Sr Director, Strategy & Operations

Job Summary

The Chief Product Officer sets the direction for a multi-billion-dollar portfolio spanning data infrastructure, storage, cloud, and AI. This leader is the strategy partner who makes that direction concrete: sharpening the portfolio point of view, exposing where it is under-invested or exposed, and converting ambiguous market and financial signals into the specific bets the organization should place. It carries no product P&L of its own. Its influence comes from the rigor of its analysis and the trust of the CPO staff whose products it helps steer. This role reports into the VP of Growth, Analytics & AI Native Engineering.

The mandate is to maximize the return on the portfolio's investment. This includes partnering with Product leadership to shape product portfolio investment priorities, combining market, customer, financial, and product insights with NetApp's cost, ROI, and investment models to identify the highest-value opportunities and recommend resource allocation shifts. This leader identifies and evaluates material capability gaps and shapes perspective on build, buy, or partner recommendations-with clear economic, strategic, and time-to-value tradeoffs-to inform CPO staff investment decisions. When acquisition is the preferred path, the role develops the product-side strategic rationale and business case, partnering with Corporate Development and Finance on evaluation and investment recommendations for CPO staff to validate.

When a deal closes, the same leader co-owns with the CPO's Leadership Team the product-side integration, working through the teams that will inherit the asset to fold in the roadmap, rationalize overlap, and convert promised synergies into realized growth. This Senior Director builds and leads a high-performing team spanning product strategy, growth analysis, market intelligence, portfolio planning, strategic initiatives, and integration management, and is measured on one thing above all: whether the portfolio's bets, organic and inorganic, become durable revenue and margin.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the CPO's strategy partner, turning portfolio direction into a sharp, evidence-based point of view on where the organization should invest, hold, or exit.
• Expose the portfolio's gaps, overlaps, and white space, and guide the organization toward the bets with the clearest path to revenue and margin.
• Shape portfolio investment priorities in partnership with Product Leadership, leveraging NetApp's cost, ROI, and product-investment models to make the case for moving resources to their highest-return use.
• Evaluate material capability gaps with Product leadership and develop build, buy, or partner recommendations, making the strategic, economic, and time-to-value implications explicit for the product owners' investment decisions.
• Own the upstream corporate-development agenda from the product side, from acquisition thesis and target landscape through qualification and the business case built with Corporate Development and Finance and validated with CPO staff.
• Lead diligence through the product and technical lens, testing whether a target's capability, architecture, and economics deliver the thesis before capital is committed.
• Own product-side integration of acquired businesses, working through the inheriting teams to merge roadmaps, rationalize overlapping products and platforms, and hold the line on synergy realization.
• Develop and institutionalize product acquisition and integration playbooks that tailor integration plans to the type of acquisition, accelerating time-to-value, reducing execution risk, and improving ROI.Build, lead, and develop a high-caliber team of strategy, growth, and integration leaders who influence through insight, analytical rigor, and trusted partnership across Product, Engineering, Corporate Development, Finance, and GTM.

Education and Experience

• 12+ years of experience spanning product strategy, corporate strategy, corporate development partnership, and senior operating leadership roles within enterprise technology.
• Proven success shaping portfolio strategy, driving business and portfolio transformation, and influencing enterprise investment decisions through data-driven insight and executive partnership; Combined experience across top-tier consulting and operating in-house within a scaled technology company preferred.
• Experience leading inorganic growth initiatives, including acquisition strategy, diligence, integration, and value realization; product-side integration expertise strongly preferred.
• Deep fluency in technology business economics, portfolio investment, capital allocation, and growth strategy, combined with technical credibility across data infrastructure, cloud, and AI.
• A proven people leader and executive communicator, able to build a high-caliber team and to move senior stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Finance, Corporate Development, and GTM without relying on formal authority, and to operate with conviction as evidence and direction evolve.
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Business,or a related field required; MBA preferred.

Compensation:

The target salary range for this position is 266,050 - 396,000 USD. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package. This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off, various Leave options, Performance-Based Incentives, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU's), with all offerings subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. Benefits may vary by country and region, and further details will be provided as part of the recruitment process.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designed to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture for all employees. This means that most roles will have some level of in-office and/or in-person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.

Why You'll Thrive at NetApp

At NetApp, you won't wait for the perfect moment-you'll make it. The early planning, the extra thought, the bold idea that turns good into great: That's how our people operate and how we continue to push the boundaries of data infrastructure.

NetApp is the trusted partner for organizations transforming data into opportunity. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, we empower customers to run everything from traditional workloads to enterprise AI with unmatched performance, resilience, and security.

Our culture

We celebrate mold breakers, bold thinkers, and problem solvers. We reward initiative, impact, and ownership. We provide flexibility so you can balance professional ambition with your personal life. Here, differences are not just welcomed-they drive everything we do.

If you're ready to innovate, rise to the challenge, and own every moment - make your next move your best one. Apply now.

Submitting an Application

To ensure a streamlined and fair hiring process for all candidates, our team only reviews applications submitted through our company website. This practice allows us to track, assess, and respond to applicants efficiently. Emailing our employees, recruiters, or Human Resources personnel directly will not influence your application.

AI Disclosure

For select roles, some stages of our hiring process may use artificial intelligence tools to help evaluate applications and candidate selection. These tools support-rather than replace-human decision-making.