Head of Strategic Planning

Company Description

We’re Checkout.com. You might not know our name, but companies like eBay, Spotify, Klarna, Uber, and Sony do, because we’re behind many of the digital experiences you use every day.

We are where the world checks out, enabling over 10 billion transactions yearly for more than one billion global shoppers.

Whether you want to book a holiday, order food, renew a subscription, or check out online, there’s a good chance our tech powers the payments behind the scenes. Our platform helps the most ambitious businesses deliver effortless digital experiences, at scale.

If you want to do career-defining work, you’ve come to the right place. We move fast, think globally, and believe great teams are built by hiring exceptional people with conviction, curiosity, and the desire to make an impact.

With 20 offices across six continents and London as our HQ, we’re shaping the future of fintech – and we’re just getting started.

At Checkout.com, we create Marketing that Moves: moves people to buy our products, builds a brand where top-notch marketers trust us with their careers, and fuels growth to make Checkout.com the irresistible choice.

As our business ambition continues to grow, we’re looking for a Head of Strategic Planning to help bring focus, momentum, and operational excellence to our Marketing organisation. This is a high-impact, hands-on role for someone energised by pace, problem-solving, and building in complex, fast-moving environments, with a genuine passion for marketing as a growth driver.

Working in close partnership with the CMO and the extended Marketing leadership team, you’ll be exposed to the full breadth of how a global marketing organisation operates: strategy, planning, execution, and performance. You’ll help connect the dots across teams, priorities, and data, ensuring great ideas turn into action and momentum is sustained as we scale.

This is an exceptional opportunity to work alongside a leadership team focused on building an iconic global brand. If you’re a natural problem-solver who thrives on pace, brings clarity to complexity, and wants to shape how Marketing works and drives impact, this role is for you.

How You’ll Make an Impact

• Leading a small team, you’ll support marketing strategy and planning, helping translate business priorities into clear plans, goals, and roadmaps across the Marketing organisation.
• You’ll highlight the trade-offs and options we have to deliver greater impact.
• You’ll identify and help to structure problems, analyse options, and drive clear recommendations.
• You’ll help the team capitalise on their largest opportunities.
• Partner closely with the CMO and Marketing Leadership Team (MLT) to support prioritisation, preparation for key forums, Board updates and follow-through on decisions and actions.
• Run the Marketing operating rhythm, including planning cycles, leadership meetings, business reviews, and goal tracking, keeping momentum as priorities shift.
• Lead the Marketing budget process. Own the annual marketing budget by marketing function and by region. Drive the necessary debate and alignment in budget setting, measurements and governance.
• Detail the approach to Regional and Global Management best practice, be the single point of contact with the Finance Business Planning Team for Headcount planning, program spend and operating expenses management and analysis.
• Improve operational excellence by bringing structure to processes, documentation, ways of working, and reporting.
• Drive execution across fast-moving, cross-functional initiatives by coordinating inputs, managing dependencies, and unblocking issues under tight deadlines.
• Own the Campaign Planning process helping to ensure that all marketers have quality work in the system.
• Support the marketing talent development process, throughout the lifecycle of talent - from attraction through to development and mobility.
• Set the talent level frameworks with the HR Business Partner, drive the setting and attainment of goals, steer the calibration and bi-annual performance management process with the leaders in the organisation. Coordinate resource allocation.
• Be the ambassador of AI driven change. Drive technology adoption and skills sets in the marketing team, be the champion of AI across the team. Identify the processes and projects that can be fully automated and work with MLT and ensure that we are improving our technology skills across the organisation.
• Act as a connector across functions, working closely with Product, Commercial, Finance, Data, and People teams to ensure alignment and progress.
• Help strengthen data-led decision-making, supporting how insights, performance metrics, and results inform priorities and trade-offs.
• Enable clear communication and alignment by synthesising information and preparing leadership updates and materials as needed.