In this Q&A, Graeme Hunter shares his experience leading strategic and annual planning processes as a former Head of Strategy at Kraft Heinz, Tyson Foods and Beam Suntory, as well as a former consultant at McKinsey. He highlights what works, what doesn’t, and what executives should focus on as they plan for 2026 and beyond.
Can you tell us about your experience leading strategic and annual planning, both as a consultant and as the former Head of Strategy at several leading companies?
As a consultant, I’ve supported other companies with their strategic and annual planning. I’ve been brought in at the front end of the planning process to help develop a company’s strategy and towards the end of the process to pressure-test and further develop strategic priorities. Generally that work is fairly top-down: solve a defined problem in collaboration with the client, then hand off the strategy.
When I was leading strategy inside companies like Beam Suntory (now Suntory Global Spirits), Tyson Foods, and Kraft Heinz, I saw strategic planning from a different perspective. What was equally important as developing a winning strategy was ensuring it was internalized and getting buy-in on that strategy from others throughout the company.
Obtaining buy-in requires an end-to-end planning process that is coordinated and efficient. The process should engage the right people in the right forums to drive decisions that create significant value from the effort invested. Strategy leaders play a critical role in aligning organizational leaders to think strategically and apply that lens in decision-making.
In your experience, what do companies get wrong about strategic and annual planning?
Where I’ve seen it go wrong is when a less experienced person (often in strategy or finance) takes the lead. Acting as a process manager, their focus is usually on getting to the budget. They end up creating templates that are too long and unfocused, leading to meetings that are not as productive as they could be. What makes this worse is that most strategy leaders don’t lead strategic planning for more than one year, maybe two. As a result, the planning process never actually improves; new people are always coming in and relearning the process. Continuity of leadership makes a big difference in successful planning.
I’ve also seen it go wrong when business units are so overwhelmed with the process and filling out templates that people don’t get to step back and think about what matters for their business. They see strategic planning as a chore, rather than an exciting opportunity to imagine and create the future.
In my view, many strategy teams are too big. To justify their existence, they create a lot of unnecessary work for others. A critical question for the head of strategy is, “What am I really asking people to do?” The person leading needs to reflect: does this feel efficient, effective, and worth the effort of others?
What role should templates play in planning?
Strategic templates are a valuable tool to help people throughout the company accurately assess their current business, think critically, and develop their strategy. I think it’s important for people in senior roles to develop the templates because clarity is critical. Tens or hundreds of people use these templates, so anything that is inefficient just gets multiplied many times. Part of the job of templates is teaching people how to think strategically – it’s not just about coming up with the ‘answer.’ Templates that ask the right questions are a great way to help do that.
There are a few steps I recommend as companies go through strategic planning:
- Set clear aspirations and direction
- Broaden the mind as an executive team by looking outside the company for inspiration
- Define the company’s aspirations and where it wants to be in 5-10 years
- Use pre-mortems: if the company has succeeded in 5-10 years, what would the newspaper article say? If it has failed, what would it say?
- Identify the biggest opportunities and critical risks
- Assess the current situation accurately and succinctly
- Evaluate external factors: consumers, categories, customers, channels, competitors, input costs
- Evaluate internal factors: business model, revenue streams, true competitive differentiation (usually 1-2 factors, not 10)
- Be honest about where the company currently stands
- Summarize the fact base in 5 pages, not 20
- Develop the strategy in a concrete way
- Determine where to play and how to win, linking back to aspirations and the situation assessment
- Use words and numbers that mutually reinforce each other
- Boil it down to what the company should be doing more of, less of, or differently
- Use a clear “from–to” view to show how the company should evolve over time, so the strategy is concrete
What’s the right role for external advisors in planning?
When I was an external consultant, the work was often about creating the perfect solution, represented by the perfect deck. Internally, I learned that it’s not just the materials that matter, but the internal discussions, the agreements, and the disagreements people have. Ensuring the team internalizes the strategy matters. That’s where external advisors are most valuable. They can bring a perspective that internal leaders don’t have and help move internal conflict to resolution.
