Principal Analyst, Enterprise Strategy

Principal Analyst, Enterprise Strategy

The Principal Analyst, Enterprise Strategy serves as a partner in executing the organization's enterprise-level strategic planning, goal-setting frameworks, and performance measurement processes. This role is responsible for directing data-driven analysis across multiple workstreams, maintaining the integrity of strategic initiatives. The Principal Analyst acts as a liaison between Strategy leadership and functional teams, building relationships with key stakeholders to ensure accurate reporting and strategic alignment. This is a senior individual contributor role with stakeholder engagement responsibilities, working under general guidance from the Director.

Essential Job Functions:

• Strategic Analysis & Modeling: Conducts sophisticated financial and operational analysis to support executive decision-making. Develops and refines models to assess resource allocation, business case viability for new initiatives, and enterprise performance outcomes. Provides guidance to junior analysts on analytical approaches and methodology.
• Strategic Planning & Governance: Contributes to the design and execution of the enterprise-level strategic planning and goal-setting processes. Ensures consistency in methodology, data integrity, and alignment with organizational priorities. Assists with establishing guardrails and processes to maintain the integrity of enterprise goals and reporting.
• Performance Monitoring & Reporting: Oversees and ensures the collection, validation, and analysis of enterprise metrics. Proactively engages with functional stakeholders to clarify data discrepancies, provide strategic context, and ensure accuracy before reports reach the Management Committee (MC) and Board. Leads quality assurance of reporting deliverables.
• Executive Materials Development & Quality Assurance: Owns the end-to-end development process for Board and MC materials, including establishing quality standards, coordinating inputs from multiple stakeholders, and conducting final reviews for strategic coherence. Ensures all deliverables meet executive expectations for rigor, clarity, and strategic alignment. Provides feedback to contributors on presentation standards and messaging.
• Strategic Project Leadership: Drive significant strategic initiatives and "rapid response" analysis projects as assigned by Enterprise Strategy leadership. Manages complex workstreams involving multiple stakeholders, including deep dives into emerging risks, market opportunities, operational efficiency reviews, and enterprise-wide corporate initiatives.
• Stakeholder Relationship Management: Builds and maintains strong working relationships with functional data owners, program managers, and business leaders across the organization. Serves as a primary point of contact for stakeholders on strategic planning methodology, data requirements, timeline management, and strategic alignment issues.
• Market Intelligence & Best Practices: Monitors industry trends and developments in strategic planning and performance management methodologies. Synthesizes this information into actionable insights and briefs for the Strategy team.
• Process Improvement & Methodology: Identifies opportunities and friction points enhance the planning process and strategic framework. Collaborate with stakeholders to design more efficient workflows, templates, and tools for future cycles.
• Strategic Planning Expertise & Knowledge Transfer: Serves as a technical resource and consultant to team members on strategic planning methodologies and analytical approaches. Facilitates knowledge-sharing sessions on emerging best practices, provides guidance on navigating complex stakeholder dynamics, and supports skill development through real-time coaching during project execution. Contributes content and facilitation to enterprise-wide training on strategic frameworks.
• Demonstration of FINRA's values.
• Collaboration, both in-person and virtually, in furtherance of FINRA's mission of investor protection and market integrity.
• Other duties as assigned

Education/Experience Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in finance or business administration or equivalent; MBA or related graduate degree is a plus.
• Minimum of eight (8) years of relevant experience in corporate strategy, management consulting, FP&A, or a business operations role.
• Minimum of two (2) years in a leadership or mentoring role with demonstrated ability to guide and develop team members.
• Proven experience leading cross-functional strategic initiatives and workstreams with organizational scope.
• Advanced experience with strategic modeling, framework development, and/or OKR/KPI methodology.
• Strong project and program management skills; experience managing complex, concurrent initiatives with stakeholder coordination.
• Proven ability to collaborate and influence across matrixed organizations with direct authority.
• Agile project experience: Proven ability to manage ad-hoc projects with undefined scopes, moving from ambiguity to a structured answer quickly.
• Advanced analytical toolset: Expert proficiency in Excel and PowerPoint. Ability to build dynamic models and executive-ready presentations is essential.
• Strong quantitative and qualitative analytical skills with the ability to synthesize complex data into executive-level insights.
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills, with the ability to present findings to senior-level stakeholders.
• Self-starter who can manage multiple competing priorities/projects independently and guide others in doing the same.

Work Conditions

• Hybrid work environment, with defined in-person presence requirements.
• Extended hours and overnight travel as needed.