Strategy & Integrated Planning Manager – Marketing & Customer Experience

Alberta Blue Cross® is an Alberta based organization dedicated to delivering exceptional customer experience and community leadership. We’re committed to providing the best health coverage to over 1.8 million members and take an active role in promoting wellness. We believe in what we do—and place trust in our employees to deliver our vision.

Working at Alberta Blue Cross® means having a career where you’ll be recognized for your contributions. We value diversity, encourage our employees to maintain a healthy work-life balance and provide opportunities for career growth.

OVERVIEW:

As Alberta Blue Cross’s® next Strategy & Integrated Planning Manager, you will report to the Director of Corporate Strategic Initiatives. This small, but mighty team drives strategy development, enterprise alignment and integration of plans to ensure achievement of our Blue for Life Vision and strategic ambitions.

The Strategy & Integrated Planning Manager will be responsible for driving an adaptive planning process, so strategy execution gets accomplished in an integrated fashion across the enterprise. You will work closely with senior leadership and subject matter experts across the organization to progress their strategy and plans to maximize impact and return on investment.

You will act as a trusted advisor, embed market intelligence in strategy and planning processes, and work in both an individual and team setting to achieve the stated goals.

Specifically, the team has five responsibilities:

Facilitate an adaptive, integrated planning process to drive organizational alignment. Support facilitation of senior leadership strategy and planning discussions. Shape strategy development and advancement of strategy execution. Manage and report against the enterprise portfolio of strategic initiatives. Communicate strategy, plans and impact of initiatives to internal stakeholders.

The successful candidate will work in a team-based collaborative environment where they engage regularly with senior leaders across Alberta Blue Cross® to facilitate integrated planning processes to drive strategy execution in alignment to a three-year roadmap.

WHO YOU ARE:

You build relationships built on trust and believe the best way to go far is by working together. You thrive on a challenge and prefer to tackle the big, complex problems over doing the easy stuff. Your critical thinking skills are unparalleled, and you act like a sponge – soaking up information and making quick sense of it. You are an excellent communicator, but an even better listener. You are naturally inquisitive and like to keep up with what is happening in the world, the industry and within your domain of expertise. You are willing to roll up your sleeves and do the hard work to keep everything organized, aligned and moving forward to the benefit of customers, communities and the organization as a whole.

If this sounds like you, then we can’t wait to meet you!

WHAT YOU WILL DO:

• Facilitating an adaptive, integrated planning process which translates the corporate strategy into a three-year operational plan, integrated roadmap, and annual division plans.

• Lead Alberta Blue Cross® teams through all stages of the planning process, providing solutions to enable agile review and recalibration in a complex, competitive, and fast-changing environment.

• Regularly assess strategies, plans, and initiatives to identify opportunities to increase alignment, accelerate strategy execution, and maximize benefits realized.

• Managing the process of strategic opportunity identification, evaluation, selection, prioritization, sequencing, and performance measurement at the enterprise portfolio level.

• Leveraging strong business acumen, design thinking and expertise in the application of strategic frameworks to scope strategic opportunities, with a particular focus on cross-functional, transformational initiatives and projects.

• Planning, facilitating, and conducting strategic planning workshops and sessions with leaders across the organization and potentially external stakeholders.

• Coordinating and supporting senior leaders in developing and delivering innovative, impactful presentations that articulate strategic pursuits concisely for various internal and external audiences.

• Facilitating timely and coordinated preparation and presentation of business cases for executive decision making in collaboration with key support functions.

• Working with Corporate Communications to develop and execute internal strategic communications to actively promote organization-wide understanding of the corporate strategy, implementation progress, and impact.

• Stewarding the process of performance measurement of the corporate strategy, ensuring targets and measures set by the executive team informs plans and roadmaps.

• Coordinating and presenting progress on the short-term, mid-term and long-term view of plans, working with various support functions to aggregate performance insights.

• From the corporate strategy and three-year operational plan, work with leaders to assure aligned, synergistic, and integrated resource planning to inform budgeting processes.

• Acting as a thought leader, demonstrating leadership and agility through influence and collaboration.

• Demonstrating accountability and tenacity for strategic planning leadership and success.

WHAT YOU WILL HAVE:

• Demonstrable experience and proficiency in developing and applying enterprise-wide strategic frameworks and planning methodologies. The proven ability to take a holistic, market-led, end-to-end approach to strategy.

• Superior project management skills; business portfolio management experience is considered an asset.

• Exceptional communication (verbal, written, presentation) skills with a particular flair for business storytelling and making complex ideas understandable.

• Highly proficient in collaboration and in the ability to build trust and exert organizational influence.

• Proven ability to build positive, productive, and trusted relationships with diverse groups of people always displaying an appreciation for processes, change management and organization culture.

• An innovative leader with an ability to apply design and systems thinking to solve problems and bring cross-functional teams together to achieve broader organizational objectives.

• An empathetic and professional leader who is motivated and driven to achieve business success with a strong and responsive service orientation.

• Experienced and skilled as a facilitator.

• The ability to think strategically and act practically with attention to critical detail.

• Masterful at multi-tasking and serving multiple stakeholders amid changing priorities.

• Able to manage junior team members on projects, providing guidance on analysis and coaching on deliverables.

• Trained/experienced in agile workflows and iterative design and thinking.

• Strong business acumen across several business disciplines, particularly, strategic planning, project and portfolio management, and corporate measurement.

• A minimum of five years of related professional experience and relevant post-secondary education or equivalent with proof of ongoing learning, training and upskilling.

• Strong personal integrity and work ethic and embodies Alberta Blue Cross’s® values.

This position will remain open until Sunday, November 17, 2024.

Alberta Blue Cross® is an inclusive employer committed to a workplace that reflects the diversity of the communities we serve. We empower and are advocates for our employees by welcoming, respecting and valuing their unique perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences.

We offer a competitive salary and benefits package and the opportunity to work in an innovative, high-energy team-focused environment. If you have the qualifications we are looking for, please apply.