Director, Corporate Development & Strategy

The Farmer’s Dog was born from a mission to change the landscape of pet health, providing dogs and their humans with honest, smart, and simple care. We’re starting by radically improving the $90 billion pet food industry, replacing bags of highly-processed pellets with a personalized subscription service that sends complete and balanced, freshly-made dog food directly to customers’ doors. Our ultimate goal is to create innovative, delightful and personalized experiences across all aspects of pet care, and we believe our direct-to-consumer business model, holistic approach to growth, and dynamic culture uniquely position us to shepherd this backwards industry into the future.
To date, The Farmer’s Dog has delivered over 1 billion meals nationwide and raised over $150M in funding to help us build a company as healthy as the dogs who are eating those meals. Join us as we continue to develop ways of bringing peace of mind to customers, health to their companions, and much-needed change to the way people feed and care for their pets.

#LongLiveDogs

We’re looking for a thoughtful, strategic, and highly collaborative Director of Corporate Development & Strategy to join our team. This individual will be responsible for identifying, evaluating, and executing M&A opportunities, partnerships, and strategic initiatives to help shape the long-term future of The Farmer’s Dog.

This role is equal parts strategist and operator. One day you might be crafting a long-range growth plan or modeling a potential partnership; the next you’re synthesizing insights into a board presentation or aligning cross-functional teams on priorities. You’ll bring clarity to complexity, keep us oriented around the most important questions, and help us think boldly about what comes next.

One Team: We don’t think of ourselves as “Acquisition Marketers”, “Engineers”, “Data Analysts”, or “Product Managers”. Beyond denoting skill sets and areas of expertise, we don’t think departments matter. We’d rather align ourselves to the goals we’re working to achieve and make sure we have necessary subject matter expertise to drive meaningful impact. We strive to orient ourselves around customer problems TOGETHER – getting the right people, with the right context, in the right rooms/Zooms to solve problems holistically.

We are skeptical about everything and precious about nothing:  Ideas can and should come from anywhere, and we aren’t tied to our own. We proactively source input. We talk to our customers and leads regularly and are quick to change course if we know there’s a better or more impactful way to solve problems.

We consider the customer journey in all of our decisions:  We know that no interaction exists in a silo and therefore understand how important every single one is.  We ensure our strategy sets prospective and new customers up for success and drives long-term retention.  We answer questions and address problems early and proactively.  We understand the value of different channels, initiatives, and messages and know how to articulate impact and advocate for prioritization holistically.

We Execute For Impact: We don’t subscribe to “best practices” or “industry KPIs”. We’re uninterested in how we compare to “benchmarks”; instead we orient ourselves around being the best we can possibly be. Similarly, we don’t subscribe to rigid or classical expectations of roles – i.e. acquisition is hyper-focused on improving customer retention and experience.

We Are Focused and Work Without Assumption: We are not beholden to ideas. We have goals and believe everything beyond that is a series of hypotheses to validate. To that end, we seek to work in sequence and not in parallel. We constantly ask ourselves, “what’s the most important hypothesis I should be working on right now? How do I confirm or reject that hypothesis as fast as possible?”. We rarely have timelines/deadlines and are constantly taking in new information and adjusting our priorities accordingly. We don’t expect to be perfect the first time.

M&A & Strategic Investment

• Source, assess, and prioritize acquisition targets and investment opportunities in adjacent categories
• Lead financial modeling, valuation, and due diligence processes in collaboration with Finance, Legal, and cross-functional teams
• Build business cases and present recommendations to executive leadership and board

Strategic Planning & Growth Initiatives

• Partner with the executive team to develop long-term strategic plans and annual OKRs
• Drive market and competitive analysis to inform growth strategy
• Monitor industry trends and benchmarks to help us stay ahead of the curve - and always focused on what’s most important for dogs and their humans.

Strategic Partnerships

• Evaluate and structure commercial partnerships, licensing deals, or joint ventures that enhance product portfolio, distribution, or customer experience
• Own relationship management with strategic partners and external stakeholders

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Collaborate closely with teams across the business such as Product, Marketing, Ops, R&D, and Tech to help frame decisions, challenge assumptions, and drive alignment on shared goals.
• Package insights and recommendations into compelling narratives for internal and external stakeholders

• You have 8+ years of experience in investment banking, consulting, private equity, or an in-house strategy/corp dev role - ideally with exposure to consumer, subscription, or pet businesses.
• You’ve owned complex financial models, supported M&A or strategic growth projects, and helped senior leaders evaluate big decisions.
• You have a proven track record of owning and closing M&A or partnership deals.
• You’re comfortable toggling between strategy and execution, vision and spreadsheets - and can deliver clarity even when things are ambiguous.
• You have outstanding communication and influencing skills at the executive level.
• You don’t just report on data - you ask the right questions, push the thinking forward, and have a bias for action.
• You’re highly collaborative, you execute for impact, and you’re genuinely excited to work on problems that matter.
• You love dogs.

We are an in-office culture, made of in-office people who thrive on the collaboration and magnetism of working in a shared space. We are seeking individuals who excel in this type of environment, where being present fosters deeper connections and engagement.

Our company’s mission is rooted in deep, genuine care for dogs – and for the people who love them. As an organization we are full of individuals who are unique in many ways, but all united in a mission of providing true peace of mind to dog lovers everywhere. Fixing this industry and improving the lives of pets and their people will be a difficult, decades-long endeavor. We believe the best use of our time, energy, and resources as a collective team is to focus on this mission, and on supporting our team to do their best work and be their best selves. In support of this we’re committed to supporting a diverse workforce, and investing in internal structures, opportunities, and training that create and sustain an inclusive team. We strive to provide an experience at TFD that will be invested, meaningful and memorable as we progress on the journey to reimagine how we feed and care for our pets.

• Dog-friendly office in Greenwich Village
• Market-competitive compensation and equity packages
• Comprehensive Healthcare, Dental, and Vision
• Company supported mental health benefits
• 12 week paid parental leave
• Competitive 401k plan with company match
• Flexible PTO 
• Discounted fresh food for your pup
• Your pet interrupting video calls (and in-person meetings) is now a feature, not a bug

We commit to building a competitive compensation package and company environment for all individuals to thrive. We believe in competitive base compensation rooted in location specific market data and performance along with equity ownership in the company that allows every team member to build their personal wealth as the company grows, just as much as we believe in fostering a culture that supports our team members personally, professionally, and holistically. For this role the anticipated hiring base compensation range is $200,000 - $230,000 USD Annual and the compensation offered will include a robust market competitive package of base, bonus and equity. In addition to your base compensation offer you will also receive equity ownership in the company. More information about the value of this equity will be shared at the time of offer. This range is representative of NYC Market Data if you are applying to this role outside of the NYC area the range may change.

The Farmer's Dog, Inc. is an equal employment opportunity employer and does not discriminate in hiring on the basis of sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, creed, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status or any other legally protected characteristic or status. For more information, please visit Know Your Rights.

TFD complies with applicable federal, state, and local disability laws and makes reasonable accommodations for applicants and employees with disabilities.  If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact [email protected].