Strategy Director – Business & Brand Growth

Strategy Director

Our client is a creative, innovation and strategy partner to a number of fascinating businesses. They are all about producing great work and offering a fascinating day to day existence for their diverse team of employees. And they certainly walk the talk; they are a certified B Corp, and amongst their client list, a global technology brand describes them as their secret weapon. So as you can tell, there’s something pretty special going on there, a rich mix of talent, high standards, good intentions and of course, having fun.

They have openings at Principle Strategist and Strategy Director level.

Themes across both roles:-

• There’s an entrepreneurial culture – so you’ll need to be self-directed
• Also need to be comfortable with ambiguity. The work is intellectually demanding, fast paced, it’s important to keep things moving
• You’ll have the ability to work independently but also operate as a team player
• We are looking for candidates with hybrid strategy skills. At heart you’ll be a core problem solver with the ability to structure compelling and persuasive arguments
• Ability to build trust with clients, to envisage how to get to the answer, to see it from client’s perspective, you can take the client with you, chart a clear path
• They also embrace candidates who have a range of experience, people who have transitioned, who can handle a range of different problems, rather than relying on a formulaic approach
• Need to be adaptable and comfortable dealing with variety
• New business tends to be won on the basis of reputation / word of mouth

No challenge they face is similar and in response their approach for each brief is tailor-made and flexible. They frequently work as an embedded partner and are proudly collaborative. They don’t simply advise and leave. Most of their clients are legacy partners who work with them on numerous long-term as well as every-day strategic and innovation challenges.

These are the 4 pillars of their offering:
Identify and define the frontiers influencing commercial and consumer behaviour to drive new value into the organisation
Define direction
Designing ways of working and collective spirit that enable growth to flourish
Decoding the insights and patterns within data to direct next actions

About the projects / output
To give a sense of the type of work they do, here are some highlights from projects which are currently in development or have recently finalised.

● They are helping a global technology business transition from an advertising-led to a publisher-led model, developing their editorial and promotional strategy, supporting them on the analytics
and measurement of their content and serving as an extension of their global brand team.
● They’ve helped define a loyalty program for a leading energy brand to help their members optimise their renewable energy consumption . From consumer research and insight, they developed a members club program; designing the reward structure, partnership approach and experience guidelines.
● Together with the global lifestyle brand, they are developing new ways for women to embed more sports into their daily lives. On the basis of thorough research with their core audience, they have identified the key barriers and put forward a range of new products, services and partnership. This has -among others led to a global joint partnership around products that facilitate sports in the home environment.

About the role
We are looking for an experienced Strategy Director to join their team.
This role sits on the crossroads of various marketing disciplines, from brand strategy, business strategy, digital innovation and organisational design. They don’t expect you to be a deep expert in each of these areas, but are looking for talent that can comfortably switch across some of these areas and thrive with a bit of ambiguity thrown in.
You’ll be working across a number of brands, getting exposure to industries from tech, to fashion, FMCG and beyond. In your role as a principal strategist /strategy director, the aim is that you gradually evolve into the key contact and lead for some of their most important clients. This means that you’ll be tasked on both running and overseeing existing projects as well as
nurture new projects and business from these accounts.

What you can bring to the party
Ultimately they need someone who gets how successful brands operate in today’s technologically and social driven world. It doesn’t mean you have to be a digital nerd but a very good grasp of how consumer behaviour is shifting will be critical. A fascination for business, technology and culture is a head start. We need someone who is not a jargon monkey and who can articulate solutions in simple and precise ways. Who can write compelling arguments as well as present to a room full of executives.
You will need to bring a sound attitude to the team and be willing to truly get stuck into problems and navigate clever ways through them.
They tend to be drawn to people who aren’t cookie cutter, who have an interesting edge about them.

Experience
● At least 6-8 years experience in innovation consulting, marketing, strategy and planning (or similar)
● Managing and motivating more junior members of a team
● Forging relationships with key clients
● Charting an approach to solving a problem or project and managing it to delivery

Skills
● Articulate storyteller (presenting arguments and strategies in engaging ways)
● Comfortable and natural presenter
● Deep understanding of how changes in culture, technology and commerce are impacting human behaviour
● Able to reframe problems revealing new ways to solve/approach them
● Able to synthesise data and articulate findings simply
● Able to articulate the business and organisational implications of proposed solutions
● Understand marketing and brand theory like the back of your hand
● Able to conceive and manage a project plan through to delivery, Including managing internal and external
stakeholders

Responsibilities
● Be the project lead on projects of scale
● Manage a team (managing up and down)
● Lead and grow client relationships
● Design, prepare and lead collaborative workshops
● Explore, conceive, develop and implement new solutions, both short-term and long-term
● Develop and finetune set of strategic tools in key areas
● Write reports and presentations
● Craft, hone and evaluate marketing briefs

This is an outstanding opportunity to join a highly talented group of creative strategists working across, brand, innovation and growth.

Salary is flexible for the right person and there is also an outstanding flexible benefits package available. Hybrid working is the norm.