Senior Vice President, Managing Director - Subway

Adelphi Group • New York, NY

14d • $250,000 - $275,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

The SVP, Managing Director of Strategy for Subway will lead the development of modern, insight-driven media and communications strategies that help strengthen Subway’s position as a leading global QSR sandwich brand. This role will be responsible for translating business priorities, consumer behavior, food culture, category dynamics, and brand ambition into strategic platforms that drive growth, relevance, and measurable impact.
Subway operates in a highly competitive and fast-moving QSR landscape where consumer expectations are shaped by value, convenience, craveability, customization, health perceptions, digital ordering, delivery, loyalty, limited-time offers, and cultural relevance. The SVP, MD Strategy will be expected to understand these dynamics deeply and build strategies that help Subway connect with consumers across occasions — from lunch breaks and family meals to sports, road trips, delivery moments, value-seeking occasions, and everyday routines.
This leader will guide strategy across media, communications planning, audience development, cultural activation, partnerships, and consumer engagement. They will partner closely with client leadership, communications design, analytics, creative, commerce, social, influencer, and media teams to develop strategic platforms that inform how Subway shows up in culture, drives traffic, grows digital engagement, strengthens brand equity, and supports franchisee and business priorities.
The ideal candidate brings deep experience in media and communications strategy, a strong understanding of QSR and/or consumer retail behavior, and the ability to turn data, cultural insight, and category nuance into actionable ideas. They must be comfortable operating at both the brand and business level — helping Subway compete not only with other sandwich brands, but with the broader QSR, fast casual, convenience, and delivery ecosystems.
As a senior strategic leader, this person will serve as a trusted advisor to Subway and agency leadership, ensuring that strategy is integrated, culturally aware, commercially grounded, and capable of driving impact across paid, owned, earned, experiential, social, influencer, retail, and digital commerce channels.

Requirements

• Deep experience developing media, communications, and brand strategies for major consumer brands, ideally within QSR, food and beverage, retail, CPG, hospitality, delivery, or other high-frequency consumer categories.
• Strong understanding of the QSR and fast casual landscape, including value wars, menu innovation, franchise dynamics, loyalty programs, delivery platforms, digital ordering, promotional cadence, and occasion-based marketing.
• Ability to connect consumer needs around value, convenience, taste, freshness, customization, health perception, and speed to clear strategic opportunities.
• Proven ability to synthesize audience data, cultural trends, business performance, media behavior, and competitive intelligence into compelling strategic recommendations.
• Experience developing strategies that support both brand-building and performance-oriented objectives, including traffic, sales, app engagement, loyalty participation, and customer retention.
• Demonstrated success creating strategic platforms that inspire strong media ideas, creative thinking, cultural activations, partnerships, influencer programs, and commerce-driving experiences.
• Expertise in developing positive senior client relationships, serving as a trusted strategic advisor, and confidently leading conversations with executive-level stakeholders.
• Ability to identify and pitch strategic growth opportunities based on shifts in consumer behavior, food culture, media habits, technology, retail, and the competitive landscape.
• Demonstrated success leading high-performing cross-functional teams across strategy, analytics, media, creative, social, influencer, partnerships, and commerce.
• Experience managing complex, multi-agency and multi-stakeholder environments with clarity, diplomacy, and strategic authority.
• Strong ability to balance national brand strategy with local market and franchisee considerations.
• Exceptional communication, storytelling, and presentation skills, with the ability to make complex consumer, cultural, and business dynamics clear and actionable.
• Curiosity about food culture, consumer behavior, media innovation, social platforms, creators, retail experiences, and the evolving role of QSR brands in people’s everyday lives.
• Passion for creative thinking and the ability to help produce innovative, industry-leading strategic communications that drive both cultural relevance and business results.
• Strong leadership presence, with the ability to inspire teams, influence senior stakeholders, and elevate the strategic standard of the agency’s work.

Responsibilities

• Develop and oversee comprehensive media and communications strategies that support Subway’s business objectives, brand priorities, product initiatives, value messaging, digital growth, loyalty engagement, and franchisee needs.
• Lead the creation of strategic platforms that inspire media, creative, social, influencer, commerce, partnerships, and experiential work across the Subway business.
• Translate QSR category dynamics — including value competition, menu innovation, convenience, delivery behavior, loyalty, promotional windows, daypart strategy, and changing consumer food habits — into actionable communications strategies.
• Identify audience opportunities across core and growth segments, including value seekers, busy families, Gen Z and younger millennials, lunch and workday consumers, delivery users, sports and entertainment fans, and health- or customization-minded guests.
• Build strategies that strengthen Subway’s cultural relevance by connecting the brand to consumer passions, food conversations, sports, entertainment, creators, local markets, and real-time cultural moments.
• Partner with Client Counsel, Communications Design, analytics, creative, commerce, media partnerships, social, influencer, and activation teams to ensure strategic consistency across all consumer touchpoints.
• Lead strategy development for national campaigns, product launches, limited-time offers, value platforms, brand campaigns, digital ordering initiatives, loyalty programs, and retail-driving activations.
• Help define how Subway should behave across the full consumer journey — from awareness and consideration to store visits, app usage, loyalty participation, delivery, repeat purchase, and advocacy.
• Ensure that Subway’s communications strategies balance long-term brand building with short-term traffic, sales, and promotional objectives.
• Serve as a senior strategic advisor to Subway leadership, identifying opportunities to elevate the brand’s market position, sharpen competitive differentiation, and increase relevance in a crowded QSR landscape.
• Use audience, cultural, competitive, media, behavioral, and business data to uncover insights and inform strategic recommendations.
• Lead collaboration with creative, cultural, influencer, media, commerce, and partnership teams to ensure ideas are not only culturally resonant but also operationally relevant and commercially effective.
• Identify opportunities for Subway to win in key consumption occasions, including lunch, dinner, snacking, catering, delivery, meal deals, road trips, workday routines, and sports-viewing moments.
• Provide strategic leadership across brand, product, value, promotional, and audience-specific assignments, ensuring that work ladders up to a clear overarching Subway growth strategy.
• Build and manage relationships with key senior stakeholders across the client, agency, and partner ecosystem.
• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of strategists, analysts, and planning talent, fostering a culture of curiosity, collaboration, accountability, innovation, and strategic excellence.
• Manage senior stakeholder relationships and provide direction for overarching strategy across multiple business priorities, campaigns, and workstreams.
• Drive continuous improvement in the quality of strategic output, ensuring work is data-informed, culturally relevant, creatively inspiring, and commercially grounded.
• Monitor consumer food trends, competitive QSR activity, media behavior, technology shifts, and retail commerce developments to identify new growth opportunities for Subway.
• Champion strategic thinking that helps Subway stand out in a category often driven by price, promotion, convenience, and product news — ensuring the brand builds distinctive meaning beyond individual media moments.

Benefits

• Omnicom’s policy requires employees to work in the office for a minimum of three days a week, unless additional in-office days are directed by their agency or manager. Our objective is to increase this requirement over time, and many of our agencies as well as Omnicom’s corporate group already require five days of in-office attendance.

What This Job Offers

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