Strategy Director

The Carat strategy team combines craft skills, creative problem solving, and a diverse range of experience to find and address the challenges that we believe hold our clients back from growing as profitably as they should.
All clients in our portfolio have a diverse geographic footprint, combine both traditional and non-traditional growth markets, and boast strong strategic talent that love collaborating on a wide range of projects.
The Strategy Director supports the Strategy Partner(s) and Senior Strategy Partner in their client village in developing brilliant cross-disciplinary solutions for key clients, thereby elevating the role of media on the business agenda.
Concretely, this means:
• Helps elevate media and its creative use in improving the end-to-end consumer experience within clients’ broader business and brand priorities.
• Works as a guide and support to central brand / media teams to infuse best-in-class strategic and media planning thinking in central guidance and frameworks.
• Working hand-in-glove with strategy and planning teams in local markets to raise the floor on local market strategy, media planning, and implementation
• Supports delivery of thought leadership across business, marketing and media opportunities, bringing an informed perspective on category dynamics, audience shifts, and technological change.
• Builds strong alignment between global and local strategies, ensuring global consistency while respecting local nuance.
• Helps shape client narratives, presentations, and strategic recommendations with clarity and commercial sharpness.
• Ensures strategic outputs directly support measurable business and brand outcomes, not just communication excellence.
• Work closely with existing strategic talent on their accounts, identifying opportunity for collaboration and project ownership, and proactively supporting each other.

Job Description:

Dentsu is an integrated growth and transformation partner to the world’s leading organizations. Founded in 1901 in Tokyo, Japan, and now present in over 145 countries and regions, it has a proven track record of nurturing and developing innovations, combining the talents of its global network of leadership brands to develop impactful and integrated growth solutions for clients. Dentsu delivers end-to-end experience transformation (EX) by integrating its services across Media, CXM and Creative, while its business transformation (BX) mindset pushes the boundaries of transformation and sustainable growth for brands, people and society.

We’re hiring for a Strategy Director to join our Carat Team in London.

Purpose of the Role

The Carat strategy team combines craft skills, creative problem solving, and a diverse range of experience to find and address the challenges that we believe hold our clients back from growing as profitably as they should.

All clients in our portfolio have a diverse geographic footprint, combine both traditional and non-traditional growth markets, and boast strong strategic talent that love collaborating on a wide range of projects.

The Strategy Director supports the Strategy Partner(s) and Senior Strategy Partner in their client village in developing brilliant cross-disciplinary solutions for key clients, thereby elevating the role of media on the business agenda.

Key Responsibilities

• Forge strong relationships with day-to-day global client teams, becoming a trusted partner who can influence decision-making.

• Being vocal and collaborative with clients (having an informed opinion), sharing insight into the changing media landscape, and demonstrating Carat’s role within an integrated communication mix by developing quality media strategy

• Lead or support responses to strategic and campaign briefs, ensuring high-quality thinking, actionable guidance, and global relevance.

• Driving excellent and appropriate use of insights & planning tools (dentsu’s suite of Merkury tools) on client briefs to drive business-outcome-focussed planning across the media ecosystem

• Leveraging econometrics, business analytics, and past campaign/competitive learnings to develop, refine and deliver media implementation guidelines

• Build a deep understanding of dentsu’s strengths, capabilities, and products - actively identifying where these can unlock new client opportunities.

• Contributing to a thought leadership agenda for the client which combines the latest in media / marketing ideas with real-world commercial impact for the brand

Qualifications + Skills

• Working knowledge of media & communications planning processes, as well as insight & planning tools

• Cultural awareness, sharp analytical skills, and relentless curiosity, demonstrated through identifying and developing actionable consumer insight and media driven growth strategies.

• A deep understanding of the role of media in delivering business value

• Deep working knowledge of Dentsu research and planning tools (or equivalent platform(s)) to build integrated communication strategies.

• Ability to articulate complex, innovative strategic ideas clearly - both verbally and in writing.

• Experience developing multi-market strategies and driving strategic alignment across regions.

• Working with day-to-day clients to advise on the strategic direction of their communications and its ability to deliver business value

What we offer

This is a permanent role.

The team is based in our London office but operates under flexible working arrangements. The team are currently in the office every Tuesday and Thursday.

As well as a competitive salary, you’ll enjoy a benefits package that you can tailor to your needs.

Inclusion and Diversity

At Dentsu, we embrace diversity and inclusion, valuing the unique perspectives and contributions of every individual. We believe that diversity fuels creativity and innovation, benefiting our employees, partners, and communities.

We welcome applications from all individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic. Beyond recruitment, we strive to create an environment where everyone feels respected, supported, and empowered to bring their authentic selves to work.

We recognise the importance of work-life balance and are open to discussing flexible working arrangements for all roles. If you need reasonable adjustments due to a disability or medical condition during our recruitment process, please contact us at [email protected] , quoting the reference number of the role that you are applying for. Your needs will be handled with respect and confidentiality to ensure an inclusive and accessible experience.

#LI-Hybrid

Location:

London

Brand:

Global Carat

Time Type:

Full time

Contract Type:

Permanent