Senior Group Director, Strategy

Real Chemistry•Chicago, MA

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Real Chemistry is looking for a Senior Group Director, Strategy to join their growing team. This role is for talented VPs and SVPs in the PR Strategy world. The Senior Group Director of Strategy serves as a senior strategic leader within Integrated Communications, responsible for delivering high-impact, insight-driven strategy while contributing to organic client growth and new business development. This role sits at a critical inflection point between account, creative, execution and commercial leadership, requiring the ability to not only produce exceptional strategic work, but to help identify, shape, and convert growth opportunities within the dynamic healthcare landscape. The ideal candidate brings healthcare and communications expertise, strong strategic rigor, and a demonstrated ability to influence both client outcomes and business growth. They are looking for someone who is highly driven, obsessed with creating new growth strategies through relationships and impactful work, and who can contribute to a high performing organization through their own unique style and collaborative approach. This is a hybrid role, based in any of their US offices—including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Carmel, or San Francisco—or remotely within the US, depending on team and business needs.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in strategic communications, healthcare/pharma, or integrated agency environments.
Strong track record of developing insight-led strategies and integrated communications frameworks and plans.
Experience supporting or contributing to new business and account growth.
Deep understanding of healthcare audiences, market dynamics, and regulatory considerations.
Strong storytelling and presentation skills, including pitch environments.
Ability to operate in fast-paced, cross-functional settings and manage ambiguity.
Demonstrated curiosity, initiative, and a growth mindset toward commercial leadership.

Nice To Haves

Company values – Best Together, Impact-Obsessed, Excellence Expected, Evolve Always and Accountability with an “I” – really speak to you.
Adaptable, resilient, and OK with adjusting your scope, responsibilities, and focus as we grow.
Proactive, driven, and resourceful with strong prioritization skills and a desire to dive into the data.
Highly organized self-starter, able to work independently and under tight deadlines.

Responsibilities

Lead the development of insight-driven communications strategies across clients, including corporate and product communications.
Translate research, data, and cultural context into clear, actionable strategic frameworks and narratives, partnering with internal SMEs to deliver on cross-functional briefs.
Develop compelling briefs, positioning, and communications architectures that guide creative programming, forging strong relationships with the creative team.
Serve as a trusted and collaborative strategic partner to internal teams and client stakeholders.
Partner with client teams and across capabilities (e.g., scientific, I2, creative, advertising) to deliver integrated, client-centric solutions.
Ensure strategy is effectively translated across teams and consistently executed.
Leverage and help build internal tools including AI tools to create new ways of working to deliver strategy with efficiency.
Identify and proactively shape opportunities to expand client scope, budgets, and remit.
Strengthen relationships across client organizations, including building access to senior client decision-makers as well as forging new relationships with existing clients.
Partner with account and cross-functional teams to evolve existing work into higher-value, strategic engagements, leading workshops, narratives and positioning, fiscal planning cycles, and more.
Support development of new business opportunities at a regular cadence, developing pitch strategy, insight development, and storytelling.
Help shape differentiated strategic POVs that position the organization to win new work.
Contribute to opportunity conversion, helping shape scope, approach, and strategic role within the business.
Demonstrate understanding of how strategy drives client investment decisions and business growth.
Stay current on healthcare, biotech, consumer health, med tech, digital health and communications trends.
Contribute to the development of sector POVs, frameworks, and individual and organizational thought leadership.
Support creation of materials and products that enhance market differentiation and credibility.