GM, Palmetto Accelerator

Location

This position will be based at our headquarters in Charlotte, NC. Must be an outlier talent for remote consideration.

Reporting

This position will report to the Platform, Chief Operating Officer

Summary of Role 

The General Manager, Palmetto Accelerator, will lead strategic investment in net-new growth areas, operational oversight of these areas, and their progression to Core Business Line status (or being deprioritized) based on progress, ability to find product-market fit, scale, and attain profitability.  You will work closely with the Leadership Team, General Managers, and Corporate Development team to continually source, vet, and test high-potential concepts via our investment mechanism framework. You will perform a thorough cost-benefit analysis to help leadership assess the maximum potential for capital allocation into nascent stage growth areas, which will become very large returns in the long-term.

You will work cross-functionally to structure, launch, and manage pilot programs, adapting based on early metrics and proof points.  Finally, you will be the point of contact for high-potential strategic partnerships, carrying them from introduction, to evaluation, closing, and ultimately to implementation.  This role reports to the COO, Platform, and will work cross-functionally with the Core Business Line GMs, Finance, Marketing & Comms, Product & Engineering, Data, and the Leadership Team.  

This is among the most important roles in the Company- it sets the path for the long-term growth of the organization by making small bets, today, that can emerge to become very large business lines in years to come.

Strategic & Tactical

• Long-term thinking. Be a strategic, smart long-term thinker. Understand that short-term ‘wins’ help build a viable path towards very big pay offs in the long-term. 
• Business Outcomes & Investment Roadmap. This role is accountable for the business outcomes and Return on Investment (ROI) of our experimental and investment areas.  The role will require the ongoing assessment of live pilots, evaluation of new concepts and inorganic opportunities, and the monitoring of macro-environment conditions.
• Investment Tracking & Ownership. Own the end-to-end Investment Mechanism budget, ruthlessly re-prioritizing or extending investment as dictated by success metrics.
• Metrics. Develop a metrics framework for each pilot program that properly evaluates early Product-Market fit and traction to determine path forward.
• GTM Strategy. Be part of developing a corporate understanding of business risks, competitive landscape, and industry-wide (or niche) GTM opportunities. 
• Leadership. Serve as a key leader of a vital strategic muscle for Palmetto, executing with good judgment, processes, and data-driven decision-making.
• Culture. Develop an experiment-heavy, fast-paced culture to prototype, test, and evaluate concepts quickly. Cultivate strong team engagement and inspire them to be accountable, demonstrate ownership, and produce excellent results.
• Capital Allocation. Allocate capital based on the optimal long-term returns and continually assess cost-benefit analysis related to opportunity costs. 
• Leadership. Be able to lead several small team leaders, at once, which will all be working on different, unrelated strategies to grow the company towards its long-term plan
• Communication skills.  Strong written and verbal skills required. Adopt the model that less-is-more and be able to create 1 page summary and 6-page deal decks that quickly help leadership make informed, efficient decisions
• Product skills. Understand the important of building excellent products and the early stage of product-market fit

Qualifications

• Priority:
  • Self-starter and structured thinker experienced at breaking down complex challenges and opportunities with clear frameworks and processes.
  • Highly adaptable to changing situations and comfortable with ambiguity.
  • Proven ability to analyze complex data, set KPIs, and structure the testing needed to evaluate investment areas and pilot programs.
  • Strong cross-functional collaborator, able to build trust, alignment, and support from cross-functional partners and senior stakeholders.
  • Excellent communicator; able to convey a vision and progress to that vision to both internal vs. external audiences, and senior leaders vs. company-wide.
  • Must have a phenomenal understanding of capital allocation.
• Secondary:
  • 12+ years of progressive experience in either GM, Product, or GTM positions, owning both strategic direction and operational execution.
  • Proven ability to lead cross-functional teams in a fast-paced, high-growth environment; “zero-to-one” mentality.
  • Early-stage startup experience, or experience working on emerging products within a later-stage company, working with limited resources (team, capital, time), aggressive goals, and compounded urgency.