Director – Brand Strategy

Strategy Summary:

The Director, Strategy initiates, plans and leads VSA’s strategic efforts. They lead the client engagement, ensuring that VSA is solving the client problem and ensuring successful delivery. Core competencies include framing a client’s business challenges, determining the optimal approach for success, managing the client relationship and always seeking new avenues to organically grow the relationship.

The Director, Strategy is expected to:

• Solve the client’s business and brand problem
• Own the client relationship by delivering innovative strategies, providing consultative guidance and assuring superior quality service.
• Stretch the team to exceed client expectations based on insightful understanding of client’s issues and culture.
• Build client relationships such that the Director is actively sought out by senior-level clients for counsel.
• Ensure team written materials are succinct, persuasive and tailored to the level of audience.
• Communicate effectively with clients on all levels of the business and maintain high credibility and persuasiveness in face-to-face settings. 
• Present and translate complex ideas and materials effectively.
• Handle controversial topics with ease and address conflicts professionally.
• Streamline processes to increase efficiencies and productivity.
• Manage project staff, including prioritizing their work and ensuring that work is completed to VSA standards.
• Participate in new business opportunities, including completing proposals and presenting the Strategy team’s capabilities to prospects.
• Identify creative ways to position new business opportunities.
• Develop unique points of view that translate into new offerings for the Strategy practice.
• Foster a working environment that promotes and embraces independent and creative thinking, diversity, equity and inclusion.
• Delegate tasks and decision making to develop team members.
• Understand goals of direct reports and construct clear development plans that drive individual growth of team members.
• Motivate team by providing challenges and stretch tasks to encourage individual growth.
• Coach individuals in development areas to build knowledge and skillsets.
• Manage a pipeline of new talent to support growth.
• Additional responsibilities as assigned.

Skills needed to succeed in this role: 

• A leader and a team player. You are a strong collaborator, an open learner, and a giving mentor.
• A natural fit in a right-brain/left-brain work environment. You think analytically, critically and creatively to develop simple, elegant solutions to complex problems.
• Data-driven, customer-centric mindset. You have strong experience using qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to uncover consumer insights and drive a deeper understanding of human behavior.
• An entrepreneurial spirit. You’re a natural builder, with a desire to dig in, define a path, and drive things forward. 
• An affinity for tackling complex problems. You’re intrigued and energized by complexity, drawn to untangling tricky problems with multiple layers and the satisfaction of creating a clear path forward.
• An inclination to embrace ambiguity and respond to change with agility. You thrive in environments where the structure may not be defined and you have the freedom to create it. 
• Able to work fast and hypothesize quickly. You’re adept at efficiently gathering the inputs you need to develop sound hypotheses that move work forward quickly.
• Flexible style and a desire to create better ways to work. You’re comfortable coming in with a point of view, but you’re also excited by the prospect of creating new ways of working and opportunities to push teams outside of their comfort zones.
• Outstanding communication, writing and presentation skills. Success in this role is determined by how you think and how well you are able to translate that thinking into clear questions, hypotheses and recommendations for internal and external audiences.
• High emotional intelligence. You feel the intangible. You understand others and seek to build strong relationships with people across disciplines and experience levels.
• Entrepreneurial spirit and eagerness to bring overall value to the company.

Your background should include:

• Bachelor’s degree with 9 to 15 years of experience in brand strategy and/or integrated marketing across both digital and traditional mediums.
• Experience in research, analytics, and/or client-side brand management or marketing.
• Experience with B2B, B2C brands/companies.
• Strong experience in digital and CX strategy.
• Strong brand strategy + business strategy + digital (experience) acumen
• Experience managing multiple projects and juggling competing priorities.
• Business strategy/transformation experience.
• Strong qualitative and quantitative research skills.
• A commitment to high-quality work and to positive and productive relationships with clients, team members, peers, managers, etc.