There are a few key stages where external advisors add the most value:
- At the beginning: Leading discussions with the executive team to help them think about macro trends, future opportunities, and risks
- During: Acting as a coach to the strategy lead and CEO/BU Presidents by asking tough questions and emphasizing the need to keep things simple
- At the end: Supporting specific priorities, especially when entering new markets or businesses where the company doesn’t have deep experience
External advisors can also work directly with business leaders at different levels, reviewing and challenging their strategies. That kind of engagement sharpens the thinking and raises the overall quality of the plan.
Most companies don’t do strategy well, and outside advisors who have been through the process many times can make life easier. Strategic planning should always be owned internally, but external voices can sharpen, challenge, and inspire.
How do you see AI fitting into planning processes?
I think AI is amazing. There are a lot of ways it can help as a tool:
- Situation assessments: Analyzing the competitive landscape has been difficult because it takes so much time. AI can analyze investor calls, websites, and other sources and quickly give a strong perspective on how competitors are thinking about strategy.
- Synthesizing discussions: Often companies don’t take notes during discussions, or the notes taken aren’t very good. AI is great at listening to what’s going on, understanding it, and playing it back. This speeds up the cycle and helps people focus on what really matters.
- Acting as an advisor: AI can be a thought partner when developing strategy. We can ask AI: what part of our strategy would it challenge? What might be missing? AI can result in better answers and prepare people for leadership discussions.
- Simulating options: AI agents can run scenarios, simulate competitor reactions, and generate strategic options. These capabilities are improving rapidly over time.
But as much as AI can do, the most important thing in strategy is getting people to develop it, buy into it, understand it, and execute it. I don’t think AI will replace strategy, but it’s going to be a great tool to help strategy. Every business should be asking: how am I going to use AI to improve my business? And it’s not just a question for the technology group; each business and function should be asking.
What should leaders keep in mind as they prepare for 2026, specifically?
For 2026, leaders need to be prepared for how much volatility and uncertainty there still is. Strategy is dynamic; it needs to be updated as things materially change.
That means it’s not enough to have just a base plan. Leaders need to be much more thoughtful about, if this happens, then how does our plan change? What are early indicators that we need to evolve the plan? What do we have to believe? And what are we going to do?
It’s not just a high-case and low-case financial plan. It’s, what happens if the world shifts in ways we don’t expect? Leaders need to have thought through their contingency plans ahead of time.
What ultimately makes strategic and annual planning meetings successful? What distinguishes the plan that gets executed from the one that doesn’t?
There’s a difference between filling out templates and developing strategies versus what the leadership team actually discusses. At the executive level, strategy is about focusing on the things that really matter, allocating time accordingly, and having the right discussions that lead to critical decisions.
From a process perspective, thinking through how to set the agenda and who is in the room is critical. The business leads and functional leads should be there, but the group needs to be small enough to have lively discussions and make decisions.
Mindset also matters. In strategic planning, people have to wear their enterprise hats, not just think about their own business. That shift creates a more constructive, collaborative way of working, where the whole team is solving for what’s best for the overall business.
What separates a plan that gets executed from one that doesn’t is strong executive sponsorship. It must be the CEO or the group president that is leading the kickoff and driving the meetings. Second, the head of strategy must be substantive, engaging on content and issues rather than just managing a process. And third, leaders need to protect teams from unnecessary busy work by focusing on work that actually drives decision-making.
Ultimately, the CEO or group president has to be the real chief strategy officer – it’s their strategy and financial framework. If they’re not driving it, the process fails. Strategy only works if business leaders are engaged and see it as their plan, not a check-the-box exercise happening on the side.
Closing Thoughts
Effective strategic and annual planning only works when it’s executive-led, pragmatic, and outward-looking. Clear templates keep the process efficient, external perspectives sharpen it, and AI accelerates insight. Most importantly, strategy must go beyond static scenarios; leaders need to think creatively about what could unfold and how they’ll respond.
