Application deadline: 21st June 2023

Community: Strategy

Reporting to: Executive Director, Strategy

Your community:

We’ve always been ambitious for the work and optimistic for the world, pushing what’s possible, exploring new ways of doing things and using our creativity to make a difference. Our strategy community makes sense of the complex and ambiguous nature of our work and provides our clients with the clarity and cut through needed to move the business forward.

Your role:

Our Strategy Directors play a crucial role in leading and delivering large workstream across 1 or 2 of our most significant accounts.

We expect you to break new ground in all aspects of branding through unconventional thinking and creativity. You be a change-maker, inspiring others to think and behave differently, stretching them to do their best and go beyond.

You will continue to build on your reputation, becoming a choice for client referrals and recommendations. You will be keen to play an active role in our strategy community by looking to share new tools, methodologies and ways of working.

We expect our Strategy Directors to direct the project/team by cutting through complexity, identifying opportunities for growth and helping others seize them. You understand what good looks like and push the work to uphold and improve our standards. You play a pivotal role in advocating for our clients, our business, our teams and our people.

You are responsible for:

• Ensuring our work meets client need, works in situ and builds WO reputation
• Being familiar with working with all of WO tools and introducing your own tools to WO.
• Leading the team, knowing how to get the best out of them, how to get the various resources working well together, and how to create opportunities for all team members to stretch their skills.
• Taking an active role in new business, creating inspirational pitches that break the mold and take us into new areas and challenges.
• Being aware of the financial targets and needs of our business, playing an active role in ensuring that budgets for your jobs are used carefully and effectively.
• Pushing the ambition and quality of the work on your projects , ensuring it meets Wolff Olins’ exacting standards and makes us proud.
• Play an active role in the Strategy and wider Wolff Olins community by contributing enthusiastically to our communities with new tools/methodologies and helping internal initiatives to take off

You should:

• have extensive experience in brand (deep expertise in enterprise-level brand purpose/positioning and portfolio strategy/architecture required)
• speak the language of culture/employee engagement, customer experience, innovation and/or insights and analytics - you’re able to consult with clients on a range of brand and marketing issues
• most likely have a rich experience of roles, deep sector experience, possibly a postgraduate qualification, e.g. MBA.
• have previously led a variety of multi-disciplinary teams
• have previous experience in helping to change large, established organizations or up-scale fast growth, tech-led businesses.

You will:

• Push the boundaries- always seek to push the work further, having the ability to understand the core issue and trust your judgement. You enjoy learning at pace and often on the job. You take the initiative to gain further sight from multiple mediums.
• Create impact - recognised as a change-maker; you have the ability to cut-through – you’re able to get to the heart of an idea, the crux of an insight and the core of a problem. In-person or in writing, you should be persuasive and articulate, helping people to see things in a new way allowing them to make leaps and break political impasses. You should be confident when challenging your team and looking to negotiate the best deal.
• Be optimistic - you are optimistic for the world and our work, seeing setbacks as challenges, you readily accept change and thrive in ambiguity. You are receptive to feedback, actively encouraging others to critique work to push it forward.
• Deliver with intent- You think beyond your own delivery, taking active responsibility for the team, ensuring they understand how work should be organised and commitments are met. You enjoy being busy and can prioritise and deliver on multiple projects.
• Create innovation- You enjoy studying the underlying principles and applying theories to create concepts. You should be inventive, imaginative, determined to discover or create a more imaginative way to adopt original ideas and solutions which allow our clients to work to be transformative.

Our focus on people and the world:

Wolff Olins believes in creating an environment where people can bring their whole selves to work. We are interested in our people having diverse points of view and different perspectives on the world. We set out to equip our people with the knowledge, confidence and tools to do the best work of their lives. Our purpose is to help our people create transformative brands that push businesses, people and the world forward.