Senior Commercial Strategist-Health

Senior Strategist, Commercial Strategy

Who We Are: 

VML Health is a global healthcare agency with a vision to make the world of health human-first. VML Health has offices across the world & three global healthcare hubs in London, New York, & Milan. VML is a WPP company.

The Global Strategy Team 

Within VML Health, the Global Strategy Team is home to a diverse collective of bold, curious strategic thinkers. Operating within an agile model, we partner seamlessly with clients and collaborate as part of integrated agency teams. All with a shared mission to unlock transformative impact in healthcare.

We are united by Radical Empathy, immersing ourselves in the lives and beliefs of the people we serve to uncover the unspoken tensions where the most powerful insights begin.

Our culture is supportive, entrepreneurial and growth focused. We collaborate across geographies and disciplines, take ownership with agency and continuously evolve our thinking to stay ahead of a dynamic healthcare landscape.

Our people and work thrive on integration across the strategy team, while also championing distinctive areas of expertise: Medical, Engagement, Brand and Commercial. Together, these disciplines create a connected approach that elevates every challenge we take on.  This role sits within our Commercial Strategy team, based within the VML Health EU Hub. 

Our Commercial Strategy team helps to shape how an asset, franchise, or portfolio creates sustainable competitive advantage—through early alignment on scientific narrative, unmet need, evidence and differentiation strategy, competitive foresight, and category context. We take a consultative approach to support clients through strategic programs with a particular focus on early commercialization, market readiness, category leadership and patient engagement and advocacy. Grounded in early cross-functional working, integration of the patient voice, and expert partnership, the team works with a variety of global clients, involving close collaboration with our creative, engagement, medical education and marketing teams to deliver creative solutions. 

About the Position:

Title:                   Senior Strategist, Commercial Strategy

Reports to:       Director, Commercial Strategy

We are looking for a Senior Commercial Strategist to lead workstreams and deliver high-quality outputs across Commercial Strategy engagements and new business pitches. Working with Commercial and Global Strategy Team leadership, this role transforms complex scientific, clinical, and market information into clear strategic implications and client-ready outputs. This role also plays a key part in ensuring strong delivery excellence, taking end-to-end ownership of assigned project components.

The Senior Commercial Strategist will contribute across core Commercial Strategy workstreams, including unmet need and market assessment, competitive foresight, secondary research and insight synthesis, primary research (e.g., interviews, advisory boards, workshops), strategic scientific narrative and value architecture, evidence generation and differentiation, and market readiness/activation planning. The Senior Strategist will build strong client relationships and contribute to new business activities, supporting proposals and identifying organic growth opportunities.

This role is based in our London office with close collaboration across our core hubs and strategic disciplines.

Requirements

Senior Commercial Strategist should demonstrate strong and developing capabilities in strategy, research, and client delivery, including:

• Strong analytical capability with increasing independence; comfortable working with complex scientific/clinical and market information in a commercialization context
• Ability to independently synthesize complexity into clear insights, implications, and well-structured, client-ready content
• Strong written and verbal communication; able to craft compelling, well-structured presentations and documents with minimal guidance
• Strong workstream leadership; able to plan, coordinate, and drive delivery across assigned project components
• Proactively supports and guides junior team members on research tasks and project logistics
• Professionalism in client communication and external stakeholder interactions
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (PowerPoint, Excel, Word)

Experience

• 3–5 years’ experience in healthcare strategy/consulting, pharma/biotech, medical communications, clinical research, or scientific academia
• Demonstrated experience independently producing high-quality research outputs and translating findings into clear, actionable strategic recommendations
• Exposure to multi-stakeholder healthcare environments (e.g., clinicians, patients, payers, advocates, policymakers)
• Experience supporting or co-leading primary research activities (e.g., interviews, advisory boards, workshops), including material development and synthesis
• Contribution to new business/proposals (e.g., pitch research, development of sections)

Knowledge and skills

• Good understanding of core commercialization concepts (e.g., competitive landscape, positioning/differentiation, evidence needs, stakeholder decision drivers) and how they connect across an asset lifecycle
• Ability to apply an adoption/value lens – connecting evidence, stakeholder needs, and market context to implications for uptake and differentiation
• Growing awareness of how asset-level work ladders into broader franchise/ portfolio/ category context and ecosystem dynamics
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work with ambiguity; applies structured thinking (hypotheses, frameworks, storylining) to build coherent strategic outputs
• Strong attention to detail (data accuracy, referencing, and consistency) and high-quality control standards
• Strong workstream management skills (planning, tracking, coordinating inputs, maintaining documentation)
• Comfortable leveraging technology (including AI) to improve efficiency and rigor, with appropriate validation

Personal characteristics

• Proactive, curious, and intellectually ambitious
• Takes ownership and drives work forward with minimal prompting
• High standards for quality and clarity; applies and shares feedback constructively
• Collaborative team player who supports junior colleagues
• Flexible and resilient in a fast-moving environment

Qualifications

• Degree-level qualification (Life Sciences, Pharmacy, Medicine, Public Health, or similar). Advanced degree is a plus but not required.