Senior Strategy Associate

Job Summary

The Senior Associate, Strategy acts as the strategy partner to ARM’s Business Units, serving effectively as head of strategy to each covered BU on a fractional basis, and as a senior member of the group Strategy & Transformation team. The role exists to close a critical gap: structured strategic planning, monitoring, and challenge at the BU management level, delivered by someone with the seniority and intellectual standard to sit credibly alongside BU MDs and executive teams. This is not a support role. The holder will own BU strategy cycles end-to-end, sit on BU management teams, represent strategic thinking in BU decision-making, and carry group-level work including preparation for the TAM board and Group CEO.

Job Details

Key Relationships
•    Head of Strategy & Transformation — line manager; sets priorities and quality standards
•    BU Managing Directors — primary working relationship; the holder functions as their strategy partner 
•    BU Management Teams — scheduled member of covered BUs’ management forums
•    Group CEO and TAM Board — contributor to board papers, portfolio reviews, and strategic agenda
 

Core Responsibilities

BU strategy ownership. Lead the annual strategic planning cycle for covered BUs — setting agenda, shaping strategic choices, challenging assumptions, facilitating BU management team discussion, and producing the final strategy document owned by the BU MD. The holder is accountable for the quality and rigor of the BU’s strategic thinking, not only for the process.

Quarterly strategic monitoring. Run the quarterly strategy review process for covered BUs — tracking execution against plan, surfacing drift early, challenging performance narratives, and ensuring BU MDs have the analytical basis for course correction. Prepare quarterly strategy papers for BU and group forums.

BU management team contribution. Sit as a scheduled member of covered BUs’ management teams. Contribute strategic perspective to operational decisions, challenge BU thinking where warranted, and ensure group-level strategic direction is reflected in BU choices.

Group-level strategic work. Contribute to TAM board preparation, Group CEO advisory, board papers, portfolio economics analysis, and competitive positioning work at the group level. Aggregate BU strategic submissions into group-level views for executive and board consumption.

Competitive and market intelligence. Maintain rigorous view of competitor positioning, macroeconomic and regulatory developments, and sources of competitive advantage for ARM and its BUs.

Success Criteria

At 12 months, the holder is expected to have:

• Delivered annual strategic plans for covered BUs of materially higher rigor than the prior cycle
• Established a functioning quarterly strategic review cadence at each covered BU
• Earned standing as a trusted strategic counterpart to BU MDs, measured by unprompted BU engagement, not forced participation

Requirements

Experience and Background Required

•    6–9 years of strategy experience, including strong foundation in structured problem-solving and strategic analysis
•    At least 3 years at a top-tier strategy consulting firm (McKinsey, BCG, PwC, EY-Parthenon) or equivalent in-house group strategy role at a leading financial institution
•    Demonstrated experience leading strategic planning or major strategic analysis end-to-end, not in a purely supporting capacity
•    Financial services exposure, preferably in asset management, banking, or adjacent sectors
•    Direct experience working with C-suite executives; confident operating at senior levels

Strongly Preferred

•    Experience in the Nigerian or broader African financial services market
•    MBA or equivalent postgraduate qualification from a leading institution
•    Prior exposure to transformation or major change programs, even if not as lead

Competencies

Influence without authority. This is the binding competency. The holder will operate inside BU-owned initiatives with no line authority over BU teams. They must drive execution through the quality of their problem-solving, the clarity of their communication, and the trust they build with BU counterparts. Candidates whose transformation experience has been exclusively from positions of hierarchical authority will struggle in this role.

Execution tenacity. The ability to stay with a problem through resistance, ambiguity, and partial information, and to keep pushing for resolution when it would be easier to escalate, defer, or declare the problem someone else’s. This is the trait that distinguishes operators from advisors.

Diagnostic rigor. Consulting-grade problem structuring applied to execution problems, not just strategy problems. The holder must be able to take an initiative that is “stuck” and decompose the blockage into addressable components — quickly, under pressure, with imperfect data.

Pragmatism. The holder must be able to distinguish between what ARM needs and what best practice says. Transformation methodology is a tool, not an end. The right answer is the one that lands in ARM’s operating environment, not the one that looks best in a framework.

Political awareness. Transformation work in a Holdco environment with regulated subsidiaries is inherently political. The holder must read organisational dynamics accurately, anticipate resistance, and navigate stakeholder complexity without being captured by any single constituency.

Communication and presence. Ability to produce clear, honest portfolio updates for CEO-level consumption. Capacity to hold a room with senior executives and to deliver difficult messages — initiative delays, sponsor underperformance, kill recommendations — without flinching.

Why This Role

This is an unusually senior scope at this career stage. The holder will operate as strategy partner to the Managing Directors of regulated ARM businesses, sit on BU management teams, and contribute to CEO and board-level strategic work — exposure and responsibility typically reserved for roles one to two rungs higher in most organizations. The role is positioned for accelerated growth as the Strategy & Transformation function expands and as the successful holder demonstrates fit for broader mandates.ARM is in the midst of an ambitious multi-year transformation with active CEO sponsorship. The Strategy & Transformation function is being rebuilt with senior transformation capability, and the Senior Strategy Associate is a foundational role in that rebuild.

About Company

ARM Holding Company Limited

https://arm.seamlesshiring.com

Asset & Resource Management Company Limited (ARM) was founded in 1994 as an asset management firm.We provide a broad range of unique wealth creation services by offering traditional asset management services as well as alternative investments through our private funds business. ARM currently manages total assets of circa N540 billion. Over the last twenty years, we have built a strong reputation both locally and internationally through in-depth, high-quality research, investment management expertise, and value-adding products and services. Our clients range from corporations to private and public institutions and include high net-worth investors and small savers.