Director of Operations and Strategy

Job Description

Job Description

Director of Strategy & Operations

Harbor Logistics · North Charleston, SC · Reports to the CEO

About Harbor and why this role exists now

Harbor Logistics is a port-centric logistics company built around the Port of Charleston. We provide warehousing, transload, drayage and brokerage services to shippers and ocean carriers across the Southeast.

Harbor is in a growth phase. A new leadership team is building the next chapter of the company: expanding our warehousing and transload platform, modernizing our core systems and bringing automation into how we work.

That work generates more strategic initiatives than the CEO can personally research and drive. The Director of Strategy & Operations owns those initiatives from first question to final decision. That frees the CEO to set direction and make the calls.

Role summary

The Director of Strategy & Operations reports directly to the CEO and drives Harbor's most important strategic initiatives. You take a complex, ambiguous problem and turn it into a clear decision.

On every initiative, the work follows the same loop:

1. Absorb. Collect and digest large amounts of information from across the business: data, operators, customers, vendors and prior work.
2. Align. Agree with the CEO on the goal of the initiative and what a good outcome looks like.
3. Drive. Work across the organization with real latitude. Run the analysis, pressure-test options and build consensus with the leaders who own the work.
4. Distill. Bring the CEO the decision in its simplest form: the options, the trade-offs, a recommendation and what you need from him. He should be able to decide without redoing the research.

This is a hands-on role. You do the analysis and writing yourself. You have no direct reports, and you lead through influence with the executive team.

What you'll own

Strategic initiative leadership

• Lead, or support the leaders of, the company's highest-priority initiatives at any given time. Carry each from framing the problem through the decision and into execution.
• Example areas: systems modernization, automation and AI adoption, operating efficiency, and pricing strategy.
• Once an initiative is decided, hand it to its operating owner and track it until it delivers.

Strategic analysis and decision framing

• Build the analysis behind major decisions, such as business-unit economics, customer profitability, org design, pricing, and build-vs-buy.
• Stress-test assumptions. Separate evidence from inference, and trace every number to a source.
• Write crisp decision memos that put options, trade-offs and a recommendation on one page.

Cross-functional project management

• Run the company-wide priority tracker. Set owners, milestones and status, and flag what is slipping before it slips.
• Bring simple, repeatable project discipline to the leadership team: charters, milestones, risks and decision logs.
• Coordinate across sales, operations, finance, HR and IT so initiatives don't stall between departments.

Communication and alignment

• Make sure the leadership team understands and sends consistent messages about each initiative's goal, status and decisions.
• Draft internal communications from the CEO on strategic initiatives and the change management around them.
• Serve as a trusted sounding board for the CEO, and handle confidential matters with discretion.

First 90 days

Window

What you deliver

Days 1–30

Meet every leadership team member and visit each operation. Learn the business and inventory the open strategic initiatives. Agree with the CEO on the top priorities and the goal of each.

Days 31–60

Take ownership of your strategic initiatives. Work with the CEO to understand his decision criteria and to shape recommendations. Take over the priority tracker and set a consistent project cadence with the leadership team.

Days 61–90

Deliver decisions on your strategic initiatives and hand them off to operating owners.

What success looks like at 12 months

• The initiatives you led have been decided and delivered, with measured results.
• The CEO makes major decisions faster, from clear, well-supported recommendations, without doing the underlying research himself.
• Every company priority has one owner, a date and a current status. Nothing important stalls unnoticed.
• The leadership team sees you as the person who makes cross-functional work move.
• You have earned trust to take on broader scope.

Who you are

We care more about your trajectory than your tenure. We want someone high-slope who learns fast, thinks strategically and wants to operate well beyond their title.

Required

• Strategic analysis. You break an ambiguous problem into its parts, find the data that matters and reach a sound recommendation. You are strong in Excel and PowerPoint, and comfortable with financial statements and business economics.
• Communication. You write and speak clearly and concisely. You can turn a large volume of information into a one-page memo an executive will read and act on.
• Project management. You have driven cross-functional projects to completion through people who don't report to you.
• AI and modern tools. You are fluent in AI tools such as Claude Cowork and use them daily for research, analysis, drafting and tracking. You are proficient in modern project management software such as Asana, Monday or Smartsheet.
• Strategic view. You look past the task to the goal, and you shape the work to serve it.
• Judgment and discretion. You handle confidential information well and know when to escalate.
• Ownership. You thrive with latitude and ambiguity, and you move fast without being told how.
• Commitment. You are willing to work significant hours and be available after hours when the work requires it.
• Experience in a private-equity-backed or high-growth company.
• MBA or equivalent experience.
• Typically 5–10 years in management consulting, private equity or investing, corporate strategy, or a chief of staff or strategy role at an operating company.

Preferred

• Experience in logistics, transportation, supply chain or warehousing.

Location, reporting and compensation

Item

Detail

Reports to

CEO

Location

On-site in North Charleston, SC (HQ), with regular travel to our operations. Relocation assistance offered.

Hours

A demanding role: significant hours, with after-hours availability expected.

Direct reports

None