Director of Discovery – Framing

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Take ownership, lead, and scale the Discovery & Framing initiatives at Defense Unicorns.

• Assist clients in identifying and articulating mission challenges, quantifying impacts, establishing success metrics, and determining the best forward path.

• Oversee high-priority, strategic, complex, or ambiguous engagements with customers.

• Personally facilitate interactions with customer executives, mission leaders, operators, technical stakeholders, acquisition leaders, and other key participants.

• Develop and establish the Discovery & Framing methodology, engagement model, playbook, question bank, templates, quality standards, and examples of excellence.

• Assess capacity needs and build the Discovery & Framing team.

• Mentor and develop Discovery & Framing practitioners.

• Collaborate with account teams to prepare engagement hypotheses, identify unknowns, participants, and objectives.

• Uncover root causes, constraints, workarounds, stakeholders, mission impacts, and the consequences of inaction.

• Frame clear, measurable problem definitions in customer-friendly language.

• Quantify impacts and establish baseline metrics.

• Define desired outcomes and success metrics.

• Map stakeholders, decision-making systems, buying processes, funding, acquisition, contracting, barriers, and evidence gaps.

• Create concise, customer-ready executive summaries with assigned owners, dates, and mutual next steps.

• Maintain independent judgment regarding the significance of problems, fit, opportunity direction, and disqualifications.

• Lead the five-stage engagement process: Prepare, Discover, Frame, Validate, and Mobilize.

• Own the D&F methodology, facilitation, synthesis, outputs, quality standards, team development, and capacity.

⛳️ Requirements

• A minimum of 8 years of experience in strategy consulting, management consulting, customer strategy, value advisory, or another highly structured client-facing problem-solving environment.

• Significant experience at firms such as McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, PwC, EY, KPMG, or a comparable strategy or advisory organization is highly regarded.

• Proven track record of personally leading executive interviews, workshops, diagnostic engagements, and cross-functional working sessions.

• Ability to respectfully pose challenging questions, navigate competing perspectives, and assist senior stakeholders in achieving clarity.

• Exceptional skills in hypothesis-led discovery, issue structuring, root-cause analysis, Five Whys, stakeholder mapping, impact quantification, business and mission analysis, synthesis, and executive communication.

• Capability to quickly learn and operate within the client's mission context.

• Proficiency in translating across mission, operational, acquisition, business, and technical perspectives.

• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills.

• Experience in building, scaling, or leading a consulting, strategy, advisory, professional services, or customer-facing team.

• Experience with complex, mission-driven organizations is particularly valuable.

• Experience in regulated or highly secure environments is especially advantageous.

• Fluency in acquisition and contracting is particularly beneficial.

• Familiarity with enterprise software, DevSecOps, cloud, cybersecurity, platform engineering, software delivery, or mission systems is advantageous.

• Experience linking operational requirements to funding and acquisition is highly valuable.

• Familiarity with MEDDPICC or another rigorous enterprise qualification methodology is highly valuable.

🏝️ Benefits

• Medical/Dental/Vision insurance.

• Premiums are fully covered by the company.

• Health Savings Account.

• Life Insurance.

• Disability Insurance.

• 401k Retirement Plan.

• Company Stock Options.

• Home Office Budget.

• Flexible Time Off (FTO).

• Federal Holidays.

• One week off for Thanksgiving.

• Two weeks off for Christmas and New Year’s.

• Paid Parental Leave.

• Reimbursement for approved training and subscriptions.

• Coverage for conferences (travel, lodging, and fees).