Director, Strategy and Corporate Development

About this role

Who We Are

At Justworks, you’ll enjoy a welcoming and casual environment, great benefits, wellness program offerings, company retreats, and the ability to interact with and learn from leaders in the startup community. We work hard and care about our most prized asset - our people.

We’re helping businesses get off the ground by enabling them to focus on running their business. We solve HR issues. We’re data-driven and never stop iterating. If you’d like to work in a supportive, entrepreneurial environment, are interested in building something meaningful and having fun while doing it, we’d love to hear from you.

We're united by shared goals and shared motivations at Justworks. These are best summed up in our company values, which are reflected in our product and in our team.

Our Values

If this sounds like you, you’ll fit right in.

Who You Are

You will play a critical role in shaping Justworks’ long-term strategy and growth trajectory as we continue to scale. Reporting into executive leadership and partnering closely across the organization, you will help define corporate priorities, evaluate growth and corporate development opportunities, and support both organic and inorganic growth initiatives.

As Director, Strategy & Corporate Development, you will help ensure that Justworks’ most important strategic decisions are informed by a deep understanding of customers, markets, and emerging trends. You will work hand-in-hand with Research & Insights to translate qualitative and quantitative findings into clear strategic choices and recommendations that drive executive decision-making. This role blends strategic thinking with hands-on problem solving. You will operate across multiple time horizons — from near-term decisions to long-term vision — while serving as a trusted advisor to executives and a people leader on a growing Strategy & Corporate Development team.

Your Success Profile

What You Will Work On

Team Leadership & Capability Building

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of strategists (three direct reports on day one), fostering a culture of high performance, collaboration, and continuous learning

• Set team standards for strategic rigor, insight synthesis, and communication

• Evolve a strong operating model for Corporate Strategy, defining clear ways of working to ensure insights flow consistently into strategic decision-making

Strategic foresight and distilling priorities

• Help our team of strategists build their skills in and approach to strategic foresight and begin to fold it into how the Strategy & Corporate Development team operates

• Leverage qualitative and quantitative research, trend sensing, and insight synthesis to develop structured perspectives on long-term trends, uncertainties, and emerging risks and opportunities

• Act as a thought partner and trusted advisor to executive leadership during strategy formulation, decision-making, and execution

• Ensure the team balances near-term decisions with long-range thinking, helping Justworks anticipate change and make durable, forward-looking strategic decisions

Growth, market, and competitive strategy

• Lead work to proactively identify and evaluate new growth opportunities (M&A, investment, and partnership) that align with Justworks’ long-term vision, competitive advantages, and customer needs

• Lead market, customer, competitive, and macroeconomic analyses, in close partnership with Research & Insights, to ensure strategic recommendations are grounded in deep customer understanding, unmet needs, and real-world behaviors—not just surface-level metrics

• Partner withcross-functional leaders to conduct analyses and build business cases that shape commercial and go-to-market strategies to unlock growth and improve execution

• Translate research outputs (e.g., customer insights, segmentation, needs-based frameworks, opportunity sizing) into clear strategic choices, investment theses, and growth narratives for executive and board audiences

Corporate development & strategic partnerships

• Support and, where appropriate, lead inorganic growth initiatives, including mergers, acquisitions, and strategic partnerships

• Conduct opportunity assessment, business case development, diligence support, and integration planning in collaboration with cross-functional stakeholders

Executive communication & alignment

• Clearly articulate strategic opportunities, principles, and recommendations (grounded in evidence and insight) to executives, senior leaders, and key stakeholders

• Drive organizational alignment through crisp storytelling, structured frameworks, and data-informed recommendations

• Support executive- and board-level discussions with rigorous analysis and clear strategic narratives

How You Will Do Your Work

Success in this role is defined not only by outcomes, but by how those outcomes are achieved. Your approach is grounded in the following capabilities:

• Strategic Mindset - Anticipates future trends and implications; connects disparate inputs into a coherent view of long-term value creation.

• Business Insight - Applies deep understanding of the business and market context to advance organizational goals.

• Plans & Aligns - Breaks complex objectives into actionable initiatives with clear milestones and accountability.

• Initiative & Ownership - Proactively identifies what needs to be done and drives work forward in ambiguous environments.

• Influence & Leadership - Builds trust, alignment, and momentum across diverse stakeholders through strong relationships and lateral leadership.

• Operational Excellence – Brings structure to ambiguous problems and ensures strategy work translates into clear, actionable plans.

In addition, all Justworkers focus on aligning their behaviors to our core values known as COGIS. It stands for:

• Camaraderie - Day to day you can be seen working together toward a higher purpose. You like to have fun. You’re an active listener, treat people respectfully, and have a

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