Director, Corporate Strategy & AI Intelligence

Role overview

Scotts Miracle-Gro describes this opportunity as a fast-moving, growth-focused role rather than a routine day-to-day position. The Director of Corporate Strategy & AI Intelligence will act as the strategic scout for the Strategic Acceleration Business Unit, leading research and experimentation with emerging AI tools and large language models to identify new growth avenues, assess competitors, and automate workflow insights. A key responsibility of the role is to help determine whether a new opportunity should be approached through partnership, internal development, or acquisition.

What you will do

• Investigate and test new AI solutions to identify possible corporate partners, support market forecasting, and develop competitive intelligence.
• Use AI-driven analysis to shape recommendations for Business Development and M&A teams on whether to partner, build, or buy.
• Serve as a shared technical resource for the M&A team during due diligence and for the New Business Development team on product improvement opportunities.
• Lead the AI Market Intelligence team, including managers and analysts working across M&A, strategic planning, and portfolio enhancement.
• Embed advanced AI tools and automated workflows into everyday strategy work to keep the innovation pipeline moving quickly.
• Work closely with the Directors of M&A and New Business Development and take part in monthly Sync-and-Accelerate meetings.

What you need to bring

• 7 to 10+ years of progressive experience in corporate strategy, management consulting, venture capital, or corporate development/M&A.
• Proven ability to create and apply partner/build/buy frameworks, market sizing approaches such as TAM/SAM, and commercial due diligence.
• At least 3 years of direct people management experience leading analysts or strategic managers.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Economics, Engineering, or a related discipline; an MBA or other advanced degree is strongly preferred.
• Practical experience using AI tools, including LLM-based solutions, custom GPTs, or retrieval-augmented generation workflows to solve business problems.
• Comfort with Python or R for analysis, market research scraping, or API work with platforms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, or Hugging Face.
• Working knowledge of modern data and automation tools such as vector databases, Tableau, Power BI, Make, Zapier, and LangChain.
• Strong understanding of AI strengths, limitations, privacy and security concerns, hallucinations, and token-based cost considerations.

Compensation and incentives

The expected base salary for this role is generally between $175,700 and $206,700 per year. Actual pay may vary based on skills, qualifications, experience, and location. The position is also eligible for incentive compensation through corporate bonus programs. For remote candidates located in Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Oregon, or Washington, state pay requirements will be taken into account.

Benefits and workplace culture

Scotts Miracle-Gro highlights a broad employee experience program that includes medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and eligible family members, a wellness reimbursement benefit, and a 401(k) match of up to 7.5%. Employees also receive a 15% discount on company stock. The company emphasizes non-linear career growth, family support through Maven Family Planning and up to $30,000 for adoption, fertility, and surrogacy support, employee resource groups focused on inclusion and community, and a strong volunteer and service culture.

Additional information

The company welcomes interested candidates to apply for consideration. Scotts Miracle-Gro states that it is an equal opportunity employer and maintains a culturally diverse, drug-free workplace. Equal employment opportunity is affirmed across race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, and veteran status. The company also notes that it does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or employment agencies unless there is a signed Master Service Agreement and specific approval for the requisition.