Director, Strategy and Operations

One team. Global challenges. Infinite opportunities. At Viasat, we’re on a mission to deliver connections with the capacity to change the world. For more than 35 years, Viasat has helped shape how consumers, businesses, governments and militaries around the globe communicate. We’re looking for people who think big, act fearlessly, and create an inclusive environment that drives positive impact to join our team.

This role works closely with the VP Strategy and Operations and interfaces regularly across the business — engaging with segment leads, corporate teams, finance, and external partners. The role serves as a key integrator across the business, bringing together stakeholders, data, and analysis to support investment decisions and maintain momentum on strategic priorities. It requires the ability to build strong working relationships across UK and US West Coast teams. 

This is a hands-on, execution-oriented role. The Director, Strategy & Operations is responsible for building and maintaining the financial models, business cases, and strategic analyses that underpin New Ventures investment decisions. The postholder works up models directly, coordinates across the business to chase down inputs, and drives workstreams to completion — organising the meetings, closing down the actions, and getting to an answer. 

The role leads the business area strategy and operating plan process, manages programme finances, and defines the operational interfaces that keep the team running effectively. It is well-suited to someone who is energised by finishing things — who takes ownership of a piece of work and sees it through rather than handing it off, and who is comfortable being the person who makes things happen across a complex, cross-functional environment. 

While the initial focus is on the New Ventures portfolio, the role is designed to grow in scope as the business develops, with the opportunity to take on broader strategic and operational responsibilities over time. 

• Modelling: Build and maintain models that drive the right commercial and product thinking for business cases and strategic programmes, including scenario analysis, options assessment, and sensitivity testing.  
• Business case development: Develop multi-million dollar business cases for Exec approval, coordinating across BUs and central teams to assemble the inputs. Define propositions in Exec-ready language, drawing on customer, market, and technical team input. 

• Market analysis and supporting proposition development: Partner with commercial teams to identify, evaluate, and refine growth opportunities, using market, customer, and competitive insights to shape and strengthen product propositions. 

• Strategy and operating plan: Lead the business area strategy and operating plan process — gathering inputs across the team, contributing proactively, and delivering a complete, coherent output to deadline. 

• Programme and project finances: Track programme and project budgets, flag variances, and coordinate with Finance on submissions and reforecasts. Maintain an accurate, up-to-date view of spend across the portfolio. 

• Driving completion: Lead and facilitate working sessions to drive decisions and resolve outstanding actions. Proactively engage stakeholders to secure the inputs, data, and approvals required to maintain momentum. Identify and remove blockers, ensuring strategic initiatives are delivered effectively and on schedule. 

• Operational interfaces and processes: Define and implement clear operational interfaces and processes across the team and with the functions it depends on, ensuring ways of working are documented and dependencies are actively managed. 

• Investment assessment: Assess the robustness of investment cases from across the business, feeding into prioritisation decisions with a Strategy and Operations lens. 

• Partner and stakeholder engagement: Engage with segments, corporate teams, and external partners in support of strategic programmes, working towards agreements or commercial arrangements where required. 
• Reporting: Feed into reporting processes on strategic programmes, ensuring that status, risks, and financial performance are clearly communicated to leadership. 

KPIs 

• Business cases and financial models delivered to quality, on time, with the right stakeholder engage 

• Strategy and operating plan process completed to deadline with full team input. 

• Programme finances tracked accurately with variances flagged proactively. 

• Open actions and decisions closed down in a timely way; positive feedback from the teams engaged on the quality and responsiveness of support provided. 

• Clear operational processes and interfaces in place, with evidence of consistent follow-through on commitments. 

• Strong financial and commercial modelling skills — comfortable building models including scenario analysis, options assessment, and sensitivity testing. 

• Highly proactive and completion-oriented — takes ownership of workstreams and sees them through to a finished output 

• Proven ability to influence outcomes and maintain momentum across diverse stakeholder groups, bringing the right people together, driving accountability, and delivering results in a matrixed organisation 

• Hypothesis-led analytical approach; able to define a problem, structure a path to a solution, and communicate the answer clearly in data and writing. 

• Excellent written and presentation skills for Exec-level audiences. 

• Experience in consulting, strategy, finance, or a similarly analytical environment where rigorous, model-driven output is the norm. 

• Experience collaborating effectively across geographically dispersed teams, including stakeholders based in the UK and US West Coast regions. Flexibility to operate across time zones as required. 

• Commercial experience in industry — able to quickly identify the key drivers of commercial success or failure. 
• Financial and/or strategy consulting background  
• Satellite, telecoms, or connectivity background is a plus 

Viasat is proud to be an equal opportunity employer, seeking to create a welcoming and diverse environment. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, genetics, age, or veteran status or any other applicable legally protected status or characteristic. If you would like to request an accommodation on the basis of disability for completing this on-line application, please click here.