Group Strategy Director

OLIVER Agency • Chicago, IL

6d

About The Position

OLIVER is seeking a Group Strategy Director for Inside Ideas to lead social strategy for a portfolio of more than 20 beverage brands across the United States and Canada. Social is central to how the brands connect with consumers, and the role sets direction across paid and organic social, creator and influencer programs, community management, and related work. The Director will build and lead a high-performing team of strategists and community managers, establish frameworks and quality standards, and ensure the portfolio’s work is strategically coherent, culturally relevant, and tied to measurable outcomes.

As a member of the Leadership Team, the Director will collaborate with Creative, Production, and Account teams, contribute to the studio’s direction, growth agenda, and commercial performance, and serve as the primary strategic voice in senior client conversations. The role translates client business objectives into strategy and builds trusted partnerships that can create opportunities for broader scope and ambition.

OLIVER, established in 2004, specializes in designing, building, and running bespoke in-house agencies and marketing ecosystems. It works with more than 300 clients in over 40 countries and is part of The Brandtech Group. The company uses AI to support its creative and strategic work, while emphasizing responsible use and human judgment in recruitment.

Requirements

• 10 or more years of experience in social and cultural strategy in an agency and/or in-house brand setting.
• Proven success leading and developing strategy teams across multiple brands.
• Strong brand and communications strategy fundamentals, with social as a core area of expertise.
• A culture-forward approach, including staying current on social trends and platform shifts and leading conversations about culture, platform evolution, and creative innovation.
• Deep expertise across paid social, organic social, creator and influencer work, and 360 campaigns; experience setting direction across complex multi-brand portfolios and guiding always-on and reactive social work.
• Demonstrated ability to build, manage, and inspire a multidisciplinary team using an inclusive, outcome-focused approach and developing talent.
• Ability to lead collaboratively across strategy, creative, production, account, and data functions as part of a senior studio leadership team.
• Senior client management experience, including presenting to and influencing brand director and CMO-level stakeholders, managing multi-brand relationships, and building trusted partnerships with strategic rigor and commercial understanding.
• Ability to draw strategic insight from performance data, set meaningful KPIs, use measurement to improve work, and communicate learnings to internal and brand teams.
• Proven integration of generative AI tools into strategy workflows, with sound judgment about when AI supports or risks strategic quality, brand authenticity, and community trust.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Strategy department, manage strategists and community managers, set a clear vision, build a high-performance culture, and develop talent.
• Own social strategy across more than 20 beverage brands in the United States and Canada, including channel strategies, audience frameworks, and content philosophies for paid social, organic social, creator and influencer work, and community management.
• Establish and uphold strategic quality standards by reviewing and elevating work from brief through execution and reporting; use performance data and cultural insights to set KPIs and drive continuous improvement.
• Develop specialist practices across the portfolio, including community management, creator and influencer strategy, and effectiveness measurement and reporting.
• Serve as the primary strategic voice with senior client stakeholders, build long-term partnerships, and present to brand, marketing, and leadership teams.
• Partner with the Leadership Team on operational planning, resourcing, new business development, and the studio’s growth agenda.
• Promote responsible integration of AI tools and emerging platforms, build team capability, and set quality standards for AI-assisted work.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed