Strategic Development Associate

Role Description

General Team Description

Strategic Development sits within Finance and supports enterprise-level strategic development efforts, including selective strategic transactions and other complex, non-routine initiatives. The team partners closely with Treasury, Legal, Risk, Tax, Operations, Technology, and business stakeholders, and works with external advisors as needed.

Role Overview:

The Associate, Strategic Development is a generalist execution role supporting enterprise-level strategic development work, including strategic transactions and special situations that shape the firm’s structure, footprint, and long-term positioning. The Associate partners day-to-day with a Vice President, Strategic Development and supports end-to-end execution by producing analyses, coordinating diligence and cross-functional inputs, and preparing governance-ready materials to enable timely decisions and efficient execution.

This role is suited to a strong generalist with high capacity, strong work ethic, excellent attention to detail, and a bias for ownership and follow-through and able to deliver high-quality outputs under tight timelines and shifting priorities.

Reporting Line:

Reports to a Vice President, Strategic Development.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Development & Inorganic Opportunities:

• Support evaluation and execution of strategic transactions and non-standard initiatives, including selective acquisitions/divestitures, partnerships, minority investments, carve-outs, internal restructurings, and other special situations.
• Build structured analyses that clarify options, trade-offs, risks, and decision points for leadership.
• Develop and maintain market, peer, and competitive context relevant to active initiatives and strategic alternatives.

Execution and workstream ownership:

• Own defined transaction and initiative workstreams end-to-end, including analysis, coordination, drafting, and follow-through.
• Build and review financial models and supporting analyses, including valuation, sensitivities, scenario comparisons, and impact assessments.
• Support diligence execution for assigned workstreams by coordinating requests, organizing inputs, synthesizing findings, and surfacing key risks, gaps, and trade-offs for VP review.
• Maintain a clear path for assigned workstreams (key deliverables, dependencies, approvals, and timing), escalating issues early with recommended paths forward.
• Support close readiness and, where applicable, post-close or end-state implementation by tracking dependencies and ensuring follow-through across team
• Build and review financial models and supporting analyses, including valuation, sensitivities, scenario comparisons, and impact assessments.

Key Responsibilities (continued)

Cross-functional coordination:

• Coordinate inputs across Treasury, Legal, Risk, Tax, Operations, Technology, and business stakeholders to meet deadlines and maintain alignment.
• Support assessment of capital, funding, balance sheet, and structural implications where relevant.
• Run working sessions for assigned workstreams as needed: set up the discussion, align stakeholders on the question to be answered, capture decisions and next steps, and drive follow-through.

Governance and decision materials:

• Draft and coordinate materials for internal management and governance forums, ensuring clarity on:
• What decision is needed and by when,
• Options and trade-offs,
• Key risks and mitigants, and
• Required approvals and dependencies.
• Ensure materials are accurate, internally consistent, and decision-ready; incorporate stakeholder input cleanly and maintain controlled distribution for sensitive content.

External Advisor Coordination:

• Support day-to-day coordination with external advisors (investment banks, legal counsel, consultants), including organizing diligence streams, consolidating questions, tracking deliverables, and preparing internal readouts.
• Quality-control advisor outputs for consistency and completeness; highlight gaps and decision points to the VP.

Confidentiality and discretion:

• Handle sensitive and confidential information with strong judgment and discretion, following internal information handling protocols and appropriate distribution practices.

Qualifications and Skills

Required Qualifications:

• 3 to 6 years of relevant experience in investment banking, corporate development, private equity, strategy, or strategic finance, with exposure to transactions and/or complex cross-functional initiatives.
• Strong financial analysis and modeling skills (valuation, sensitivities, scenario analysis) and high attention to detail.
• Strong writing and synthesis skills; ability to translate complexity into clear, structured materials for decision-making.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple stakeholders and deliver high-quality work under tight timelines.
• High integrity and discretion in handling confidential matters.

Preferred Qualifications / Differentiators:

• Experience in a bank or regulated financial services environment.
• Exposure to initiatives involving capital, funding, liquidity, balance sheet constraints, governance approvals, contractual complexity, or operational dependencies.
• Demonstrated ability to operate as a generalist across ambiguous problem statements and shifting priorities while maintaining quality.

Core Competencies/ What Success Looks Like

• Generalist execution: moves seamlessly between analysis, coordination, drafting, and follow-through.
• High capacity and work ethic: reliable responsiveness and stamina during execution peaks without quality slippage.
• Ownership and closure: takes accountability for deliverables, drives items to completion, and reduces rework through clean, accurate outputs.
• Decision-useful outputs: produces concise, well-structured materials that clarify trade-offs and enable timely decisions.
• Judgment on escalation: identifies when to push forward independently vs. when to escalate to the VP with a recommended path.