Job Location Type Hybrid The Director of Strategic Operations is a high-impact, highly visible leader responsible for driving clarity, focus, and forward momentum across Applebee's most important operational priorities. A newly created function reporting directly to the Chief Operating Officer (COO), this role will serve as the right hand to the COO and sits at the intersection of strategy, execution, and organizational alignment. The role is ideal for someone who can distill complex problems into actionable strategies while also being willing to get hands-on to drive work forward. This individual must be a visionary thinker with strong analytical horsepower, capable of using data to shape recommendations, inform trade-offs, and influence decisions across the organization. At the same time, they should thrive in ambiguity, move quickly from ideas to action, and be comfortable rolling up their sleeves when initiatives need extra momentum or structure. Success in this role requires an exceptional ability to influence without authority, build trust across diverse stakeholder groups, and navigate a matrixed, cross-functional environment. The Director of Strategic Operations serves as a connective force in aligning teams, identifying gaps, bringing structure to complex discussions, and ensuring that the organization remains relentlessly dedicated to Applebee's Operational values of simplicity, focus, and innovation. This is a unique opportunity for a strategic, analytically-minded operator who wants to shape the future of Applebee's Operations while partnering closely with senior leadership to drive meaningful, system-wide impact. Responsibilities: Thought Partnership: Serve as a strategic thought partner and right hand to the COO, ensuring alignment, focus, and execution across Applebee's key operational priorities. Strategic Project Leadership: Act as the operational hub for Applebee's strategic initiatives, leading quarterly reviews of priority initiatives and ensuring progress against annual goals. Executive Decision Support: Prepare executive updates, leadership communications, board-level content, and franchisee-facing narratives that accelerate clarity and decision-making. Project Implementation: Drive execution of the COO's enterprise-wide priorities by coordinating cross-functional teams and ensuring operational discipline. Dashboard Development: Own the design, development, and maintenance of key performance dashboards to maximize utilization by internal team and Franchisees. Change Management Leadership: Guide teams through organizational, process, and strategic changes by defining clear transitions, enabling adoption, and ensuring stakeholders understand and embrace new ways of working. Hands-On Execution: Build forecasting and financial models to pressure-test concepts, draft communications, or lead working sessions when initiatives need added momentum. Data Integrity: Ensure that all financial and operational metrics that are distributed are completely accurate and verified internally across key stakeholders. Operations Project Ownership: Personally lead select strategic initiatives, including scoping work, conducting analysis, developing solutions, and driving measurable outcomes. Cross-Functional Collaboration & Influence: Align stakeholders across departments by facilitating discussions, surfacing tradeoffs, and resolving competing priorities. Strategic Analysis & Insight Development: Build data-backed insights, frameworks, and recommendations that inform long-range planning and organizational direction. Operational Storytelling: Craft compelling narratives that clarify the "why," "what," and "how" behind key strategic priorities to build alignment and momentum. Concept Pressure-Testing: Evaluate the operational, financial, and guest impact of new ideas, ensuring proposals are grounded in real operational realities. Field Insight Integration: Engage with franchisees and field operators to gather insights that shape strategy and ensure initiatives reflect real-world needs. Issue Anticipation & Risk Identification: Proactively identify gaps, risks, and dependencies that may impede progress, and shape solutions to address them. Organizational Effectiveness: Introduce frameworks and ways of working that enhance focus, alignment, and execution across the Operations team. Culture Building: Champion a culture of transparency, curiosity, accountability, and continuous improvement across the Operations organization. Target Base Salary $175k-$200k depending on experience Skills & Requirements: Education: Bachelor's degree from a top tier academic institution, ideally with a rigorous analytical or quantitative foundation. MBA preferred. Experience: 5+ years of experience in strategy, implementation, business planning or transformation roles. Prior experience in top tier management consulting, corporate strategy, or investment banking/private equity strongly preferred (McKinsey, BCG, JPMorgan, etc.). Industry Expertise: Candidates with experience in restaurant, hospitality, or multi-unit retail environments are a plus. Analytical & Financial Rigor: Skilled in analyzing complex data, building business cases, and understanding P&L dynamics to drive unit-level profitability. Communication: Clear, concise, and persuasive communication skills, including verbal, written materials, and high-quality PowerPoint presentations tailored for executive audiences. Executional Agility: Ability to fluidly move between high-level strategy discussions and detailed, on-the-ground execution work as priorities evolve. Influence without Authority: Demonstrated skill in influencing without direct authority, leveraging relationships, credibility, and data to drive adoption of initiatives. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Proven ability to navigate matrixed, cross-functional environments with exposure to senior leaders. Bias for Action: Thrives in ambiguity, can make recommendations and decisions with imperfect information, and iterates quickly based on feedback Travel: Ability to travel 25-30% to spend time in the field understanding our business and learning from franchisees