Director, Strategy & Operations, Consumer

About the role

This position will spearhead growth initiatives within Ethos Life's expanding Direct-to-Consumer business. You will be responsible for driving high-impact projects from conception through to successful completion, overseeing an evolving product range, multiple sales channels, and the entire customer journey.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Identify and prioritize growth opportunities across product lines (term life, IUL, estate planning), the customer lifecycle (attraction, retention, additional sales), and various channels including organic search, paid advertising, social media, television, partnerships, and referrals.
• Lead growth initiatives from start to finish, either executing them directly or empowering other leaders to do so. Examples include introducing a new product to an existing marketing channel, expanding a current product into a new distribution avenue, or enhancing retention for established products.
• Conduct thorough assessments of new prospects, developing business cases, modeling key financial metrics (customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, payback period, contribution margin), and providing data-backed recommendations on whether to proceed.
• Develop a deep understanding of how different products, channels, and teams interact, using this knowledge to guide product, marketing, sales, and engineering teams toward optimal goals and priorities.
• Manage the quarterly objective and key results (OKR) planning and goal-setting processes, ensuring alignment across teams on the most impactful opportunities and fostering efficient execution.
• Oversee critical cross-functional projects involving Product, Engineering, Marketing, Sales, and Partnerships to achieve business expansion.
• Collaborate with company leaders to fundamentally rethink operational approaches, identifying areas where artificial intelligence can significantly improve decision-making, output quality, and overall achievement, and demonstrating these possibilities through leadership.

Requirements

• A minimum of 10 years of professional experience, including at least 3 years in a top-tier management consulting firm or investment banking, followed by 3 years in a Strategy & Operations role at a rapidly growing, venture-backed company or a founding position.
• A genuine affinity for artificial intelligence, demonstrated by actively experimenting with AI in personal or professional contexts and consistently pushing its capabilities. You should use AI to enable new possibilities, refine decisions, and elevate the quality of your work, with a clear perspective on where AI offers transformative rather than incremental benefits.
• A true operator's mindset, taking ownership of results and actively contributing to making things happen.
• A proven history of directly achieving results, with multiple examples of owning and completing initiatives from beginning to end, understanding the practicalities of delivery in fast-paced settings beyond just making suggestions.
• The ability to analyze problems at a granular level while also maintaining a strategic overview of implications and future steps.
• Structured thinking skills to deconstruct complex and ambiguous challenges into clear, actionable frameworks that inform decision-making.
• A capacity for rapid learning, with the willingness and ability to quickly grasp new concepts, channels, and product details at a fundamental level.
• Exceptional communication abilities, capable of shifting between high-level strategy and detailed operations, crafting concise narratives for both written documents and executive presentations.
• Sharp decision-making skills with a bias for action and speed, thriving in dynamic environments and proceeding without perfect information.

Nice to have

• None specified.

Skills & tools

• None specified.

Practical notes

• US national base salary range: $169,000 - $298,000. Compensation is determined by role, level, and location. The displayed range represents the target for new hires across all US locations. Individual pay is influenced by work location and factors such as skills, experience, and education.
• Compensation details for US roles reflect base salary only and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits.
• Further details on US benefits are available at https://www.ethoslife.com/careers/.
• Ethos Life is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. If your experience doesn't perfectly match every qualification but you are enthusiastic about the role, please apply.
• Ethos Life is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
• In accordance with the SF Fair Chance Ordinance, qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records will be considered.
• California Candidate Privacy Notice: https://res.cloudinary.com/getethos/image/upload/v1684458868/00_CMS/CURRENT_CRPA_Privacy_Notice_for_Job_Applicants_05-23.docx_-_Google_Docs_lr4j43.pdf
• Recruitment Notice: All legitimate communication from Ethos Life will originate from email addresses ending in @ethos.com or @getethos.com. The company will never request payment, banking details, or sensitive personal information during the hiring process. Be aware of fraudulent communications from different email addresses.