Director - Deal Strategy & Commercial Due Diligence - Media (Strategy Consulting)

Our client, a leading strategy consultancy is seeking a director to join and play a leading role, focusing on deal strategy within the media industry as a part of the wider TMT sector, with scope to work on the wider range of services including growth strategy, cost and operational strategy (including economic profitability analysis) and enterprise-wide transformation. You will be the second hire of a newly established team that has plans to grow to fifteen staff in the next 2-3 years, and you will play an instrumental part in helping to shape the growth of this team.

The partner in this new team has been given a supportive runway to build this team up in the right way, which means year 1 targets for this director is only £250k, which then ramps up in years 2 and 3. The hiring partner has a family and stressed to agencies that a good work life balance would be accommodated, despite this being a deals environment. He really does want to hire good people who want to be part of a journey and help create the story of this team.

For this hire the partner does want someone who has had some consulting experience in the past (perhaps 20-30% at least of their career), but it's vital this person, if coming from industry, has a network of contacts they can leverage for business development purposes.

Role and responsibilities:

• Take a senior leadership role with the team, with clients and in the broader industry.
• Have existing client relationships, particularly with the M&A community in both corporates and PE houses, which reinforce the team’s credibility and generate project opportunities – extensive experience of M&A related projects will be critical, e.g. Commercial DD, M&A Strategy, Value creation, etc.
• Take responsibility for client relationships and act as a key contact point for those clients.
• Have the ability to anticipate, understand and articulate client requirements – in advance of and during projects.
• Demonstrate excellent communications skills – in written, slide and other reporting formats as well as verbal communications in informal and more formal situations.
• Lead the presentation of findings to senior clients and be comfortable in challenging the thinking of both clients and more senior Firm colleagues.
• Design and run large, complex projects, delivering to client requirements whilst acting as primary client liaison and be an 'ambassador' for the Firm.
• With limited input, guide the team to client-ready deliverables that exceed expectations and require minimal review.
• Support and test/review the design and execution complex analyses to ensure these are credible and accurate.
• Identify go-to-market, thought-leadership and marketing opportunities to lead on, and take responsibility for taking these to clients.
• Actively seek out leadership opportunities, take responsibility for a selection of internal processes and generally act as a leader in the the Strategy function and an inspiration to more junior team members.
• Take overarching responsibility that the firm's risk management frameworks are adhered to, by identifying and reviewing any key judgements – but also consulting with other senior staff members as appropriate.

Person requirements:

• Considerable experience working in a leading strategy consulting business, Big 4 firm or strategy / Corporate Development team in industry.
• Strong foundational understanding of the value drivers across the Media sector and clear view on how the sector is likely to evolve going forward.
• Experience of leading mid-sized and large projects: designing work plans, team structures and then managing these to (i) excellent client output and (ii) strong project economics.
• This should include an extensive coverage of recent M&A transactions, e.g. CDD, VDD, M&A Strategy or Value Creation projects in the Media sector.
• Ability to independently generate sales opportunities and maintain strong client relationships.
• Initiating marketing and sales efforts, proposals, scopes and pricing for mid-sized and large consulting assignments.
• Acting as the source of new business development initiatives and taking these from idea, through design and execution all the way to clients.
• Ability to work effectively and collaboratively with team members and broader (internal and external) stakeholders.
• Strong track record of building followership among more junior staff members.
• Non-client facing roles in taking on internal responsibilities on topics like team management, technical tool insight, liaison with service suppliers, etc.

Technical requirements:

• Strong academic track record.
• Evidence of strong problem-solving & analytical capabilities.
• Structured thinking skills combined with creativity.
• Ability to evaluate complex challenges and deliver insightful recommendations that can be practically executed.
• Ability review and assess large volumes of technical data and distil the key strategic insights – and the ability to guide a team through this process to focus on most important issues.
• Strong numerical capabilities combined with sound commercial acumen.
• Ability to build complex financial models that support our recommendations to clients.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Other language skills would be a strong bonus.

Successful applicants will be contacted within 24 hours to discuss further.

Cambridge Credentials: adding people….adding value