Group Director, Strategy

IPG Mediabrands•New York, NY

About The Position

As Group Strategy Director, you are responsible for the creation of the strategic direction a brand will take in communications to achieve their business goals. You are responsible for helping to strategize, produce and make sense of the key cultural, consumer and market intelligence required to design the best possible holistic communications plan to deliver on that task. You have a passion for people, brands and ideas and an innate, almost insatiable curiosity for culture in every sense. You believe that brands can & should mean in the world, and are driven by the desire to understand the changing world and people’s subsequent shifting motivations and behaviors. The absolute focus for this role is the quality and creativity of the work. This requires the ability to identify, embrace & sell new thinking, and excellent presentation skills and leadership behaviors are essential to the job. Equally, you are responsible for ensuring that the Strategy Teams’ work is rooted in genuine insight & business understanding, and are expected to work alongside all Strategists, providing on the ground training where necessary & helping manage them to develop new strategic approaches & frameworks in collaboration with the Analytics, Communications Design and Client teams.

Requirements

Ability to think differently: creative & adaptive, entrepreneurial, independently-minded; deeply immersed in cultural understanding and driven by a desire to know more the world / to better understand people’s motivations & behaviors in the shifting landscape
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, is an experienced presenter and storyteller
An interest in healthcare and learning more about patient and doctor experience, and how communications can augment their journeys to care.
Experience working in/collaborating with a media planning team (either internally or in a partner agency)
Experience in managing and developing junior strategy talent

Nice To Haves

Preferably 10+ years in integrated planning role in media, creative, innovation or communications discipline (digital, content, invention, social, activation)
Knowledge of key media tools such as MRI/Simmons (survey dashboards), comfort in resources such as Mintel, WARC

Responsibilities

Translate the client’s business goals into communications jobs that provide the team(s) with clear direction on the task they need to achieve
Maintain excellent client relationships & truly understanding the clients' key business and challenges
Ensure the teams deliver best in class work as standard
Proactively identify strategic issues before they potentially become real client problems, demonstrating strong analytical & strategic skills to help solve those problems
Provide and/or guide strategic input for all plans, internally & externally
Bring fresh thinking & inspiration into the Strategic Process, actively demonstrating how non-‘media’ inspiration can provide a springboard to better Strategic thinking
Drive the development & usage of the Cultural Analytical Process/Tools to help teams find new insights that unlock growth
Work with the Strategy Directors to deliver executable, relevant, on brand platforms with the potential for fame/award entry
Train, guide & assist the Strategy & Client teams in development and packaging of ideas
Use qualitative & and quantitative research to develop applicable insights into the consumer connection with the brand
Partner with Analytics Strategy team to develop POVs on research, understanding & measurement solutions, inputting into the development of cutting edge planning, research and reporting models required to compete & dominate in the marketplace
Contribute to Agency/Client revenue opportunities via teams' Strategic output
Proactively work with all partners (vendors, academic institutions, creative consultancies) to unlock new growth opportunities for the client &/or the agency
Participate in new business as required