HBR Strategy Summit 2026: Who Owns Strategy in Your Organization?

By Jeff Su

Categories: Product, Startup

Summary

Strategy ownership isn't a title—it's a distributed, cross-functional process. Leading organizations now replace 5-year planning with 1-3 year detailed roadmaps plus trend analysis, combining commercial input, product/tech insights, and consumer behavior signals into a single operating rhythm.

Key Takeaways

1. Strategy ownership must be distributed across the entire executive team rather than siloed to a 'strategy' role. This includes commercial leaders (market wins/losses), product/tech teams (landscape changes), and functions examining consumer behavior shifts.
2. Replace traditional 5-year planning with a dual time-horizon approach: 1-3 year calculations using specific assumptions and data, plus separate 5-year aspiration discussions focused on technology shifts and market movement rather than tactical execution.
3. Create a 'thoughtful operating process' that systematically inputs external market data (where you're winning/losing), internal product/tech roadmap changes, and consumer behavior trends into quarterly or annual strategy cycles.
4. Five-year planning now focuses on behavioral and industry trend positioning rather than detailed projections. Use this horizon for strategic positioning questions ('How do we align to consumer behavior by year 5?') rather than specific targets.
5. Implement platform and functional engagement as mandatory inputs to strategy development. Don't allow strategy to be created in isolation—require platforms, product teams, and commercial teams to actively participate in planning cycles.

Topics

• Distributed Strategy Ownership
• Planning Time Horizons
• Cross-Functional Strategy Process
• Executive Team Alignment
• Operating Rhythm Design

Transcript Excerpt

So many companies struggle with the question of who owns the strategy for the organization. So the question is what's the best way to define who owns strategy and then what time frame should strategy be defined as one years, three years, 5 years is probably shifting. You know we used to do fiveyear planning. Nobody would do fiveyear planning now. >> So look I I would say in our organization clearly just because you have the strategy title is not owned by strategy. It's actually owned by the enti...