Head of Strategy & Corporate Development

About the role

Rhythm is seeking a Head of Strategy & Corporate Development to serve as a senior strategic partner to the CEO and executive team. This person will help shape Rhythm’s medium- and long-term strategy, lead corporate development and strategic partnership activity, and drive the operating cadence required to turn strategic priorities into measurable results.

This is not a traditional “deck-and-analysis” strategy role, nor is it a purely transactional corporate development role. The right person will be equally comfortable developing a market-entry thesis, building an investment case, leading diligence on an acquisition target, preparing board materials, and driving cross-functional initiatives from idea to execution.

Rhythm’s next phase of growth will come from scaling the core retail platform while expanding into adjacent opportunities: new markets, new customer segments, C&I, partnerships, VPP / behind-the-meter offerings, AI-enabled operating leverage, and additional inorganic opportunities. This role will serve as the portfolio manager for those strategic bets, helping the company prioritize capital, management attention, and execution capacity for the highest-value opportunities.

Why this role matters

Rhythm has reached a scale where strategy, capital allocation, and execution discipline are increasingly intertwined. The company has proven its ability to grow profitably, integrate acquired assets, and expand across markets. The ideal candidate is a high-ownership, analytically rigorous, commercially minded operator who can move seamlessly between strategy, finance, M&A, partnerships, and cross-functional execution.

What you'll do

Corporate Strategy and Enterprise Value Creation

• Partner with the CEO and C-suite to define, refresh, and communicate Rhythm’s multi-year strategy.
• Translate market, regulatory, customer, technology, and capital markets trends into concrete strategic choices.
• Own Rhythm’s strategic planning process, including annual and multi-year planning, strategic priorities, company-level OKRs, and executive alignment.
• Act as a portfolio manager across Rhythm’s major growth initiatives, balancing core, adjacent, and transformational opportunities, with the primary focus being the expansion of enterprise value
• Develop investment theses for new markets, new products, new channels, customer segments, partnerships, and business models.
• Build structured frameworks to evaluate strategic opportunities, including market attractiveness, competitive positioning, value-creation potential, risk-adjusted return, integration complexity, and execution capacity.
• Help the executive team make crisp go / no-go/pause decisions on major initiatives.

Corporate Development, M&A, and Partnerships

• Lead corporate development efforts end-to-end, including target identification, sourcing, screening, valuation, diligence, negotiation support, approval materials, and post-close integration planning.
• Build and manage a proactive M&A and partnership pipeline aligned with Rhythm’s strategic priorities.
• Evaluate acquisition, joint venture, and partnership opportunities across retail energy and adjacent markets, including distributed energy and technology-enabled adjacencies.
• Partner closely with the CFO on valuation, capital structure, financing alternatives, return thresholds, and transaction economics.
• Partner with Legal, Finance, Operations, Commercial, Supply, Technology, and CX leaders during diligence and execution.
• Own the strategic rationale and integration thesis for transactions, ensuring that deals are not just completed but converted into durable enterprise value (including materializing synergy value).
• Support capital raising, investor processes, lender discussions, and other strategic finance activities as needed.

Strategic Operations and Executive Cadence

• Serve as a senior operating partner to the CEO, helping translate strategic priorities into execution plans, owners, milestones, and decision forums.
• Design and manage the executive operating cadence, including leadership team meetings, strategic reviews, KPI reviews, quarterly business reviews, board preparation, and follow-up accountability.
• Help ensure that company-level OKRs and functional priorities ladder up to Rhythm’s multi-year strategy.
• Identify cross-functional bottlenecks, decision delays, resource constraints, and organizational gaps that threaten execution.
• Drive selected high-priority cross-functional initiatives directly, especially where ownership spans multiple executives or functions.
• Create lightweight but effective governance for major initiatives, including stage gates, investment guardrails, KPI dashboards, and escalation paths.
• Help the organization maintain speed and clarity as the company scales.

Board, Investor, and Executive Communications

• Lead or support the preparation of board and investor materials, including strategy updates, investment cases, M&A approvals, market intelligence, performance updates, and strategic initiative reviews.
• Translate complex strategic, financial, operational, and technical topics into clear recommendations and decision-ready materials.
• Help the CEO and executive team pressure-test narratives, assumptions, risks, and trade-offs before board or investor discussions.
• Maintain a clear view of enterprise value creation and how major initiatives contribute to EBITDA growth, cash generation, customer growth, margin resilience, and strategic positioning.

