Department: Strategy
Team: Corporate Strategy
Location: London (Hybrid)
Position type: Permanent, Full time
What the hiring manager says
GSMA operates at the centre of one of the most dynamic and strategically important industries globally. As the sector evolves, so must we. The Head of Corporate Strategy & Strategy Projects will play a critical role in defining and executing GSMA’s 3-year strategic roadmap.
This role ensures alignment between Board priorities, sector-level shifts, organisational capabilities, and financial performance. This is not a theoretical strategy role. It is about building a clear destination for GSMA in three years, aligning the organisation behind it, and ensuring disciplined execution.
Hakan Dursun, Chief Strategy Officer
About the Team
The Strategy team shapes the long-term direction of the GSMA to ensure we provide maximum value to our members and the broader mobile ecosystem.
The team is responsible for:
Sector Strategy & Strategy Projects – defining the industry’s 3-5-year outlook and implications for GSMA.
Corporate Strategy & Strategy Projects – developing the 3-year strategic roadmap of GSMA, KPIs, business plan, and high-level operating plan.
Strategic Initiatives – leading/ coordinating cross-functional initiatives externally and internally (e.g., 5G monetisation, 6G, AI, Innovation, inorganic growth opportunities, AI-first GSMA etc.).
GSMA Intelligence – the only data and insights source built from inside the telecoms industry, delivering trusted forecasts, real-time insights and deep research across the global telecoms ecosystem
Strategy Group – convening telecom CSOs to align on industry-level priorities.
As a small, high-impact team, we work across functions and regions to drive clarity, alignment, and execution against long-term goals.
About the role
The Head of Corporate Strategy & Strategy Projects is responsible for developing and driving GSMA’s 3-year strategic roadmap and ensuring disciplined execution against it.
This role translates Board objectives, sector-level insights, and organisational realities into a clear strategic direction, measurable priorities, and an integrated business planning framework.
The role leads the Strategy & Business Planning Cycle (SBPC), ensuring a coherent top-down strategic plan that informs bottom-up budgeting and operational execution.
Key Responsibilities
Corporate Strategy Development
Develop and continuously refine GSMA’s 3-year strategic roadmap.
Integrate inputs from: Sector Strategy & Foresight / Industry trends, Board priorities, Organisational strengths, weaknesses, and capacity, Current performance baseline (“GSMA today”)
Define clear strategic choices, priority areas, and investment themes.
Articulate the target state: “GSMA in 3 years”.
Strategy & Business Planning Cycle (SBPC)
Design and run the end-to-end Strategy & Business Planning Cycle.
Translate strategy into: High-level business plan, High-level operating plan and Clear KPIs and performance metrics
Ensure strategy acts as a top-down input to budgeting, aligned with bottom-up financial planning
Establish structured review cadences and performance tracking mechanisms
Executive & Board Engagement
Partner closely with the Leadership Team to support high-impact decision-making
Prepare Board-level strategy papers and presentations
Facilitate executive workshops and strategic offsites
Provide structured options analysis for major strategic decisions
Performance & Transformation
Establish frameworks to track delivery against strategic goals
Identify organisational gaps, capability needs, and structural constraints
Support cross-functional initiatives that drive transformation and operational effectiveness
Cross-Functional & Regional Alignment
Work closely with regional and functional leaders to embed strategic priorities
Ensure alignment between corporate direction and regional realities
Act as an integrator across functions to avoid fragmentation and duplication
Maintain visibility of interdependencies across strategic initiatives
About You
Significant experience in corporate strategy, management consulting, or senior strategic leadership roles
Strong experience running multi-year strategy cycles and business planning processes
Demonstrated ability to influence executive stakeholders and Boards
Strong financial and commercial acumen
Exceptional structured problem-solving and analytical skills
Experience integrating strategy with budgeting and performance management
High credibility, gravitas, and executive presence
Collaborative yet decisive; able to drive alignment in complex environments
Results-oriented and adaptable in a fast-paced environment
About Your Skills
Communication - with senior executives and Boards, translating complex strategic, financial, and operational issues into clear, concise, and compelling narratives that enable informed decision-making and drive action
Agility – in shaping and evolving GSMA’s 3-year strategic roadmap, rapidly responding to changes in Board direction, industry dynamics, and organisational priorities.
Influence - across the organisation to embed the Strategy & Business Planning and builds credibility through insight-led recommendations
Stakeholder Management - navigates complex stakeholder environments, balancing top-down strategic direction with bottom-up
We strive to offer a meaningful and inclusive application experience for all candidates. Should you require any accommodations or adjustments due to a disability or for any other reason during the hiring process, please contact talent@gsma.com with your request.
Contract type
RegularWorker type
EmployeeWorking at the GSMA offers you unparalleled access to the mobile industry. We offer a chance to truly shape the direction of mobile, whatever your role. By joining the GSMA, you will be exposed to a fast-paced rapidly evolving environment, working on global solutions, genuinely fascinating and industry-changing projects and a stimulating and dynamic environment designed to enable you to flourish.
In addition to architect-designed offices and competitive compensation, our benefits include fantastic learning & development opportunities, generous holiday allowances, four additional days off for professional development and many others.
To learn more about the GSMA, visit our career site, our LinkedIn page and our Twitter page.
Being You at the GSMA
We care deeply about diversity, equity and inclusivity and aspire to be the best at it. Your well-being and work/life balance is important, so flexi-time and remote working is available to all staff. We're keen to ensure everyone is equal, represented and connected so we particularly encourage applications from all demographics. The sucess of the GSMA year on year will continue to be contributed by people from all walks of life.
GSMA Values
Our values not only drive our culture – they shape how we work and interact inside and outside our global organisation.
Passionately driven
We approach everything we do with unparalleled capability, tenacity and commitment, knowing that the challenging scale, pace and complexity of our work is what leads to its world-changing impact.
Insightful leaders
We continually develop and engage our expertise, insight and creativity so that we’re always ready to respond to the changing landscape with authority, agility and nuance.
Stronger together
We lean on each other so the industry can lean on us, embracing our diversity by actively seeking out perspectives and skill sets beyond our own, fuelling each other’s successes and constantly asking how we can help.
Underpinning our values is our collective mindset to show up purposefully as good human beings every day, in every situation. When we’re at our best – we are collaborative, considerate and compassionate to others, and we create a safe space for one another to thrive, assuming positive intent in our colleagues. And if we aren’t at our best and the pressure is on – we feel free to be ourselves but still remain curious, lean into the tough stuff and we are always respectful to others and accountable for the part we play.