VP, Corporate Strategy

We are currently looking for a VP, Corporate Strategy to join our team

JOB DESCRIPTION

Role Summary

Keel Infrastructure is seeking an experienced and highly analytical VP, Corporate Strategy to help shape the company's long-term growth and strategic direction. Reporting directly to the President, this role serves as a trusted advisor to the executive leadership team, leading enterprise strategy, evaluating growth opportunities, driving high-impact cross-functional initiatives, and supporting executive decision-making across the business.

This is not a traditional internal consulting role. The VP, Corporate Strategy will play a central role in helping the company identify where to invest, prioritize strategic initiatives, evaluate new business opportunities, and ensure critical enterprise initiatives are successfully executed.

The ideal candidate combines exceptional strategic thinking with strong financial acumen, executive communication skills, and a proven ability to translate strategy into measurable business outcomes. As the first dedicated strategy leader at Keel, this individual will have the opportunity to build the corporate strategy function over time while working closely with senior leaders across the SVP, Datacenter Design and Construction, SVP, Site Selection & Power, Corporate Development, Commercial, Operations, Finance, Legal, and Investor Relations.

Team & Direct Reports

VP, Corporate Strategy leads a small, senior-analyst team:

• Market Intelligence Lead - owns customer, industry, and competitor research, and market dynamics analysis.
• Strategic Planning Lead - owns the annual and long-range strategic planning process.

Key Responsibilities

Corporate Strategy

• Lead the development and execution of Keel's annual and long-range strategic planning process.
• Evaluate new growth opportunities across AI infrastructure, hyperscale data centers, digital infrastructure, adjacent services, and emerging technologies.
• Develop strategic recommendations supported by financial modeling, market analysis, and competitive intelligence.
• Identify opportunities to improve the company's competitive positioning, profitability, and long-term value creation.
• Develop business cases that support executive investment decisions and capital allocation.

Executive & Board Support

• Partner closely with the President and executive leadership team on enterprise priorities and strategic decision-making.
• Prepare Board of Directors presentations and strategic updates.
• Support executive offsites, annual planning sessions, and long-range planning activities.
• Own tracking of open Board action items, partnering with item owners to deliver the required materials and closing out items once complete.
• Support setting and tracking annual corporate and executive KPIs, keeping leadership accountable to plan.
• Conduct strategic analyses and executive-level presentations on high-priority business issues.

Strategic Initiatives

• Lead cross-functional initiatives that advance the company's strategic priorities.
• Develop execution plans, governance structures, and success metrics for enterprise initiatives.
• Coordinate across multiple business functions to ensure alignment and accountability.
• Identify execution risks and develop mitigation strategies.
• Track progress against strategic objectives and communicate results to executive leadership.
• Work with Program Management to ensure enterprise initiatives are tracked and reported on consistently and effectively.

Corporate Development & Strategic Partnerships

• Partner with the Corporate Development Lead to shape M&A and JV target criteria based on Keel's strategic priorities.
• Evaluate acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic partnerships, and new business opportunities.
• Perform commercial and strategic due diligence.
• Develop financial and strategic investment analyses.
• Support integration planning for acquisitions and strategic investments.
• Build executive recommendations regarding market entry and expansion opportunities.

Market Intelligence & Competitive Strategy

• Lead customer, industry, and competitor research efforts, ensuring the organization has a current, rigorous view of market dynamics ahead of every major decision.
• Monitor industry trends across AI infrastructure, hyperscale cloud, digital infrastructure, energy, and adjacent markets.
• Analyze competitors, customer trends, technology developments, and market dynamics - including power availability as an increasingly binding competitive constraint.
• Develop executive insights that inform corporate strategy and commercial priorities.
• Maintain a strategic view of market opportunities and potential competitive risks.

Enterprise Performance & Transformation

• Support the executive team in identifying opportunities to improve organizational effectiveness and business performance.
• Drive strategic transformation initiatives across commercial, operational, and corporate functions.
• Establish governance processes to improve execution and accountability across enterprise priorities.
• Develop performance dashboards and executive reporting for strategic initiatives.

Where This Role Ends

• Sets direction and defines requirements to meet Keel's long-term goals; does not set technical or design standards - that ownership sits with the SVP, Datacenter Design and Construction.
• Shapes M&A/JV target criteria jointly with the Corporate Development Lead, who owns deal execution, diligence, and capital partner relationships.
• Coordinates with Program Management on enterprise initiative tracking; does not own the Program Management Office itself - that now sits under Operations. Also does not own delivery accountability for individual site builds - that sits with the SVP, Site Selection & Power (pre-development) and the SVP, Datacenter Design and Construction (development).

Qualifications & Experience

Required Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Business, Engineering, Economics, Finance, or a related discipline. MBA or other advanced degree preferred.
• 10 to 15 years of experience in corporate strategy, management consulting, corporate development, investment banking, private equity, or executive strategy roles.
• Experience leading enterprise-level strategic initiatives with measurable business impact.
• Strong financial modeling, business case development, and investment analysis skills.
• Demonstrated experience presenting recommendations to executive leadership and Boards of Directors.
• Exceptional analytical, communication, and executive presentation skills.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders without direct authority.
• Proven ability to manage multiple complex initiatives simultaneously.

Preferred Experience

• Experience at a leading management consulting firm such as BCG, McKinsey, or Bain, combined with operating experience in a technology, infrastructure, industrial, or energy company.
• Experience within digital infrastructure, hyperscale cloud, AI infrastructure, data centers, telecommunications, industrial technology, or related sectors.
• Experience supporting mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships, or corporate development.
• Experience building strategy functions or leading enterprise transformation initiatives in high-growth organizations.

Leadership Competencies

• Strategic and systems thinking.
• Strong business and financial acumen.
• Intellectual curiosity and structured problem solving.
• Executive presence and exceptional communication skills.
• Ability to influence across all levels of the organization.
• Bias for action and execution.
• Collaborative leadership style with the ability to build trusted relationships across functions.
• Data-driven decision-making - grounds strategy, day-to-day execution, and outcome tracking in rigorous analysis rather than instinct alone.
• Solutions-oriented leadership - takes ownership of surfacing problems and driving them through to resolution, not just flagging them.
• High degree of ownership, accountability, and sound judgment.

This is a unique opportunity to help shape one of the industry's emerging digital infrastructure platforms during a period of rapid growth. As the company's first VP, Corporate Strategy, you will work directly with executive leadership to influence major investment decisions, define long-term strategy, lead enterprise transformation initiatives, and build a function that will play a critical role in Keel's future success.

You will have direct, regular visibility with the President, CEO, and Board of Directors from day one - this is not a role where strategic recommendations get filtered through several layers before they reach a decision-maker. Keel is scaling its data center portfolio at a pace that will test every part of the organization, and the strategic choices made in the next 24 months (which markets, which power structures, which capital partners, which M&A targets) will define the company's trajectory for the next decade. You will build the strategy function from the ground up: its processes, its cadence with the Board, and its working relationships with Corporate Development, the SVP, Datacenter Design and Construction, and Operations. Few strategy roles at this stage of a company's growth come with this much latitude to define how the function itself should work, not just what it recommends.

In addition to the below base salary range, our compensation package includes an annual cash bonus and a yearly equity grant.

NYC

$245,000-$325,000 USD