Market Intelligence and Strategic Insight

• Own Rhythm’s external market intelligence function across competitive dynamics, regulatory developments, customer behavior, technology shifts, capital markets, and energy transition trends.
• Track competitors, acquisition targets, potential partners, channel evolution, pricing trends, and emerging customer acquisition models.
• Develop an evidence-based view on how emerging technologies, distributed energy models, and new customer acquisition channels may reshape retail energy.
• Convert market insight into practical recommendations for commercial, product, technology, and capital allocation decisions.

Incubation of New Growth Initiatives

• Help incubate strategic initiatives that expand Rhythm beyond the core residential retail platform.
• Partner with functional leaders to define early business cases, operating models, success metrics, resourcing needs, and stage-gate criteria.
• Support the build-out of new capabilities such as C&I, VPP / behind-the-meter offerings, strategic partnerships, AI-enabled operations, and new go-to-market models.
• Ensure emerging initiatives have clear economic logic, customer value propositions, operational feasibility, and measurable milestones before scaling.

What you'll bring

• Material experience across strategy, corporate development, management consulting, investment banking, private equity, strategic finance, or operating roles in high-growth companies.
• Demonstrated experience working directly with CEOs, founders, executive teams, boards, or investors.
• Strong analytical and financial toolkit, including experience in strategic evaluation frameworks, market sizing, business case development, financial modeling, valuation, investment analysis, and KPI design.
• Experience leading or materially supporting M&A, partnerships, strategic investments, or major commercial transactions.
• Proven ability to move from strategy to execution, including driving complex cross-functional initiatives with limited structure.
• Ability to build clear executive-level narratives, board materials, investment memos, and decision frameworks.
• High ownership mindset; comfortable operating with ambiguity, limited guidance, and a high degree of accountability.
• Strong executive presence and communication skills across business, financial, operational, and technical audiences.

Strongly Preferred Experience

• Experience in a private-equity-backed, venture-backed, or sponsor-owned company where enterprise value creation, cash discipline, and pace matter.
• Experience in energy, retail power, energy transition, cleantech, infrastructure, technology, fintech, subscriptions, marketplaces, or other data-intensive consumer businesses.
• Familiarity with U.S. competitive power markets, especially ERCOT and Northeast markets such as PJM, NYISO, or ISO-NE.
• Exposure to retail energy, C&I energy sales, DERs, storage, demand response, virtual power plants, grid services, EV charging, home energy management, or adjacent distributed energy models.
• Experience with post-merger integration or standing up new business lines.
• MBA or equivalent advanced degree preferred but not required.

What success looks like

The right candidate is:

• Strategic but practical — able to frame the big picture, but impatient to turn it into action.
• Commercially rigorous — focused on enterprise value, unit economics, CLV/CAC, margin, cash, risk, and scalability.
• Highly analytical — fluent in models, data, market structure, and investment logic.
• Operationally credible — able to drive work across functions without relying solely on formal authority.
• Fast-paced and resilient — energized by ambiguity, incomplete information, and changing priorities.
• Low-ego and high-output — willing to build the model, write the memo, run the meeting, chase the blocker, and drive the decision.
• Strong with executives and teams — able to challenge constructively, synthesize competing views, and help leaders align.
• PE-ready — comfortable with investor scrutiny, board-level expectations, value creation plans, and disciplined capital allocation.
• Not just a strategist — this person must be able to operate, influence, and deliver.

What This Role Is Not

This role is not a fit for someone who only wants to:

• Build presentations without owning outcomes.
• Run M&A processes without integration or value capture accountability.
• Act as an administrative chief of staff.
• Stay purely at the conceptual strategy level.
• Wait for direction rather than setting the agenda.
• Operate only through formal authority.

Location and Travel

This role is based in Houston, TX, with regular in-person collaboration with the CEO and executive team. A hybrid schedule is available.

Occasional travel is expected for M&A diligence, partner meetings, investor discussions, industry events, and market visits.

What you'll love

• A high-impact role working directly with the CEO and executive team.
• A company that has moved beyond the concept stage and is scaling with real customers, revenue, EBITDA, and strategic momentum.
• A fast-paced, mission-driven culture that values transparency, accountability, and problem-solving.
• The chance to shape major strategic decisions across retail energy, C&I, AI, VPPs, partnerships, and M&A.
• A platform where strategy and execution are tightly connected.
• A team that is serious about building a better energy company for customers and creating meaningful enterprise value.