Senior Strategy Director
Sterling Brands
At Sterling, we create brands that make people think, feel and engage. Brands for today. We’ve done it for super heroes and super causes, organic farmers and information miners, bricks and mortar and digital destinations, cosmetics, condoms, and cornflakes – the tried and true and the disruptive trailblazer.
Our obsessively human-centric approach links every inspiration back to the consumer: their lives and passions, their habits and habitats. The result; is beautiful, inclusive, and effective solutions that make brands come alive and thrive.
Our focus is on consumer brands and their identity expressions on-pack, in-store, and online. We love creating the worlds brands live in and inspiring people to be part of them.
Sterling has an amazing culture of appreciation and celebrating team successes.
About the Role:
Our strategy team is key in digging for insights that unlock ideas. So our Cincinnati office is looking for a Senior Director in Strategy who is fueled by leading, curiosity, enjoys collaboration, and loves making a difference.
In this role, you will get to:
- Take the lead strategy role in strategy projects
- Grow and develop the strategy business to meet top and bottom line goals
- Offer thought leadership
- Create meaningful brand expressions
- Build important and rewarding relationships with clients
The most effective candidates will be positive, relentlessly curious, multi-disciplinary thinkers with a passion for creativity, design, and innovation.
What You’ll Do:
- Ensure that all assignments have the highest level of strategic rigor and that recommendations are competitively advantageous, actionable, and inspiring to our clients
- Provide a macro perspective on insights. Quality control output and confirm client questions and challenges are being addressed
- Be highly analytical, but still make intuitive leaps
- Think independently and be willing to be provocative
- Executive demeanor, comfortable functioning at the highest levels of client organizations; excellent presentation skills, including strong verbal and writing capabilities
- Proven leadership and external recognition for your leadership within the industry
- Own projects from start to finish
- Design and conduct research (both qualitative and quantitative) as appropriate on projects
- Lead and provide oversight on stakeholder interviews/ethnographies and manage workshop
- Demonstrate clearly the ability to manage multiple projects and teams
- Proven track record of developing new client relationships and generating business development opportunities that leads to successful long-term client engagements
- Experience leading complex projects, cross-functional teams, and in-depth knowledge/defined involvement in helping frame, design and execute solutions for challenging business situations
- Leading and steering long-term anchor clients and building relationships with new ones to drive profitable growth
- Ensure that all assignments have the highest level of strategic rigor and that recommendations are competitively advantageous, actionable and inspiring to our clients
- Work closely with the New Business team by assisting in the development of insight opportunities each year
- Coach and mentor Junior Strategists and take an active role in their development
- Work with the executive team on special projects as they arise
- Suggest improvements to our processes and procedures on an ongoing basis
Qualifications
- College or Masters degree or equivalent required (prefer either business or the arts)
- 15+ years experience in consulting, strategic planning, or brand management on the client side; prefer both B2C and B2B experience
- Hands-on primary research experience (qualitative and quantitative)
- Proven ability to lead a senior level team of strategists and marketing personnel
- Proven aptitude and genuine passion for marketing strategy
*This role will be considered in other Sterling locations.
About Sterling:
We are a brand design consultancy based in NYC, San Francisco, and Cincinnati. For over 25 years, our design, strategy, and innovation teams have been working to bring brands to life across the entire ecosystem of experiences.