Executive Strategy Director

Role: Executive Strategy Director 

Location: London (2-3 days a week from our London Offices)

About the role: 

You'll be the person who sets the strategic standard for the studio and ensures it is consistently met. This is a leadership role that combines strategic vision, team management, client partnership, and cross-functional influence. You won't just oversee strategy. You'll define the approach, build the frameworks, develop the people, and contribute directly to the thinking on the biggest and most complex briefs. 

We're looking for someone who brings depth and breadth. Depth in social-first strategy, audience understanding, and cultural fluency. Breadth across campaign development, content ecosystems, creator strategy, brand positioning, and data-informed planning. Someone who can operate credibly in a room with Brand Directors and senior marketing leaders, and who can also sit with a junior strategist and make their brief sharper in ten minutes. 

Success means a strategic function that is recognised by the client and the studio as indispensable. A team of strategists who are growing, confident, and consistently producing work that elevates the creative output. A body of strategic thinking that positions the client as one of the most culturally relevant and commercially effective beauty brands on social. And a seat at the table on every significant decision the studio makes.

What you will be doing: 

Strategic Vision and Direction 

• Set and own the strategic direction for the client's social-first studio, defining how strategy informs creative, content, community, creator partnerships, and integrated activations 

• Develop long-term strategic frameworks and brand narratives for thwir social presence, ensuring consistency, distinction, and purpose across every platform and output 

• Lead strategy for the studio's most significant campaigns and briefs, from initial insight and audience definition through to creative briefing and post-campaign evaluation 

• Ensure all strategic output connects cultural relevance to brand purpose and commercial objectives, maintaining a clear line between what's interesting and what drives results 

• Shape the studio's strategic point of view on their competitive landscape, category dynamics, and the evolving role of beauty brands in culture and social media 

Team Leadership and Development 

• Lead, manage, and develop the strategy team, setting clear expectations, providing regular mentoring, and building capability across all levels from junior strategists to senior leads 

• Recruit, retain, and grow strategic talent within the studio, building a team culture grounded in curiosity, rigour, generosity with feedback, and a shared commitment to excellence 

• Review and approve all strategic outputs from the team, including briefs, content strategies, campaign platforms, social strategies, audience frameworks, and presentations 

• Create structured development pathways and learning opportunities for the strategy team, including training, knowledge-sharing sessions, and exposure to best practice from across OLIVER and the wider industry 

• Foster a collaborative relationship between strategy and every other discipline in the studio, ensuring strategists are embedded in the creative process rather than siloed from it 

Insight, Audience, and Cultural Intelligence 

• Build and maintain the studio's insight infrastructure, establishing how consumer, cultural, competitive, and platform data is gathered, synthesised, and applied across the team's work 

• Lead audience strategy for our client, developing deep, nuanced understanding of the brand's diverse audiences and how they behave, discover content, and engage on social platforms 

• Ensure the studio has a continuous, always-on view of cultural trends, platform shifts, audience sentiment, and category movements, translating these into strategic opportunities and recommendations 

• Partner with the Senior Data Analyst to build a learning loop between performance data and strategic planning, ensuring insight from what's already been published informs what comes next 

• Guide the team in using social listening, platform analytics, audience research, and competitive analysis to ground every brief and recommendation in evidence 

Client Partnership and Influence 

• Act as the senior strategic partner to the the brand team, building trusted relationships with Brand Directors and senior marketing leaders and contributing to broader brand and marketing strategy conversations 

• Present strategic vision, campaign recommendations, and insight to senior clients with authority, clarity, and a compelling point of view 

• Partner with the Business Director to identify and pursue growth opportunities, positioning the studio's strategic capability as a key differentiator and value driver for the client 

• Contribute to pitches, proposals, and scope discussions, ensuring strategy is front and centre in how the studio presents its value 

Cross-Functional Leadership 

• Work as a peer to the Executive Creative Director, Social Lead, and Business Director, collectively setting the direction and standards for the studio 

• Ensure strategy is embedded in the studio's operating rhythm, from briefing processes and creative reviews to campaign planning and retrospectives 

• Collaborate with the influencer, UGC, and creator leads to ensure partnership strategies are audience-informed and culturally grounded 

• Shape the studio's approach to integrated planning, ensuring social-first strategy connects coherently to broader campaign, media, and brand initiatives where required 

• Champion the role of strategy within the wider OLIVER network, contributing to cross-studio knowledge sharing, strategic best practice, and thought leadership 

What you need to be great in this role: 

• 10+ years of experience in social, brand, or creative strategy, with significant leadership experience and a strong track record in beauty, personal care, wellness, or lifestyle consumer brands 

• Proven experience leading and developing strategy teams of varying seniority, including hiring, mentoring, performance management, and building team culture 

• A track record of developing strategic frameworks, brand platforms, and campaign strategies that led to measurable creative and commercial impact across social and integrated channels 

• Deep platform fluency across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, and emerging social channels, with a genuine, always-on understanding of how audiences behave, culture moves, and content earns attention 

• The ability to operate at both vision and detail level: setting long-term strategic direction while also writing or sharpening a brief when the work demands it 

• Confidence and credibility presenting to and partnering with senior brand clients at Director and VP level, with the ability to influence, build trust, and earn a seat at the strategic table 

• Strong analytical skills, with experience building insight frameworks and using social listening, audience research, platform analytics, and performance data to inform and validate strategic decisions 

• Fluency across campaign development and content ecosystems, from integrated 360 activations to always-on social content, creator strategy, and reactive cultural moments 

• A collaborative leadership style, with experience working as a peer alongside creative, commercial, social, and data leaders within a multi-disciplinary studio or agency 

• Experience working in an in-house agency, embedded studio, or social-specialist environment is a strong advantage 

• A genuine passion for beauty, inclusive representation, and the cultural role beauty brands play in people's lives 

• Professional proficiency in English; additional languages are a plus 

Gen AI and Agentic Thinking: 

• Strategic proficiency with Gen AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, research assistants) to enhance insight generation, trend analysis, audience research, brief development, and strategic frameworks 

• Agentic leadership: a systematic approach to complex strategic and organisational challenges, with the ability to set direction, build capability, and adapt based on outcomes 

• Experience establishing how AI tools are used within a strategy function, including quality standards, governance, and best practice for AI-assisted research and insight 

• Understanding of AI capabilities and limitations, with strong critical evaluation of AI-generated outputs and a commitment to human judgement, cultural nuance, and contextual understanding 

• The ability to articulate the role of AI in strategy to clients and senior stakeholders with credibility, positioning it as a tool that enhances rather than replaces strategic thinking 

• Experience guiding teams in responsible, effective use of AI, and fostering a culture where AI literacy is a core strategic competency 

Qualifications: Formal degrees are welcome but not required. Equivalent experience counts. Experience can be gained through work, study, volunteering, or self-directed learning. 

Req ID: 16554

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