Vice President of Strategy

Company Overview:

Guidon Design is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business. We are a leader in sustainable Architecture Engineering. As multidisciplinary designers, we collaborate to develop creative, cost-effective, and sustainable solutions that help meet our clients’ goals. Our services include Architecture, Interior Design, Sustainability Consulting & Designing, Civil Engineering, Structural Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Plumbing Design. Project types include healthcare, government, housing, federal and education facilities. We elevate our communities through the design and development of our projects. Our reputation for design excellence is created by our ability to solve complex challenges with clear solutions, while being responsive to how the space will impact people and their communities. We exist to improve lives and empower people!

Job Purpose:

The Vice President of Strategy is responsible for implementing and leading firmwide long-term strategy focused on meeting the 10-year firm Vision. This role leads Guidon’s Marketing and Business Development Team as a strategic driver of the firm’s success. This role defines how the firm identifies, pursues, and wins work across all market sectors. As a member of the Executive Leadership Team, this individual partners closely with firm leaders to align market strategy with capacity, operations, and profitability, ensuring the firm is pursuing the right clients, markets, and services and aligned with operations to deliver on those projects. This role is expected to lead with an employee-owner mindset.

This leader is accountable for strengthening the firm’s brand and market position, building and maintaining a strong pipeline of qualified opportunities, and driving alignment across proposals, content, digital presence, and thought leadership. They lead and develop a cohesive team across private and federal markets, strengthen key client and partner relationships, and coach other firm leaders on business development and marketing to encourage proactive, disciplined, and strategic business development. Operating with an enterprise mindset, they bring market insight into strategic planning, promote collaboration across the firm, and build the systems, structure, and accountability needed to support scalable growth while reinforcing Guidon’s culture of employee ownership.

Qualifications:

• Proven experience in a senior business development, marketing, or strategy leadership role within architecture, engineering, construction, or professional services.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop firmwide strategy and consistently drive measurable results, including pipeline development, win rates, and net revenue growth.
• Experience positioning marketing as a strategic function and is an integral part of long-term planning and vision.
• Strong business acumen that aligns strategy with operations, capacity, and profitability.
• Experience building, leading, and developing high-performing teams, including multidisciplinary or geographically distributed teams.
• Track record of guiding A/E leaders to drive sales and strategy within their markets through collaboration, education and processes.
• Ability to work as a peer with senior A/E leaders across disciplines, fostering collaboration in order to meet firm goals.
• Strong understanding of both private and federal markets is preferred, including familiarity with market-specific compliance requirements.
• Executive presence and a drive to success with strong communication skills and the ability to identify challenges, build a plan and process to drive success. at both strategic and tactical levels.
• Bachelor’s degree in marketing or associated field required; advanced degree or relevant certifications preferred.

Responsibilities:

• Assess, evolve, and build the structure of the marketing and business development teams to support firmwide short and long-term priorities and scalability. 
• Lead firmwide strategy across architecture and engineering.
• Ensure marketing team is integrated into the company as a strategic discipline, not just a proposal resource.
• Provide strategic leadership to ensure the firm builds and manages a strong pipeline of qualified opportunities, with a focus on the right clients, markets, and services.
• Use CRM, data, and analytics to track performance and improve results.
• Strengthen relationships with key clients, partners, and industry stakeholders.
• Coach leaders to be stronger business developers and focus the firm on proactive, targeted business development rather than reactive chasing. 
• Build a cohesive team to deliver results, to include Private and Federal business development and marketing team/roles.
• Provide leadership and oversight of compliance regarding market specific regulations. Serve as a key member of the executive leadership team.
• Help align organizational structure, accountability, and processes in ways that remove barriers to scale and support sustainable firm strategic growth.
• Work with discipline leadership to align market-based strategy with capacity, operations, and profitability.
• Help identify new markets, services, and client opportunities.
• Build a company-wide program/process that leverages key partners, mentors and protégé’s in ways that are mutually beneficial across all markets.
• Promote collaboration across architecture, engineering, and office leadership.
• Bring market insight into strategic planning and long-term firm direction.
• Help the firm pursue the right opportunities, with the right clients, in the right markets.
• Be directly engaged in executive strategies around firm expansions to include merger and acquisition to include new office/location growth.

Skills/Qualities:

• Think and act with a firmwide enterprise mindset.
• Be collaborative, strategic, and results driven.
• Work with our leaders in a collaborative, one team mindset to maximize impact.
• Lead with accountability, transparency, and clear metrics.
• Lead through influence and organizational alignment, helping clarify roles, strengthen coordination, and build scalable processes and systems across the firm.
• As a leader, one of the key roles is to develop our people as long-term future leaders.
• Lead firmwide strategy efforts in a way that connects teams, reduces silos, and reinforces a unified market approach.

Evaluation Metrics:

Guidon has established four Core Behaviors that all Team Members are expected to uphold. These expectations are clearly define and encompass the following areas:

• Wash the Dishes
• Do the small stuff. This mantra has guided our behaviors since our inception when literal dishes were the responsibility of everyone in the office. Helping one another permeates all areas of our culture.
• Follow-Up on Commitments
• Do what you say. Keeping our word is not only important externally, but internally as well. Commitments are made to ourselves, each other, and our clients. Whether it be in professional development goals, annual firm updates, or project kick-off meetings, following through is all about maintaining a culture of accountability.
• Solve Problems Proactively
• Come with solutions. Identifying a problem is crucial but engaging the problem with potential solutions is even better. We tackle issues head on and take ownership – leading the charge toward a resolution.
• Lead Through Listening
• Listen first, talk second. This is a guiding principle in how we interact with each other and our clients. It prioritizes empathy and assumes nothing.

Professional Development, Technical Education & Training:

• Establish annual education and training plans and goals for self.
• Meet or exceed professional standards of work.
• Actively pursue personal continuing education.