Manager, Corporate Strategy and Development

Vonage, now a subsidiary and business division within Ericsson AB, is looking for an investment banking, private equity or management consulting associate / senior analyst to join our Corporate Strategy and Development team and help build out our cloud communications business.  

The role will primarily focus on corporate strategy and M&A.

Why This Role Matters:

As a strategist, you will help support development of short and long term strategies by reference to dynamics in the cloud communications industry (covering communications and collaboration as-a-service as well as communications platform as a service (CPaaS)), competitive developments and emerging disruptive technology trends.   In doing so, the role requires working collaboratively with internal stakeholders and business owners/experts and developing powerpoint-type presentations and excel analyses explaining and supporting such strategies.  

The role also requires helping to align these strategies with our financial budget and forecasts and helping establish implementation frameworks for their realization.  The aspect is highly cross-functional and will require driving interaction with multiple and internationally dispersed teams / colleagues across the firm, especially finance, product technology, sales & marketing.

You will also support several key M&A undertakings - industry reconnaissance, target diligence, building forecast models including valuation and pro forma merger analysis.  

The candidate’s primary day-to-day workloads will involve a substantial mix of studying cloud communications and technology literature and industry analyses, collaborating with internal stakeholders, incorporating their thinking into strategic initiatives expressed in presentation (powerpoint style) formats, building out financial / business case models in context of strategy implementation, corresponding budget planning and/or M&A, and attending functional leadership meetings on business performance. 

 What You Will Do:

• Strategy Development and Implementation

• Support short-term and long-range strategy planning as part of our annual strategy planning process, including stakeholder collaboration and development of materials (powerpoints) to facilitate these sessions 
• Help frame issues and decide on strategic initiatives through financial modeling (eg, identifying highest ROE areas for investment, financial effects of key strategic initiatives etc); work with business intelligence and finance teams to develop and vet data and analysis to identify strategic issues and/or support strategic decisions 
• Leverage strategy planning work, active business engagement and 3rd party analyses to help develop iterative management and final board presentations on annual strategy 

• Business / Financial Analysis 
• Build business cases / financial analysis to support strategy and identified initiatives, by coordinating with FP&A and business intelligence teams
• Help synthesize analysis, findings and recommendations into executive powerpoint style presentations with appropriate supporting analyses 
• Industry Reconnaissance; Evaluation of Emerging Trends
• Track and analyze trends in cloud communications and adjacent sectors such as mobile, software / technology, etc., including technology developments, market-leading research, and peer strategic activities and performance as well as industry relevant M&A
• M&A Diligence and Execution

• Work with M&A team to help with evaluation, diligence, and execution 
• Maintain log of potential M&A ideas and opportunities
• Coordinate diligence questions / execution across internal teams and investment banking / legal advisors

Compensation is highly competitive.

 What is Required:

• 2-4 years experience in investment banking / mergers & acquisitions, private equity or management consulting at the analyst or associate level 
• Strong presentation development skills; high proficiency in Powerpoint and Word
• Complex problem-solving skills; innovative with ability to create differentiated analysis based on the situation
• Strong analytical and financial modeling skills; proficiency in Excel
• Familiarity in reading financial statements and understanding basic accounting principles
• Undergraduate degree in engineering, economics, computer science or other science fields

Key Qualities

• Self-driven and able to work independently with limited oversight and drive towards goal completion 
• Strong problem solving, ad hoc analysis skills
• Professional maturity and ability to coordinate with multiple, senior stakeholders and drive teams towards outcomes
• Versatile: interest in taking on wide gamut of responsibilities: framing and undertaking financial analytics; evaluating industry trends; seeking out business / financial information developing; and explaining strategy presentations

What Is In It For You:

• In addition to providing exciting work, career advancement opportunities, and a collaborative work environment, Vonage provides competitive pay and benefits including unlimited discretionary time off and tuition reimbursement.

Note:

The purpose of this profile is to provide a general summary of essential responsibilities for the position and is not meant as an exhaustive list. Assignments may differ for individuals within the same role based on business conditions, departmental need or geographic location.

#LI-JS3