Principal, Operational Strategy

About this role

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Job Description Ares is seeking a versatile and highly motivated Principal to join the Corporate Strategy – Operational Strategy Group. Operational Strategy brings best-in-class execution discipline and program management rigor to the firm’s most critical transformation initiatives, including M&A integration master planning, enterprise operating model evolution, corporate efficiency efforts, and governance support for senior leadership forums. Working across Ares’ lines of business and business operations functions, the team advances high-priority strategic initiatives through disciplined solution design, enterprise coordination, strong delivery, and scalable execution.

The Operational Strategy Group supports the Executive Office and serves as the enterprise control tower and nerve center for the firm’s highest-priority transformations bringing together strategy, execution oversight, assurance, and cross-functional delivery to ensure these initiatives move in a coordinated, disciplined, and value-focused way. The team manages complexity across the targeted transformation portfolio, keeps priority programs on track, surface dependencies and risks early, and drive clear decision-making at the executive level. Positioned close to the Executive Office, the team executes enterprise programs across all Ares’ lines of business (Credit, Private Equity, Real Assets, and Secondaries) as well as technology, legal, compliance, finance, Sales/Marketing and other functional groups, ensuring that the firm’s most operationally critical initiatives are aligned to enterprise priorities, sequenced effectively, and delivering measurable value.

This person will sit within Operational Strategy and be directly accountable for both the strategy and execution of several of the firm’s key transformation programs, with a heavy focus on Technology, Investment, and Sales/Marketing workflows. They will own the end-to-end transformation agenda for their assigned programs, from defining the strategic objectives, target operating model, roadmap, success measures, and governance structure, through driving execution, managing dependencies, escalating risks, and ensuring measurable outcomes are delivered. To effectuate these goals, they will work across multiple PMOs, COOs, embedded project teams, and functional transformation resources that sit within the businesses and functions themselves, aligning those resources around a common strategy, execution plan, timeline, and set of outcomes. Operating across business, technology, investment, compliance, operations, and other functional stakeholders, this individual will serve as the senior execution lead responsible for translating strategic priorities into coordinated action across a highly matrixed environment. The role requires a strong problem-solver with knowledge of alternative investment asset classes, executive-level communication skills, fluency in technical system design, integrations and implementation, and experience leading large-scale changes where accountability, structure, influence, and delivery discipline are essential.

Reporting relationships Managing Director, Corporate Strategy – Operational Strategy Group

Primary functions & responsibilities • Translate executive priorities into executable programs focusing on enterprise sequencing  - Convert broad strategic goals from the Executive Office or strategy leadership into clear problem statements, program charters, business cases, roadmaps, workstreams, milestones, and decision points. Decide what has to move first, what depends on what, and which initiatives conflict with each other.

• Lead cohesive solution and operating-model design  - Assess current-state processes, technology, data flows, controls, roles, and cross-strategy dependencies; define target-state vision, capabilities, operating models, organizational design, governance structures, and scalable process designs that work across business lines and functions.

• Own program development, portfolio integration and execution planning - Build the integrated program plan, define sequencing and dependencies, identify required resources, establish timelines, clarify accountability, and ensure stakeholders understand how the work will move from strategy to implementation. Tie together business-unit specific transformation and project teams.

• Drive disciplined program management and delivery  - Manage complex, multi-workstream initiatives with rigor around scope, timeline, budget, risks, issues, dependencies, decisions, and deliverables. The role requires active ownership of program momentum, issue resolution, executive escalation, and workstream accountability; the person is expected to create momentum, remove blockers, escalate effectively, and hold workstreams accountable; validate deliverables, and ensure execution quality

• Change Management and Adoption  - Drive adoption of new processes, tools, and operating models by partnering with business teams to embed changes into day-to-day workflows and ensure sustained outcomes.

• Translate complex transformation concepts into clear, compelling business narratives  - Develop messaging that helps stakeholders across the Asset Management organization understand the purpose, value, and impact of transformation programs, including how initiatives support firmwide priorities, what role each group plays, and how business processes, operati

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