Our Client a large international organization is seeking a Strategy Director to join their team in Johannesburg.

Candidates can also apply via direct email or online via prodevelopmentgroup

As a senior member who leads the strategy practice and manages the JHB strategy team. Responsible for growing the Strategy capability and working with the MD to build the reputation of the organization as a strategic brand consultancy.

Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities

Strategy

Develop and communicate ground-breaking and effective branding strategies and concepts
Champion of our brand philosophy and ideas within the agency and to clients
Take a brand-led perspective on the engagement challenge and also be comfortable working across discipline
Help monitor and improve the quality of strategic output of the agency
Facilitates senior executive workshops and meetings, and presents at Board level
Assists in new business opportunities and initial scoping and pitch presentations/strategy

Creativity

Develop game-changing creative ideas and briefs to transform client brands and businesses
Work with Creative Directors and Client Directors to ensure a high quality of output

Thought Leadership

Lead the development of the organizations strategy offer in collaboration with the Cape Town Strategy Director
Write regularly to demonstrate leadership white papers, press articles, etc, supporting marketing and PR
Share knowledge and insights through knowledge sharing and best practice case studies and deploy new tools and methodologies
Stay abreast of latest published thinking on branding, market based trends, brand successes, failures and industry business activity (mergers, acquisitions, opportunities)

Relationships

Senior client contact point who forms long term client relationships and seeks opportunities to develop farming initiatives
Ensure regular upward communication to Exec Strategy Director and other management

Management

Guide, motivate, mentor and direct team members ensuring their performance and development are managed using the performance review process
Manage large multi-faceted projects. Monitor time and budget expenditure to ensure programmes remain within agreed targets and provide regular upward reports
Facilitate internal learning and development through training and workshops (for strategy and across functions)
Encourage learning and sharing of ideas across the network

Role-specific professional and technical skills

Sophisticated understanding of all branding deliverables and associated disciplines such as positioning, architecture, messaging, segmentation, research, engagement and interaction
Ability to grow, engage and maintain critical client and internal relationships
Able to persuasively present and discuss at CEO/Executive/Board level and to build consensus around a brand concept within client organizations
Proven ability to manage, grow and deploy resources
Appreciation of chargeability and how this links to agency profitability
High level networking ability
Strong business writing skills

Level of experience

Extensive experience in similar role client or agency or client side marketing
Brand strategy and design experience essential
Demonstrated leadership and ability to grow client business in another agency environment
Proven people management skills and leadership experience
Educated to degree level or equivalent

Job Behaviors
These are the behaviors expected for this role:

Leading from the front: Champion positive change by creating a sense of direction and purpose for your team. Encouraging a sense of mutual responsibility and encouraging high performance.
Being a mentor: Continually looking to improve, monitor and plan around individual performance within the group account by building their skills and strengths, and teaching the team how to overcome their weaknesses for optimum career development.
Showing interest: Express interest in your teams well being from a career and personal perspective ensuring that you understand personal diversity which influence their opinions, circumstances and emotional well being.
Work with agility: Being able to adapt your approach and leadership style to best suit the situation at hand, and ensuring a timely response.
Continually learning: Encourage group account and personal learning. Group account and category knowledge is essential in this role with regards to the business strategy and imperatives. Keep learning and developing new skills and trends by participate in professional seminars, reading relevant research and insights, doing own desktop research.
Effective communication: Persuade and influence others using logic and reason. Negotiation your way to find and express solutions for broad and complex issues.
Client centric views: Ensuring that all decisions and executions are based around building a lasting partnership with the client and taking personal responsibility for improving and correcting customer service problems and eliminate underlying problems. Take extraordinary steps to retain and grow these relationships.
Collaborating: Develop a relationship with key stakeholders (Client Service Director and Exco) to achieve common goals for the agency (policy, process, methodology, targets).
Fair in response: In all you do, be fair and honest with regards to appraisals, assessments and making team members accountable for their performance. Encourage others ideas and views.

Seniority Level
Director

Industry

Marketing and Advertising
Online Media
Design

Employment Type
Full-time
Job Functions

Strategy/Planning
Project Management
Consulting