Freelance Strategy Director

M+C Saatchi Group • New York, NY

2d

About The Position

SS+K is seeking a Freelance Strategy Director for a two-month assignment. In this role, you will lead brand and creative strategy for major brands and organizations facing significant business and cultural disruption. Your work will span brand reputation, issue advocacy, behavior change, and culturally relevant marketing. You will translate complex challenges, audience understanding, research, and cultural intelligence into strategies that inspire breakthrough creative work and drive changes in mindsets and behaviors. You will act as a senior strategic partner to clients and agency teams, providing clarity, identifying compelling strategies for change, and establishing a focused strategic foundation for creative teams. This role requires both leadership and hands-on execution, including directing engagements, writing briefs, shaping creative development, presenting recommendations, and leading new-business pitches. The ideal candidate possesses rigorous strategic thinking, cultural fluency, and creative ambition, understanding how communications build trust, shift perceptions, inspire action, and create impact.

Requirements

• 10+ years experience in integrated brand and creative strategy role(s).
• Experience leading strategy for organizations with varied objectives, including reputation building, brand growth, behavior change, issue advocacy, and commercial growth.
• Demonstrated ability to serve as the strategic lead on complex engagements and operate with a high degree of independence.
• Experience leading integrated new-business pitches, including defining the strategic opportunity, shaping the pitch narrative, and guiding multidisciplinary teams.
• Strong command of qualitative and quantitative research, with the ability to distinguish an interesting finding from a genuinely useful insight.
• Exceptional writing, presentation development, storytelling, facilitation, and presentation skills.
• Intellectual curiosity and a genuine fascination with people, culture, business, politics, and the forces shaping public opinion.
• A strong understanding of how communications build trust, earn relevance, influence audiences, and inspire action.
• Ability to translate cultural, social, and political dynamics into strategic opportunities for brands and organizations.
• A collaborative mindset that brings together strategy, creative, and client teams.
• Ability to connect rigorous research and analysis with intuitive, creatively generative thinking.
• A clear strategic point of view—and the empathy and communication skills to bring clients and teams along with you.
• Comfort moving between high-level strategy and the detailed work required to make it real.
• Exceptional writing and storytelling skills, from a single-minded brief to a persuasive senior-level presentation.

Responsibilities

• Lead brand and creative strategy across major client engagements and new business pitches, from initial problem definition through creative development and execution.
• Develop and steward best-in-class strategic outputs — from big overarching brand strategies to creative execution briefs and communications plans — in close partnership with other disciplines.
• Synthesize business objectives, research, audience understanding, and cultural intelligence into clear strategic direction and concise, inspiring creative briefs.
• Bring a strong point of view on how brands earn relevance, build trust, and change mindsets, including the role of culture, surrounding audiences, and media behaviors.
• Partner closely with creative leadership to challenge and elevate ideas, pushing work beyond the brief toward ideas that are strategically smart, earn attention, influence culture, and drive impact.
• Design and facilitate client and internal workshops that build alignment, unlock strategic possibilities, and inspire exceptional creative development.
• Define learning agendas and research plans that inform and shape strategic and creative deliverables, and measurement plans that prove impact.
• Stay ahead of shifts in culture, public opinion, consumer behavior, media, and client categories—and translate them into useful provocations for clients and creative teams.
• Contribute to agency thought leadership and intellectual property on the cultural forces shaping brands, issues, audiences, and creative communications.

What This Job Offers

• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed