Director of Strategy, Performance and Planning

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London/Hybrid

Competitive

Permanent

Not Specified

37.5 Working Hours - (Flexible)

22 Jul 2025

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Director of Strategy, Performance and Planning

*Please note we only accept online applications.*

Role Overview

This role is a core leadership role in our new Strategy & Transformation function and offers an opportunity to build an enterprise-focussed, highly professional, curious and impactful strategy team which makes sure we achieve our strategic ambition and deliver value for our members.

This role finds Nest at an ambitious point in its development, with a new strategic ambition and strategic framework in place. We have defined a set of powerful goals for the organisation, all of which describe quantifiable outcomes for our millions of members, the UK’s low-to-moderate earning population. We are also delivering at a pivotal time for our industry and wider sector; the pensions and financial services landscape is being shaped by policy, technology and societal changes which we need to understand, challenge and respond to.

In this ever-evolving context, how do we now develop, maintain and truly embed our strategy? How do we respond to internal and external change and adapt? How do we continually measure our organisational progress, flex in response to feedback, and make sure our internal (and external) planning approaches are designed to deliver maximum value? Working in a highly faciliatory, collaborative way, these are the central questions this role will lead a team to tackle.

We'd love to hear from you if you can demonstrate the following minimum criteria:

› Experience of having led commercial strategy formulation and development, gained in a corporate or consulting or equivalently commercial environment
› Has worked in a leadership capacity across strategic and operational environments; understands and can demonstrate their ability to translate strategy into action, plans and performance for multi-disciplinary and operational teams
› Experience of designing and embedding performance frameworks and feedback mechanisms which improve organisational effectiveness and delivery; working across multiple disciplines
› Experience of building and establishing highly skilled professional functions
› Proven influence and impact at Executive and Board level
› Experience of having solved complex, substantive, commercial strategic problems in the context of diverse internal and external stakeholder needs
› Experience of having led multi-disciplinary, strategic teams and demonstrable experience of leading in matrix environments

We are open to discussing working patterns.

We welcome all internal applicants to apply for our roles, regardless of your current working pattern or hours. We will aim to accommodate your request and match your current working arrangements.

Don't worry if you think you don't have all the key skills, it might be worth taking the few minutes to apply as we're good at spotting potential and offer a generous training budget.

Please download a full job description to find a full scope, deliverables, experience and personal attributes required for this role.

Reward and recognition

A discretionary bonus scheme
Reward and recognition scheme
Enhanced auto enrolled pension – your contributions start at the default 5% while ours are higher at 8%. If you up your contributions to 6% we raise ours to 9%. If you contribute 7% or more we’ll contribute 10%.
Income protection scheme – is an insurance benefit that provides you with income if you cannot work due to illness or incapacity.

Click here to see the benefits we offer at Nest.

Flexible and agile working

Everyone's personal situation is different.

To make the most out of hybrid working, we've introduced different ways of working, which include (subject to role requirements):

hybrid of office (Canary Wharf, London) and home working (there will be an expectation to attend the office, once - twice a week, or more, as required)
reduce or vary working hours
reduce or vary the days worked
work compressed hours
job share

For more information about our recruitment process click here

Directorate/Department Overview

Nest has a bold purpose, and an ambitious corporate strategy. This role will establish and mature the enterprise-wide strategic approach which is required to meet this ambition and will sit at the heart of a new Strategy & Transformation function.

This function is a globally-aware, forward-looking team of professionals. We push ahead, define and embed Nest’s strategy and its transformational agenda. We are multi-disciplinary. We identify and resolve strategic questions which will shape the future of Nest in fundamental ways, including questions about Nest’s operating model, and our role in the UK financial services landscape.

We own, maintain and embed a compelling, commercially successful strategy for Nest and ensure that the organisation is aligned with its goals both in terms of intent and delivery. We are a team which sees the big picture, asks stretching questions, challenges and collaborates, and demonstrates the confidence, curiosity and leadership to ensure Nest’s purpose, vision and direction are traced into all aspects of delivery at all levels.

Organisational Overview

Nest is a great government delivery success story. Established in 2010, Nest has been a critical pillar of the government’s automatic enrolment programme, with a public service obligation (PSO) to accept any employer wishing to use the scheme to discharge their automatic enrolment duties.

From a standing start, we have delivered a high-quality, low-cost pension scheme, open to all, which has not only delivered on its mission, but helped to drive up standards and best practice across the industry. Now with over 12 million members, Nest is playing a critical role in helping people save for their retirement many of them low to moderate earners who may be saving for the first time and moving jobs frequently.

Nest now occupies a place in the market as a major Master Trust, a sector that has grown following the introduction of automatic enrolment and that we believe has great potential for delivering pensions to mass market consumers for many years to come, leveraging scale to offer low cost, modernised services in the context of strong Trustee governance.

To best serve our diverse customer base, it’s important that Nest has an equally diverse workforce and promotes an inclusive culture. This is in line with the organisation’s values and ensures that Nest is a corporation fit for the future.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, we particularly encourage applications from Black, Asian and minority ethnicity, LGBTQ+ and disabled candidates. We are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of their age, disability, gender identity, marital status, national origin, pregnancy or caring responsibilities, race, religion/belief, sex, sexual orientation or socio economic background.

We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought and other forms of neurocognitive variation.

Nest is a Disability Confident Leader, which is the highest level of the Disability Confident Scheme. If you have a disability, please declare that you’re applying through the scheme.

We aim to offer an interview to those applicants who apply through the Disability Confident Scheme and best meet the minimum criteria. However, there may be some circumstances where this is not possible due to the volume of applications.

Please note that this advert may close early if we receive a sufficient number of satisfactory applications.

If you have any difficulty in sending your application or need the application pack in an alternative format, or you require any reasonable adjustments please contact: [email protected].

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