Senior Director, Core & Ecosystem Strategy

Skills this role screens for

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Core Business Strategy

• Define sales and commercial strategy for Western Digital’s core HDD business in partnership with commercial leadership team to support long-term value capture for the business
• Support broader portfolio of strategic projects that support Western Digital core business overall. Sample topics can potentially include ecosystem activation, technology assessment, vertical integration strategy, international opportunities, supply chain optimization, and more.
• Build Western Digital's ecosystem strategy across hyperscalers, neoclouds, sovereign clouds, OEMs, system integrators, and cloud infrastructure software vendors; develop frameworks for how WD orchestrates its role in the broader storage ecosystem considering where to lead, where to partner, and where to enable to maximize value capture.
• Evaluate strategic partnership opportunities with cloud providers, OEMs, system integrators, and ecosystem players; develop deal structuring frameworks and partner models.

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Strategic Project Execution

• Execute high-priority strategic projects end-to-end including go-to-market strategy, customer and partner frameworks, business model evaluation, and build-vs-buy-vs-partner assessments.
• Translate long-term strategic priorities into decisions and recommendations that the Executive Leadership Team can act on.
• Partner closely with GTM and commercial leadership to co-develop strategies that reflect real customer needs and market dynamics, ensuring strategic recommendations translate into commercial action.
• Collaborate across Product, Engineering, Commercial, Finance, and Legal teams to align strategy with execution and drive cross-functional alignment on the highest-stakes strategic questions facing the company

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Executive Communication

• Deliver strategic briefings, deep dives, and recommendations on competitive dynamics, market trends, and long-term positioning for presentation to senior leadership.
• Present to C-suite and Board audiences with rigor, clarity, and strategic conviction.
• Serve as a trusted strategic thought partner to senior business leaders.
• Minimum 8–10+ years of progressive experience spanning top-tier management consulting or in-house corporate strategy and GTM/commercial leadership roles.
• Required industry experience within a GTM, commercial, sales strategy, or related role at a data storage company (HDD, SSD, storage systems) or directly adjacent infrastructure company (semiconductors, memory, enterprise storage platforms)
• Deep domain experience in data storage, semiconductors, enterprise/cloud infrastructure, or broader AI infrastructure with fluency in technical and commercial dynamics
• Proven track record running complex strategic projects end-to-end, from hypothesis development through to analysis and recommendation, with output quality suitable for senior leadership / C-suite.
• Comfort operating with quantitative rigor in ambiguous, high stakes strategic decisions.
• Strong financial acumen with the ability to evaluate business models and market economics.
• Exceptional strategic thinking and structured problem-solving skills.
• Outstanding executive communication, including materials development, narrative crafting, and live presentation to senior leadership (C-suite and Board).
• Proven ability to drive alignment and influence senior stakeholders.

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Education

• MBA or equivalent experience required.
• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Economics, or a related analytical field.

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Location

What Makes This Role Unique

This is a senior strategic leadership position responsible for defining Western Digital's competitive positioning and value capture across its core HDD businesses. The Senior Director will engage directly with the Executive Leadership Team on the highest-priority strategic questions facing the company, requiring exceptional strategic thinking, commercial fluency, and the ability to shape C-suite decisions that determine how Western Digital competes and wins in the AI-driven data economy.

WD is committed to providing equal opportunities to all applicants and employees and will not discriminate against any applicant or employee based on their race, color, ancestry, religion (including religious dress and grooming standards), sex (including pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), gender (including a person’s gender identity, gender expression, and gender-related appearance and behavior, whether or not stereotypically associated with the person’s assigned sex at birth), age, national origin, sexual orientation, medical condition, marital status (including domestic partnership status), physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, protected medical and family care leave, Civil Air Patrol status, military and veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics. We also prohibit harassment of any individual on any of the characteristics listed above. Our non-discrimination policy applies to all aspects of employment. We comply with the laws and regulations set forth in the "Know Your Rights: Workplace Discrimination is Illegal” poster. Our pay transparency policy is available HERE

WD thrives on the power and potential of diversity. As a global company, we believe the most effective way to embrace the diversity of our customers and communities is to mirror it from within. We believe the fusion of various perspectives results in the best outcomes for our employees, our company, our customers, and the world around us. We are committed to an inclusive environment where every individual can thrive through a sense of belonging, respect and contribution.

WD is committed to offering opportunities to applicants with disabilities and ensuring all candidates can successfully navigate our careers website and our hiring process. Please contact us at jobs.accommodations@wdc.com to advise us of your accommodation request. In your email, please include a description of the specific accommodation you are requesting as well as the job title and requisition number of the position for which you are applying.

Based on our experience, we anticipate that the application deadline will be 10/06/2026 (3 months from posting), although we reserve the right to close the application process sooner if we hire an applicant for this position before the application deadline. If we are not able to hire someone from this role before the application deadline, we will update this posting with a new anticipated application deadline.

• San Jose, California (must be willing to relocate).
• Flexibility for remote work within established company policies.
• 15-25% travel including domestic and international travel to meet with targets, advisors, investors, partners, and industry events.

What you get

Compensation & Benefits Details

• An employee’s pay position within the salary range may be based on several factors including but not limited to (1) relevant education; qualifications; certifications; and experience; (2) skills, ability, knowledge of the job; (3) performance, contribution and results; (4) geographic location; (5) shift; (6) internal and external equity; and (7) business and organizational needs.
• The salary range is what we believe to be the range of possible compensation for this role at the time of this posting.  We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and this range is only applicable for jobs to be performed in California, Colorado, New York or remote jobs that can be performed in California, Colorado and New York.  This range may be modified in the future.
• If your position is non-exempt, you are eligible for overtime pay pursuant to company policy and applicable laws.  You may also be eligible for shift differential pay, depending on the shift to which you are assigned.…