Head of Strategy

Role Overview

The Head of Digital Strategy & Strategic Partnerships is a senior leadership role within Straumann’s Customer Connected Solutions (CCS) business. You will shape and drive the digital strategic direction of CCS while identifying, negotiating, and securing high-impact industry partnerships that elevate our digital solutions, platforms, and customer experience.

With a strong understanding of platform-based business models and open digital ecosystems, you will act as a catalyst for Straumann’s transformation into the digital innovation leader in dentistry. This includes leading ecosystem development around the AXS platform, but also broader CCS digital initiatives, in a very close collaboration with #Tech team and portfolio management.

This role requires a strategic thinker with the ability to operationalize vision into action — combining deep external market intelligence, strong technical fluency, and a proven commercial mindset.

Key Responsibilities

Digital Strategy & Ecosystem Leadership:

- Develop and evolve the digital strategy for CCS in alignment with Straumann Group priorities and market shifts
- Identify emerging trends, technologies, and business models in digital dentistry and healthcare that can shape our roadmap.
- Define and drive the CCS ecosystem strategy — shaping an open, modular, and customer-centric architecture in close collaboration with #Tech team.
- Translate the defined strategies into actional initiatives, lead and drive the implementation of initiatives and measure the success.

Strategic Partnerships & Industry Engagement:

- Design and execute a partnership roadmap to expand CCS offerings via best-in-class third-party integrations across software, hardware, data, and services.
- Lead the end-to-end lifecycle of strategic partnerships: scouting, evaluation, business casing, negotiation, contracting, and governance.
- Build deep, trust-based relationships with key players in the industry to co-create innovative digital workflows and customer solutions.
- Cross-functional Collaboration & Execution
- Collaborate with Product Management, Marketing, R&D, M&A, Sales, and Regional teams to ensure successful integration and market activation of strategic partners.
- Partner with Legal, Finance, Compliance, HR and IT to ensure robust frameworks for scalable and sustainable collaboration.
- Work hand-in-hand with the AXS Platform and Growth teams to identify and activate strategic value levers through partnerships.

Technology & Commercial Fluency:

- Act as a credible counterpart to internal product teams and external partners, able to understand technical integration needs (e.g. APIs, data flows, workflows).
- Lead commercial discussions and construct joint business models and go-to-market strategies with partners.
- Ensure partnerships drive measurable value — through customer adoption, market access, innovation acceleration, or revenue contribution.

Qualifications & Experience:

- Master's degree in Business, Engineering, Computer Science, or related discipline.
- 10+ years in digital strategy, strategic partnerships, business development, or ecosystem/platform roles — ideally in digital health, medtech, SaaS, or dental/health tech.
- Strong technical understanding of APIs, data integration, digital workflows, and platform architecture.
- Demonstrated success in identifying, negotiating, and operationalizing complex strategic partnerships.
- Deep external orientation and market awareness — capable of bringing outside-in thinking to Straumann’s strategy.
- Excellent stakeholder and project management skills in complex, matrixed organizations.
- Entrepreneurial, collaborative, and execution-focused mindset.
- Thought leadership
- able to foster an environment where people are motivated to do their best to help the organization achieve its objectives

Success Criteria
- Clear strategic direction for CCS’s digital portfolio and ecosystem.
- Tangible partnerships integrated into CCS offerings, enhancing value to customers and differentiation in the market.
- Recognized credibility with internal teams and external partners.
- Measurable business impact (revenue, NPS, adoption, innovation pipeline).
- Structured and scalable partner onboarding and governance frameworks.