Warm Intros to Strategy and Ops Leaders
Strategy and ops roles at big companies are filled through the leader's network before a req ever posts. The honest fix is to reach those leaders warmly, through something you actually share, before the job exists.
Find Your Warm Intro →Free · No sign-up · See results in ~10 seconds
A plain LinkedIn search buries the people who would actually help you.
It ranks by prominence, so the most-followed, most-messaged names sit on top. FindWarmIntros surfaces the coworkers who share your school or a past employer - the people most likely to reply - and hands you a ready-to-send intro.
✍️ Ready-to-send intro“Hi - we both studied at [your school]. I’d love to hear about your path to a company you are targeting before I apply…”
… plus everyone else in your network who can put in a good word.
See who can refer you in - pick a tech target:
Why these roles rarely get posted
Corporate strategy, biz ops, and chief-of-staff roles are usually created around a specific problem a leader is trying to solve, not slotted into a standing headcount plan. The VP writes the scope in their head, mentions it to two trusted people, and often fills it before HR ever opens a public req.
That means the careers page shows you the leftovers: the roles generic enough to survive a committee. The interesting work moves through the leader's network. If you are not in that network, you are applying to a shadow of the real opportunity.
How to reach a strategy or ops leader warmly
The goal is a short, specific conversation with someone who actually shapes these teams. You earn it by making the connection feel obvious and making the reply cost 30 seconds.
- Anchor on the real tie first. Open with the school, former employer, or team you genuinely share, in the first line. A Kellogg grad hearing from a Kellogg grad, or an ex-Bain analyst hearing from another, reads the message differently than a stranger.
- Target the scoper, not the recruiter. Message the strategy director or VP of ops who owns the work, not talent acquisition. They know which problems are about to become headcount, and they remember who they liked talking to.
- Ask about structure, not openings. Request 15 minutes on how the corporate strategy team is organized and what problems it owns this year. That is a question an insider enjoys answering, and it surfaces roles before they post.
- Bring one concrete point of view. Reference a recent move the company made (a pricing shift, an acquisition, a new segment) and one thing you would want to understand about it. It proves you think like the team, not like a job seeker.
Finding the right insider without guessing
The hard part is knowing which of the thousands of people at Salesforce or Amazon both sit in strategy or ops and share a real tie with you. Scrolling LinkedIn by hand, you miss most of them and waste warm paths on people who left years ago.
FindWarmIntros does the finding-and-ranking part: it takes your target company and your background, then surfaces the actual people there you share a school or past employer with, ranks them by how reachable they are, and drafts an opener that leads with the shared tie. You still send the message and own the relationship, but you start from a real list instead of a search box.