Director of Strategic Initiatives

This position will support and develop strategic initiatives, facilitate planning sessions and drive change activities required to achieve business opportunities, growth, and financial profitability. The role requires a high degree of independence, initiative, judgment, and follow-through on a wide range of sensitive and complex issues and will report directly to the CEO. This position receives invaluable exposure to the strategic vision and the breadth and depth of work of our senior leadership. Success in this role requires strong strategic thinking skills, exceptional attention to detail, a proven ability to manage multiple projects and stakeholders simultaneously, and a willingness to be tested on difficult projects and initiatives.

Responsibilities:

• Build team-oriented relationships with geotechnical, construction materials testing, environmental, and facilities department managers and regional managers to provide leadership, oversight, and mentoring support in seeking out business opportunities.
• Support and promote the achievement of the strategic plan of ECS; potential areas of strategic initiatives would include:
  • Provide strategic support to the development, growth and regional expansion of our typical services in Pittsburgh office territory and beyond as by providing support to the Subsidiary Regional Manager.
  • Provide strategic support to the refinement/shift of our safety culture by collaborating with and providing support to the Subsidiary Safety Officer.
  • Provide strategic support and leadership for the regional expansion and growth of all of ECS' service lines.
  • Provide support to the Associate Principal/Principal program through mentoring, teaching and supporting the Subsidiary Chief Engineer.
  • Provide strategic support to the ECS Recruiting team by assisting with the sourcing and recruitment of strategic level candidates to bolster the company's strategic regional expansion plan.
• Champion the development and research of building on company strengths, identifying potential new markets and business opportunities, increasing share of market, and obtaining a competitive position in the industry;
• Directly lead key strategic workstreams and initiatives intended to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of organization-wide processes and systems;
• Contribute to analyzing, planning, researching, and development of organization's objectives and strategic initiatives;
• Develop relationships with strategic clients; and liaise with partners to solve issues, communicate needs, and create synergy;
• Establish, maintain, and expand productive, professional relationships with key personnel of strategically important and typically large customers;
• Support workstreams related to strategy development and implementation, growth planning and implementation, and annual planning processes;
• Manage major organizational initiatives and workstreams as required, which may include leading cross-functional teams to address emerging needs; designing and implementing new processes or systems; or leading and implementing organizational change
• Manage and/or support projects to enhance strategic and administrative support and effectiveness of the Subsidiary President, Subsidiary EVP, and subsidiary senior leadership
• Lead and support additional future strategic initiatives as determined by the Corporate Executive Team, Corporate Development, COO, or CEO.

• Seek project leads and marketing opportunities across the region.

• Participate in trade association conferences and seek out project opportunities, including regional-based contract agreements.

• Participate in regional market segmentation groups to provide leadership in their efforts.

• Take the lead and coordinate regional business opportunities.

• Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience; Masters or MBA Preferred
• 8+ years in various aspects of driving strategic initiatives across organizations

• Ability to enact change quickly

• Ability to influence key stakeholders and operational owners through well-articulated strategies backed up with metric driven value statements

• Ability to make decisions independently and to assume higher-level leadership responsibilities in critical situations

• Ability to promote innovative ideas and accept the risks that are required to lead change

• Display an effective consultative and influencing approach

• Display maturity, flexibility, comfort with ambiguity and a sense of optimism/can-do attitude

• Excellent people and project management skills, including detail and action-orientation with excellent follow-through skills

• Excellent professional written/verbal communication and interpersonal skills

• Proven ability to build and lead and interact with diverse and distributed teams from various internal and external organizations across multiple locations

• Strong and creative problem-solving, critical thinking, and strategic planning skills, including the ability to disaggregate problems and structure complex issues

• Strong presentation skills including the development of PowerPoint presentations

• Strong collaboration and influence skills, demonstrating an ability to navigate organizational relationships, incorporate differing perspectives, develop recommendations, and generate consensus with partners across teams

ECS Group of Companies (ECS) was founded in 1988 with the goal to raise the standards of professional engineering consulting. Today, we are a leader in geotechnical, construction materials, environmental and facilities consulting services. We are employee-owned with more than 3,000 employees in 100+ offices and testing facilities coast to coast. ECS is currently ranked #60 in Engineering News-Record's Top 500 Design Firms (April 2026), #148 in Engineering News-Record's Top 200 Environmental Firms (October 2025) and #50 in Zweig Group's Hot Firm List (May 2025). For additional information about ECS, visit: www.ecslimited.com.

ECS is an Equal Opportunity Employer. To learn more, clickhere.