Planning Executive (Strategy & Operational Planning)

€58,000 – €68,000 + benefits

• No equity

Hybrid (EU-based)

• 25% travel

Desert Digital OÜ is an award-winning EU-based digital agency driving AI-powered transformation for ambitious global brands.

• Website: www.desertsdigital.com
• Portfolio: https://tinyurl.com/4bc354cm

This is not a project coordinator role. You will translate leadership’s strategy into executable plans, including annual planning, quarterly OKRs, resource allocation, and capacity forecasting, and then hold every team accountable to them. You will tell senior people their plan doesn’t work, and back it up with numbers.

What you’ll own

• The annual and quarterly planning cycles end-to-end, including OKRs, budgets, and headcount.
• Resource and capacity forecasting across client delivery, so we never over-sell or under-staff.
• Board and leadership planning packs that stand up to investor scrutiny.
• Cross-functional dependency mapping, risk registers, and escalation when a plan slips.
• Building planning models and dashboards (Excel or Sheets at an advanced level, plus Looker, Power BI, or similar).
• Scenario planning for new markets, AI service lines, and EU regulatory impact on delivery (AI Act, GDPR).
• Non-negotiable requirements
• 4+ years in strategic or operational planning, PMO leadership, or management consulting. Agency, consultancy, or tech scale-up experience is strongly preferred.
• Has personally owned a full annual planning cycle for a business of €10M+ revenue or 100+ people.
• Advanced financial and capacity modelling skills. You will build one live in the assessment.
• Proven record of presenting plans to C-suite or board level.
• Fluent English. A second EU language is a plus.

Automatic rejection: coordination-only PM experience, no ownership of planning outcomes, or no modelling ability.

Process: Screening → Hiring manager interview → Case study (build a 12-month capacity and revenue plan from raw data) → Leadership panel → 2 references → Offer