Freelance Strategy Director

WHO WE ARE

SS+K is a creative agency specializing in brand reputation and issue advocacy, combining marketing and communications to help brands and organizations navigate significant business, cultural, and reputational change. Our mission is to help brands and organizations gain the Cultural Power they need to make the impact they want in the world.

For nearly 30 years, we’ve worked with both disruptors and the disrupted — including clients such as Microsoft, Delta, JPMorganChase, Mount Sinai, Visit Iceland, Airbnb, and WhatsApp. Our commitment to impact has also led us to create essential campaigns for organizations like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Girls Who Code, Communities in Schools, LeBron James’ More Than a Vote, and Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

SS+K is part of the M&C Saatchi Group, the world’s largest independent creative network.

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OVERVIEW

We are looking for a Freelance Strategy Director for a two month assignment.

As a Strategy Director at SS+K, you will lead brand and creative strategy for important brands and organizations facing significant business and cultural disruption. Working across brand reputation, issue advocacy, behavior change, and culturally relevant marketing, you will translate business challenges, audience understanding, research, and cultural intelligence into strategies that inspire breakthrough creative work and help change mindsets and behaviors.

You will serve as a senior strategic partner to clients and agency teams—bringing clarity to complex assignments, identifying compelling strategies for brands and organizations to drive meaningful change, and giving creative teams a focused and inspiring strategic foundation. You will operate as both a leader and a hands-on practitioner: directing multiple engagements, writing briefs, shaping creative development, presenting and selling recommendations, and leading major new-business pitches.

The strongest candidates will combine rigorous strategic thinking with cultural fluency and creative ambition. They will understand how communications can build trust, shift perceptions, inspire action, and contribute to business or societal impact—and know how to turn that understanding into ideas that people notice and care about.
 

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Success in this role is making SS+K an indispensable strategic partner to our clients, elevating the quality and profile of our strategy practice, inspiring exceptional creative work, and helping the agency win and grow business.

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 MAKES YOU GREAT

At SS+K, research and strategy are the foundation of everything we do. Strategy drives smart business thinking, powerful creative ideas, and communications that resonate in culture.

Strategists should bring:

• 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.

QUALIFICATIONS

• 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.

SS+K is an Equal Opportunity Employer and shall treat all applicants for employment equally based upon job-related qualifications and without regard to race, color, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetics, marital status, military or veteran status, national origin, disability, religion, or any other characteristic protected by law.

SS+K is part of the M&C Saatchi Global Network of agencies committed to a diverse and inclusive workforce. http://mcsaatchi.com/diversity/