VP of Strategy 
Location: NZ, , Auckland
Department: Command Central 
Employment type: Full-time
Required experience: Mid-Senior level
Required education: Bachelor's Degree
Industry: Computer Software
Function: Management
Company profile: Vend is looking for some awesome new talent to come join us. You'll be working in an awesome team doing awesome things, and generally being awesome.Learn about us on our blog, or meet the team on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedInAwesome SpaceOur brand new Auckland office space is located on Nuffield Street in Newmarket, surrounded by our customers and the industry we love. It is huge, open, and shiny new with great meeting room spaces, casual working environments and plenty of space to host awesome events. We don't do cubicles, just plenty of space, whiteboards and meetings rooms. We also have a great cafe/retail space with our very own Front of House Manager taking care of our visitors and fellow Venders. Like Auckland our Melbourne office is surrounded by retail. It's a great wee space equipped with tiny houses and some awesome cardboard cutout animals.Our Toronto office is located right in the heart of downtown retail district. Like Melbourne and Auckland there's a great vibe with great coffee, boutique stores and some of the greatest restaurants in the city. Our SoMa office in San Francisco is located in the middle of the SF tech scene, just a (Biz) stone's throw from Twitter.The EnvironmentWe want you to be at the top of your game. You can wear whatever clothing you like, start work late in the morning, take breaks whenever you want and generally work the way you want to work. Who we're looking forVend is looking for people to push the boundaries. We are a hard working professional team with a wicked sense of humour, and we are looking for people who thrive in a collaborative open environment. We want passionate, hard working, talented individuals that want to lead in their field.
Description:  Just in case this is the first time you’ve visited our website Vend is an award winning web based point of sale software for retail.  We’re chucking out crusty old cash registers and replacing them with iPads, touch screens and beautiful software, all of this to make life easier for our retailers.  Vend is a fast-growing tech start-up, since launching in 2010 we’ve now got 10,000+ customers and 650 partners all over the world with more than 150 employees shared between our Auckland, Melbourne, Toronto, Berlin, London & San Francisco offices. If you’re familiar with our (and a lot of other SaaS companies) business model you’ll know and understand the importance of having a strong emphasis on strategy and market growth.  We’re looking for someone who can take on this newly created role and huge opportunity. Not only will you be helping to guide our strategic direction, but also you will have the opportunity to be very hands on and travel globally (a lot).The role looks for areas both inside and outside of Vend that are opportunities to grow us even further. Overall you are part leader and part doer who is an experienced visionary, but who knows how to research, plan and deliver data driven decisions that achieve results and overall success. You must be able to fly high, but also operate under the sea (that is just a softer way of saying that you need to think strategically and commercially, but also be able to operate practically).Our CEO or exec team will give you special projects to own, run with and report back on. An example of this could be a new market (country), you might have been either pointed in this direction (by our CEO or exec team) or after doing your own research and modeling decide that this is an area for us to sniff out. In either situation, we will you need to figure it all out in partnership with the exec team to determine if this is a viable growth solution and what resources will we need to achieve success. This could mean jumping on a plane and spending 2, 4, 8, or 12 weeks researching, assessing and or developing contacts (building relationships) in this market and then working collaboratively across the exec team to determine a plan of attack. For instance, how would this impact our product, people, finances, operations and or sales approach. This is your part of the plan as well - ensuring that the market strategy works and we have the right internal people resources and product specifications.Other days you might find yourself making predictions based on data about new markets or ways to develop higher sales or lower churn in some of our existing markets. At Vend, we are data driven and make most (if not all) decisions based on data. You might work across our Data and Analytics team or develop your own data in partnership.Essentially, you need to have a strong commercial acumen and general business sense to be able to make predictions based on this data and have a strong understanding of our product, finance, sales metrics, internal structure, etc (essentially everything that we do and how it all connects together).Keeping the CEO and executive team up to speed on risks, possibilities or opportunities for us. You should have a strong internal knowledge of our business and what impact future decisions will have on our existing teams and resources.
Requirements: To ace this role you:About 5ish years working in a management / consulting firm as a strategist or consultant or internally in medium to large global organisation (without an ego of course :) - at Vend no one has egos as job titles are earned, not given.Has a strong business generalist background and commercial sense on a global level. We call this globally commercially curiousPeople person that can get along with just about everyone and yes a strong sense of humor is a must...actually a wicked sense of humorExperience in developing a longer term strategy with demonstrated success of achievement while ensuring the team was aligned to the goals/visionAbility to work across the CEO, Board and Executive teamsStrong global competence and experience working across global borders (both English and non English speaking countries).Ability to use data, financial modules and strategy tools successfully
Benefits: What can you expect from us?We have an open culture where we openly share our results and where your input is truly valued.We'll have a great environment for you to work in and grow the team.We work hard but we also have a lot of fun at work!Work-life balance or "blend" as we like to call it.  We know you have a life outside of work and at Vend you can have a life inside work too.Utilise all your talents.  Not just the ones written in your job description.We welcome all of you at work.  We don’t want you to leave your personality at the door.If you’re interested in joining one of NZ’s (and the world's, IMHO) most exciting companies, Best Workplaces and obviously the most fun and hard working environments around we’d love to hear from you.Get in touch, apply now, hit that button, get it done and come have a chat with us. We can’t wait to hear from you!
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