VP Strategy, Performance Creative

Job Description:

YOUR MINDSET 

You have spent your career becoming fluent in disciplines most people keep separate. You don't see creative strategy and media strategy as different languages. You see them as different expressions of the same strategic thinking. That mastery is what qualifies you for this role. 

You believe that the best ideas scale, that coherence matters more than novelty, and that the team creating the strategy is as important as the strategy itself. You lead with conviction and curiosity. You build a culture where people think bigger about their work because they get excited about it. 

ROLE OVERVIEW 

You will develop and execute a range of integrated strategy projects for a specific brand or strategic focus area within a multi-brand consumer healthcare enterprise, translating strategic direction into inspirational insights and briefs that enable great creative and media execution come together.

This role demands fluency in two disciplines that most separate: Brand Strategy and Connected Strategy. You work from both perspectives simultaneously. You don't just translate between them, you hold them together with clear strategic thinking that helps them operate as one. You understand how strategy needs to live across earned, owned, and paid channels—including social and influencer partnerships.

You turn strategic direction into clear big ideas and briefs grounded in audience insight and media possibility. You work with creative and media teams to help them understand how their work fits together into a coherent whole and inspire both to think bigger and think together. You are the bold strategic voice in the room who helps teams see how their work connects and why that connection matters.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES 

Strategic Boldness: Ideas & Brief

• Shape and create the Catalyzing Idea(s) that will help orchestrate across three distinct business units with sophistication and specificity 

• A builder of brand worlds that dimensionalize ideas- articulating character, conviction, and edges with rigor and specificity that drives great creative work 

• Develop the strategic narratives that help enterprise leadership understand not just what you're doing, but why it matters and how it moves their business 

• Bring the same strategic depth to idea development as to system deployment. The ideas are the work. They are not secondary to execution, and brave ideas matter. 

System Orchestration : The Deployment 

• Architect an Intelligent Story System: defining WHERE ideas reach the right audiences across all three business units and orchestrating HOW they show up in context 

• Identify audience signals that inform where and when each idea becomes urgent and inevitable 

• Ensure that as the system expands across channels, moments, and audiences, coherence never breaks. Every execution- whether retail media, pharmacy communications, or insurance education- radiates from the same idea 

• Lead creative, media, product, and retail teams to rally around the idea itself, not fracture into tactics. Help them understand they're part of something bigger than their discipline, and why their piece matters to the whole. 

Cross-Brand Enterprise Leadership 

• Hold the enterprise perspective. You are the leader who sees where all three brands can move together and where they must move independently 

• Identify strategic opportunities where one idea scales across all three business units (creating compounding effect) and where each business unit needs its own force (creating specificity) 

• Create conditions where the three brands strengthen each other, not cannibalize each other 

Media + Creative Integration at Strategic Foundation 

• Think in both languages simultaneously, from idea through deployment. You are fluent in creative strategy AND media strategy- not choosing between them, but weaving them together around an idea 

• You understand how media strategy informs which ideas can scale, which audiences you can reach, where cultural moments live. You understand how creative strategy demands certain media contexts to land. You hold both truths at once 

• Brief media and creative leaders not as separate functions receiving strategy, but as strategic partners who help shape how ideas move in the world 

Relationship Growth

• Build and steward a mission-critical relationship by delivering integrated work that creates visible business impact for enterprise leadership 

• Position yourself as the strategic authority the enterprise turns to when the question is "how do our brands behave?" or "what's the opportunity we're missing?" 

• Create the conditions where integrated strategy becomes not a nice-to-have, but fundamental to how their enterprise operates 

Team Building & Leadership Development 

• Help assemble and lead a world-class team that embodies integrated thinking at every level 

• Recruit for depth, not just breadth. You want strategists who are genuinely fluent in both creative and media thinking, not people who dabble in both 

• Develop the next generation of strategists who understand systems thinking, not just tactical execution 

• Create psychological safety where team members are empowered to challenge siloed thinking and contribute strategic ideas, not just execute briefs 

• A servant leader. Your actions help create our culture 

Measurement, Learning & System Optimization 

• Help monitor how strategy translates in market and gather feedback for refinement

• Support measurement that tracks whether the system is working, using data as feedback not just reporting

• Contribute insights on how ideas are propagating and whether signals are clustering as predicted

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE 

• Your ideas are clear enough that a junior strategist can explain them. They're sophisticated enough that a CEO pauses and says "yes, that's what we're trying to do." 

• Creative and media strategies are inseparable. You cannot explain one without the other. The team describes them as one thing 

• All three business units operate from shared ethos while maintaining distinct expressions where it makes sense. The coherence is visible; the differentiation is clear 

• Your team thinks in systems. They understand signal stacking. They see how their work feeds the whole. New team members are onboarded into a way of thinking, not just a project 

• You have recruited and developed strategists who will lead integrated thinking across the agency- your legacy is multiplication 

• Measurement shows that ideas are proliferating, signals are clustering as predicted, and the system is compounding over time 

• The relationship grows because integrated strategy has become indispensable to how they operate. They ask for more 

KEY QUALIFICATIONS 

Experience: 

• 10+ years strategy experience with fluency in BOTH creative strategy AND media strategy 

• Proven ability to develop and communicate breakthrough strategic thinking, not just execute briefs

• Track record working on consumer or B2C brands in complex strategic environments

• Experience working across creative and media functions

• Comfort engaging with senior stakeholders in strategic conversations

• Experience with social media platforms and/or influencer partnerships a plus

Intellectual Foundation: 

• Understanding of how systems work- not just campaigns, but interconnected strategic systems 

• Comfort holding complexity: three brands, multiple audiences, multiple signals, one coherent force 

• Ability to operate at 30,000-foot strategic level AND in the work itself 

• Evidence that you think about how ideas propagate and compound, not just how they perform in a single moment 

Additional Information

The annual base salary range for this position is $164,450-$220,000. Placement within the salary range is based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and other factors permitted by law. Additionally, this position is eligible for discretionary incentive compensation.  

Benefits available with this position include:  

• Medical, vision, and dental insurance, 

• Life insurance,  

• Short-term and long-term disability insurance, 

• 401k,  

• Flexible paid time off, 

• At least 15 paid holidays per year, 

• Paid sick and safe leave, and 

• Paid parental leave. 

Dentsu also complies with applicable state and local laws regarding employee leave benefits, including, but not limited to providing time off pursuant to the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act, in accordance with its plans and policies.  For more information regarding dentsu benefits, please visit www.dentsubenefitsplus.com. 

To begin the application process, please click on the “Apply” button at the top of this job posting. Applications will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, and qualified candidates will be contacted for next steps. 

#LI-Hybrid #LI-MS3

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