- Location
- London
- Job Information
Our client is a global multi-disciplinary design and digital firm and we are helping them to identify a Director of Strategy for their London office. He or she will serve as a senior leader with the primary responsibility for building the business design and strategy practice in Europe. The Director will wear many hats including strategic involvement in pitches, leading projects, developing thought leadership on innovation topics, mentoring strategy and design staff, and building new capabilities that are at the intersection of business, technology, and design.
Responsibilities:
- Lead business design and offer a business perspective and ensure identified opportunities are viable in the market.
- Direct research on brand positioning, distribution channels, competition, exemplars, and innovative business models, as well as drive interviews with senior client stakeholders. Guide analyses to enable an actionable vision for innovations and identify a path forward (from a design, technical and business point of view).
- Drive business development opportunities: act as strategy content lead and develop points of view for business development efforts. Work with the London leadership team to actively seek new clients and provide ad hoc support on major business development opportunities for the EMEA market.
- Author thought leadership: explore thought leadership opportunities around relevant business, technology and societal trends. Create new points of view for use in articles and videos for marketing purposes and inspire others on the team to do the same. Publish content and speak externally about company topics and industries of interest.
- Refine company capabilities related to Strategy, Business and Service Design: build the London office’s capabilities to infuse a business strategy or service perspective into project work. Create new frameworks and tools to address client topics of interest.
- Mentorship of staff: define responsibilities and expectations for report-tos, and project team members, providing project guidance and helping their professional growth.
- Guide research synthesis and identify actionable insights based on a combination of industry analysis, company analysis, brand positioning, stakeholder and subject matter expert interviews, secondary research, exemplar audits, and trends evaluation
- Participate in the development of new products, services or experiences that are authentic to the clients’ brand, with the design team, focused on business viability & technical feasibility
- Direct organizational design consulting engagements that enable our clients’ to develop innovation excellence, providing recommendations across capability development, funding and incentive models, talent and partnerships as well as processes and protocols
- Oversee consumer research efforts, including focus groups, shop-a-longs, and in-home ethnographies, while incorporating existing secondary data regarding consumer segmentation, behaviors, and needs.
- Facilitate client workshops and meetings to identify new opportunity spaces, ideate new solutions, develop new capabilities, and enable senior leadership commitment
- Develop pro-forma financial models and business cases to assess, prioritize, and support recommendations to clients
- Build and prototype new business models using a rigorous approach that allows for piloting and continued refinement
- Build relationships with key stakeholders throughout the project
Requirements:
- 10+ years of strategy experience in a fast-paced innovation, branding, or other client service-based environment with a focus on digital
- Bachelor’s Degree required, MBA or equivalent graduate degree is preferred
- Demonstrated track record of leading innovation-oriented projects for large corporations, ventures groups and startups that balance a creative mindset with business strategy fundamentals
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to leverage qualitative and quantitative data for the creation of impactful strategy recommendations
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills, able to present to senior level clients and persuade internal leaders
- Proven experience in business development with the ability to grow existing client relationships and build new opportunities
- High degree of proficiency in leading and developing junior and mid-level staff in entrepreneurial environments
Please attach your resume in a Microsoft Word document.