Director Strategic Initiatives Jobs in California

CoCounsel is central to Thomson Reuters' ambition to build a $1 billion legal AI business by July 2028. The Legal AI Business Accelerator brings product, commercial, marketing, customer, technology, data, finance, and operations teams together around a focused set of high-impact growth plays, with an operating model built on clear accountability, rapid decision-making, dedicated cross-functional teams, rigorous program management, and measurable outcomes.

We are seeking a Director, Strategic Initiatives to turn that ambition into execution. In this role, you will provide programmatic leadership for a critical accelerator pillar or strategic workstream-translating strategy into an integrated roadmap, establishing the operating cadence, resolving dependencies, and ensuring the team delivers measurable impact.

This is a high-visibility role for a strategic operator equally comfortable shaping an ambiguous problem, mobilizing a cross-functional team, and driving disciplined execution. Partnering closely with an accountable business leader and functional leaders, you'll serve as the connective tissue across the work-helping the team make choices, test hypotheses, remove barriers, and deliver outcomes, not simply track activity.

About the Role

As Director of Strategic Initiatives, you will:

• Lead the strategy-to-execution process for an assigned accelerator pillar, converting enterprise growth objectives into a clear charter, roadmap, milestones, and decision points
• Build and run the program operating system, including governance, leadership forums, working-team cadence, decision rights, dependency management, and risk escalation
• Mobilize dedicated cross-functional teams across Product, Engineering, Sales, Marketing, Customer Success, Operations & Technology, Data & Analytics, Finance, Legal, and other shared services
• Facilitate discovery sessions and workshops that surface customer and business pain points, align stakeholders, and turn competing perspectives into executable decisions
• Maintain an integrated view of scope, resources, sequencing, and interdependencies; identify capability gaps and work with leaders to secure the talent, funding, data, tools, and functional capacity required to deliver
• Define success measures and establish a fact-based performance rhythm-tracking leading indicators, customer outcomes, commercial impact, and delivery progress, and recommending where to double down, pivot, or stop
• Champion rapid experimentation and test-and-learn ways of working while maintaining accountability for commitments, quality, and pace
• Connect work across the full customer lifecycle-from awareness and trial through onboarding, adoption, renewal, expansion, and advocacy-so customers experience a coherent journey rather than disconnected functional handoffs
• Develop executive-ready communications, SteerCo materials, business cases, and decision briefs that make tradeoffs and required actions clear
• Partner on change management and capability building so new operating models, processes, and behaviors are adopted and sustained
• Capture reusable playbooks and lessons that strengthen execution across the accelerator

What success looks like:

• Within 90 days, the assigned pillar has a clear charter, accountable owners, validated outcomes, an integrated roadmap, a functioning governance cadence, and transparent risks and dependencies
• Cross-functional leaders make faster, better-informed decisions because tradeoffs, data, and escalation paths are explicit
• Teams deliver against milestones with measurable progress on pillar-relevant outcomes-e.g., trial conversion, onboarding speed, adoption, value realization, renewal, expansion, or revenue
• Customer and market learning translates rapidly into changes in product, go-to-market motions, and execution priorities
• The program develops durable playbooks and operating mechanisms reusable across accelerator priorities

About You

You're a fit for the Director of Strategic Initiatives role if your background includes:

• 7+ years in business transformation, strategic program leadership, strategy execution, product or go-to-market operations, or comparable experience in a complex enterprise environment
• A track record of leading complex, cross-functional initiatives that delivered measurable commercial, customer, product, or operational impact
• Ability to move fluidly between strategy and execution-framing problems, building plans, establishing operating discipline, and driving work through ambiguity and change
• Exceptional facilitation, influence, and stakeholder-management skills, with the judgment to challenge constructively and align senior leaders and delivery teams without relying on direct authority
• Strong analytical and business-case capabilities, including defining metrics, evaluating performance, and using evidence to recommend action
• Executive presence and outstanding written/verbal communication skills, with the ability to simplify complex issues into crisp, decision-oriented materials
• Experience applying agile, lean, product operating model, OKR, or similar approaches to improve focus, speed, and value delivery
• Persistence, adaptability, and sound judgment in a fast-moving, matrixed environment with incomplete information
• A customer-first mindset and genuine interest in how AI is reshaping professional work and business models

Preferred experience:

• Legal technology, AI-enabled products, SaaS, professional information services, or another B2B enterprise technology environment
• Familiarity with product-led growth, enterprise go-to-market transformation, customer lifecycle optimization, adoption/value realization, renewals and expansion, or ecosystem partnerships
• Working knowledge of enterprise platforms and tools such as Salesforce, Gainsight, Gong, Miro, or Microsoft Planner/Teams
• Experience leading programs spanning multiple customer segments, geographies, or functions
• MBA or other relevant advanced degree