Job Description:About the RoleWe're looking for a Director, Commercial Strategy to help lead portfolio planning for one of the world's leading consumer brand portfolios. It's a role for a strategist who is as comfortable deep in a large dataset as presenting to a client's leadership team, and who cares as much about whether the answer is right as whether it's compelling.
You'll partner closely with our Retail & Shopper Strategy Lead to connect brand ambition with how people actually shop and buy. Together you'll turn complex, multi-brand portfolio questions into clear plans the business can act on.
Role Overview - Analytical leadership: Own the analytical tools that inform our portfolio recommendations, ensuring they are accurate, rigorous and repeatable.
- Strategic direction: Frame the right business questions up front and make sure the analysis evolves as client objectives, market conditions and data change.
- Critical judgment: Pressure-test findings against market reality, category dynamics and brand strategy. Know the difference between an insight and noise, and when an approach needs rethinking.
- Recommendations that move the business: Turn complex analysis into clear, commercially grounded recommendations that senior client stakeholders can act on.
- Data fluency: Work confidently with large, complex datasets, integrating multiple sources and identifying gaps and anomalies so inputs are as trustworthy as outputs.
- Shopper and retail partnership: Partner closely with our Retail & Shopper Strategy Lead, bringing enough shopper, retail and channel fluency to be a genuine thought partner.
- Decision to activation: Collaborate with creative, media, data and retail teams so downstream work stays anchored to the commercial logic behind it.
- Client leadership: Be the senior commercial voice in the room with brand, category, sales and customer marketing leaders. Bring a point of view, back it with evidence, and hold it under challenge.
- Measurement and learning: Define what success looks like before plans go to market, and make sure results flow back into the next round of decisions.
- Team and practice growth: Build and mentor a team of strategists and analysts. Help grow the business by bringing commercial rigor to new clients and opportunities.
Qualifications: - 8+ years in commercial, brand or portfolio strategy at an agency, consultancy or CPG company, including 3+ years leading teams. Beverage alcohol experience is a strong plus.
- Deep strategic expertise across portfolio management, brand architecture, growth strategy and category management. You have the judgment to set direction, not just run the analysis.
- Business insights/commercial analytics background.
- Below-the-line/shopper/commerce strategy experience.
- Ability to interrogate large datasets and build decision frameworks.
- Genuinely unafraid of data. You're comfortable working with very large datasets and multiple sources at once. Advanced Excel is essential; SQL, Python, R or BI tools are a plus.
- Hands-on experience with syndicated, panel and retailer data, and a clear sense of what each can and can't tell you.
- A track record of building or managing analytical models or planning frameworks, with the discipline to document, QA and improve them over time.
- Working knowledge of shopper marketing, retail and channel strategy across in-store, on-premise and e-commerce.
- Rigorous and detail-obsessed. You're hypothesis-driven, you check the math, and you know when a number doesn't feel right.
- A clear communicator and low-ego collaborator who can turn complexity into a simple, compelling story for senior clients and lead well in a matrixed agency.
Additional InformationAt dentsu, we believe great work happens when we're connected. Our way of working combines flexibility with in-person collaboration to spark ideas and strengthen our teams. Employees who live within a commutable distance of one of our hub offices, currently located in Chicago, metro Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York City, are required and expected to work from the office three days per week (two days per week for employees based in Los Angeles). Dentsu may designate other Hub offices at any time. Those who live outside a commutable range may be designated as remote, depending on the role and business needs. Regardless of your work location, we expect our employees to be flexible to meet the needs of our Company and clients, which may include attendance in an office.
The annual salary range for this position is $136,850 - $180,000. Placement within the salary range is based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and other factors permitted by law.
Benefits available with this position include:
- Medical, vision, and dental insurance,
- Short-term and long-term disability insurance,
- At least 15 paid holidays per year,
- Paid sick and safe leave, and
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 further details 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.
Location:New York
Brand:Dentsu Creative
Time Type:Full time
Contract Type:Permanent
