Fire and Safety is a global platform within IDEX, serving mission critical customers across fire suppression, emergency response, rescue, industrial safety and related highly engineered solutions.  The platform includes a diverse portfolio of businesses and brands serving municipal fire, industrial, OEM, emergency rescue, specialty vehicle, and critical infrastructure customers.

The VP, Strategy — Fire & Safety will serve as the platform’s strategist, growth architect, and thought partner. This leader will sit on the Fire & Safety leadership team and collaborate closely with the president, business unit leaders, commercial leaders, functional leaders, and corporate development to shape where Fire & Safety plays, how it wins, and how the platform delivers sustained profitable growth.

Summary Role Overview

Reporting to the FSDP and FMT Segment, VP of Strategy, the VP Strategy - Fire & Safety will build and lead a best-in-class strategy capability that enables sustainable, profitable growth across the global platform. This leader will be responsible for developing a clear, differentiated Fire & Safety strategy that guides portfolio choices, where-to-play/how-to-win decisions, commercial focus, innovation priorities, inorganic growth, and execution across business units and regions.

The VP Strategy - Fire & Safety will function as the strategic architect and execution partner to the President and the Fire & Safety leadership team. They will define and embed the platform strategy, shape long-term direction, identify major go-to-market shifts, and prioritize the highest-value organic and inorganic growth bets. The role will partner closely with business unit leaders to ensure strategy is not a stand-alone planning exercise, but a practical operating system that informs resource allocation, commercial focus, product vitality, M&A priorities, and measurable business outcomes.

This leader will also play a critical role in strengthening Fire & Safety’s external and internal strategic narrative ensuring the platform has a compelling, data-driven story supported by strong market intelligence, customer insight, competitive understanding, and clear value creation logic.

Responsibilities

• Define and embed a clear Fire & Safety platform strategy that identifies where to play, how to win, and the capabilities needed to achieve sustained profitable growth.
• Partner with business unit leaders to align strategic priorities, resource allocation, and execution plans across the Fire & Safety portfolio.
• Lead portfolio assessment work to identify growth opportunities, adjacency plays, margin expansion opportunities, whitespace, underpenetrated markets, and areas requiring strategic repositioning.

• Identify and prioritize the highest-value organic growth opportunities across Fire & Safety, including customer segments, applications, geographies, product platforms, services, and solution-led offerings.
• Partner with commercial and business leaders to shape go-to-market strategy, channel priorities, customer segmentation, solution selling opportunities, and differentiated value propositions.
• Strengthening innovation strategy by linking product vitality, customer needs, market trends, and growth priorities to measurable revenue and margin outcomes.
• Establish clear governance, KPIs, and value tracking for strategic initiatives, innovation programs, AI-enabled use cases, and commercial growth bets.

• Build a robust market intelligence capability for Fire & Safety, including credible insight into market size, growth rates, customer needs, competitive dynamics, technology shifts, regulatory trends, and emerging adjacencies.
• Partner with business units to raise the quality of strategic planning through stronger analytics, sharper choices, and more actionable execution plans.

• Translate strategy into a disciplined execution roadmap with clear owners, milestones, KPIs, and value tracking.
• Partner with business and functional leaders to ensure top strategic initiatives deliver measurable impact on revenue, margin, return on investment, and enterprise value.
• Own synergy goals in partnership with business leaders, identifying opportunities to leverage common capabilities, customers, channels, technologies, sourcing, operations, and commercial practices across the platform.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Engineering, Economics, Finance, or a related field required, MBA or relevant advanced degree preferred.
• Approximately 8+ years of experience in strategy, corporate development, general management, commercial strategy, or related leadership roles.
• Experience in industrials, manufacturing, engineered products, mission-critical equipment, safety, emergency response, fluid management, or complex B2B environments strongly preferred.
• Proven track record developing and executing growth strategies that deliver above-market performance.
• Strong experience with portfolio strategy, market assessment, competitive analysis, commercial strategy, and business case development.
• Strong financial and analytical skills, with the ability to connect market insights, strategic choices, and business outcomes.
• Experience building or elevating strategy capabilities, processes, teams, or governance models across a business platform.

Attributes and Skills

• Strategic thinker who simplifies complexity, frames clear choices, and brings focus to the highest-value opportunities.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to connect customer needs, market dynamics, competitive insight, financial performance, and operational capability.
• Highly analytical and comfortable working with data, financials, market intelligence, and business performance metrics.
• Demonstrated ability to translate strategy into disciplined execution, clear governance, accountability, and measurable outcomes.
• Growth-minded, curious, proactive, and comfortable navigating ambiguity, change, and transformation.
• Talent champion who builds capability, develops team members, and fosters a culture of accountability, collaboration, and execution.