Strategy Manager

Job Description

Life at Elvie - Meaningful work. Exceptional people

At Elvie, we don’t believe women's bodies are the problem. Instead, we believe the problem is that the needs of women’s bodies – and therefore, lives – have been ignored, misunderstood, and underestimated.

Founded by Tania Boler in 2013, Elvie has been improving women's lives through better – and smarter – technology ever since. We develop innovations that meet the unique needs and complexities of the female body so that women can take charge of their health across every life stage.

Our first product, Elvie Trainer, is a multi-award-winning device bringing hospital-grade pelvic floor care to the hands of women everywhere— it was even a gift in the Oscar Nominee Goody Bags! And now, we're proud to say that we're part of the NHS Supply Chain in the UK.

Our second innovation was Elvie Pump. Launched in 2019, it's the world's first silent, wearable breast pump, enabling women to pump wherever they please— even the catwalk at London Fashion Week. It’s since won numerous awards, including the Times 100 Best Inventions of 2019 and ‘Wearable Design of the Year’ at the Dezeen Awards. The initial success of our wellness tools gave us the means to expand our breastfeeding range to include Elvie Curve and Elvie Catch, both designed to give mothers total comfort and confidence.

As a business, Elvie has received more than 30 awards (including the prestigious Red Dot Design award). We’re ranked as one of the 15 startups ‘To Watch’ by The Sunday Times and Business Insider and ranked as the 13th fastest growing business in the UK by Syndicate Room. Our founder and CEO, Tania Boler, is regularly profiled in top-tier media titles, and, in 2021, Tania was named GLAMOUR’s Women of the Year: Technology Gamechanger.

In July 2021, Elvie announced an $80 million Series C funding, the number one position and biggest raise in an initial fundraising round in the femtech category.

What does it mean to work at Elvie?

You will be surrounded by people who want to improve everything and everyone around them. People who are passionate about our mission. People who are driven to solve tough problems and constantly consider the best ways to improve the health and wellbeing of women.

We're deeply proud of our values, which are intrinsic to the way we behave every day. We take them seriously because we want our culture to thrive:

• We make an impact - we are mission driven and not afraid to break boundaries. We relentlessly focus on going the extra mile to solve problems
• We are fearless innovators - we are passionate, curious and data-driven. We continuously embrace change and innovation
• We are in it together - we fail and learn fast, always as one team, and have fun along the way. We stay authentic and embrace our differences

About the role

The role of Strategy Manager will report into the Head of Strategy and support them & the Strategy Director in defining and executing Elvie’s strategy - ensuring we focus on the right things at the right time. Our team's remit includes defining where to play (new market categories, or new product types), how to win (from defining the business models to succeed in new markets, or supporting teams to maximise the opportunities we have today), creating frameworks & comms strategies to ensure all of our teams can deliver on our strategy and driving fundraising & exit plans.

Specifically, the Strategy Manager will be expected to provide timely analysis and make informed recommendations on strategic plans, business development projects, potential acquisitions, market characteristics, business issues, competitive dynamics and market growth projections.

The role will work closely with finance, market teams, product and our transformation office and be responsible for providing targeted strategic support on our initiatives to address challenges / barriers to progress.

Responsibilities:

• Identify opportunities & threats Elvie needs to act on by
  • Delivering high quality analysis & explanation of competitive environments at a global and country level
  • Completing detailed financial and commercial analysis using excel or equivalent and developing key insights from analysis
• Inform new categories for us to enter by:
  • Managing the appraisal of market entry & prioritisation, M&A opportunities and significant deals through completing detailed analysis, due diligence
  • Owning the financial models needed to appraise opportunities
  • Conducting market scans, forecasting growth areas and understanding market drivers and competitor business models to identify optimal market opportunities for our business
• Lead targeted strategic support on certain business initiatives to address challenges / barriers to progress - balancing financial impact with operational, market & brand considerations
• Create clear recommendations through:
  • Building robust business plans and concise, compelling presentations to support your recommendations, supported by the Head of Strategy
  • Develop reporting tools, templates and frameworks to support strategic decision making
  • With support from the Head of Strategy, develop evidenced based assumptions that will up to scrutiny and challenge from business leads and group senior management

Requirements

Skills

• Strong understanding of market research techniques and approaches and of data sets available for market and competitor analysis
• Ability to synthesize high volumes of data, from different sources into clear and succinct recommendations suitable for a senior audience
• Basic financial reporting and analysis
• Excellent commercial awareness
• Excellent report writing (Word and Powerpoint) and presentation skills for a Board audience
• Advanced Microsoft Excel skills, with ability to create models
• Analytical rigour and attention to detail
• Articulate with excellent interpersonal skills – ability to quickly establish credibility with senior leaders
• Understands how projects are set-up and managed

Experience

• Experience of new market entry strategy formulation and execution
• Experience working for a leading strategy consultancy or strategy function of a large corporate
• Strategy development experience
• Economics / mathematical background desirable
• Experience running due diligence and appraisal of M&A or other major business development opportunities
• Creating assumptions for financial models with little data but creative thinking that will stand up to scrutiny
• Good knowledge of a consumer orientated business
• Market and competitor analysis

Personal aptitude

• Results driven mentality, able to continually critique and optimise performance
• Pro-active individual with ability to self-manage
• Strong team player keen to work across departments

What success looks like

• Level of support for the Elvie Strategic planning process & prioritisation of our efforts
• Level of market and competitor insight
• Level of support and counsel provided to the Exec team
• Effectiveness of strategic support to Business Plan initiatives

Benefits

Elvie is at the crest of a wave! Founded by women's health expert Tania Boler and tech entrepreneur Alex Asseily, Elvie is a collection of bright and motivated team members working across the business to shape the emerging femtech industry.

We are passionate about creating disruptive products that address the challenges that matter most to women and dismantling the taboos around women’s bodies. Here, you can be part of a business and brand that has a positive and meaningful impact on the world, while learning a great deal and having fun.

What are some of the perks of working at Elvie?

We are looking after you. As well as the chance to develop products with real work impact and working with dedicated and passionate colleagues, our benefits have flexibility and wellbeing in mind with

• Flexible work environment built on trust and autonomy
• Employee / friends & family discounts on Elvie products
• Annual personal development allowance & unlimited access to our learning & development platform
• A tax-efficient group pension scheme with SmartPension
• A tax-efficient charity donation scheme
• Life Insurance with Yulife
• Medical, Dental & Optical cash-plan
• Employee Assistance Program for you and your family
• Generous employee referral program
• Cycle Scheme & Tech Scheme
• YuLife Well-being app & access to SmartHealth app with unlimited GP appointments for you and your family, plus various well-being initiatives throughout the year

At Elvie, we believe in having diverse teams in which everyone can be their authentic self is key to our success. We encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply and we don't discriminate based on race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, marital status, disability or age. We are a family-friendly employer with a culture based on trust, autonomy and flexibility, and are working on making our offices wheelchair friendly and breastfeeding friendly. We do our best to accommodate part-time requests and flexible requests as much as possible. We are also a member of UK Tech Talent Charter and proudly working in partnership with myGwork and Women's tech hub.