders around a shared direction.
• Business Case Development: Experience designing and leading structured evaluation processes (e.g., stage-gate, investment review, venture incubation, portfolio governance).
• Decision Making: Exceptional ability to influence without authority, drive alignment, and integrate priorities across multiple executive leaders and business units.
• Communication: Strong executive communication skills, including ability to deliver concise communication and materials and strategic updates.
• Judgment: High judgment, discretion, and ability to operate as a trusted advisor to the CEO.
• Data Analysis: Strong analytical capability, including comfort with data-driven decision making, KPI design (strategy-level outcomes), and portfolio monitoring.
• Organizational Culture: Prior experience operating within a mission-driven organization with a strong business orientation.

Key Competencies

• Communication and Collaboration
• Relationship Management
• Professionalism and Integrity
• Critical Thinking and Decision-Making
• Execution
• Initiative, Leadership, and Development

Working Conditions

Normal office environment
Primary office location: Southfield, MI
Regular, in-person attendance required
Travel required