Director, Commercial Strategy

Job Description:

About Dentsu Creative 

Business-Driven and Creatively Obsessed. 

We are dedicated to helping our clients achieve growth. We understand the challenge of standing out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. We recognize that experiences are becoming indistinguishable across industries, and new technologies can both enable creativity and risk commoditization. In this context, the need for a distinct competitive edge is crucial. 

We believe that embracing creativity is key for sustainable business growth. However, the conventional definition of creativity will not suffice. Our view on creativity goes beyond norms; it's not just how we execute, but a mindset that permeates our organization and our clients' businesses. 

We call it Transformative Creativity. It's outcome-focused creativity unleashed to solve business problems. This unique brand of creativity sets us apart and drives our clients to success. 

About Our Strategists 

We’re Proactive Leaders. Great strategists are proactive and take the initiative to lead teams and clients with new ideas and provocative thoughts. We get ahead of the ask, anticipating the next step and setting the agenda with the energy and optimism it takes to ensure that our work is fresh, our clients feel our partnership, and the team stays ahead of the curve and delivers exceptional ideas. 

We Challenge the Status Quo. Our strategists take pride in challenging the status quo, always seeking fresh angles and leading with innovative ideas. We push past right, to find what is interesting. We challenge assumptions. We generate the energy and enthusiasm needed to help our teams and clients find the next level in an ever-evolving world, embodying a challenger mindset. 

We’re Makers and Doers. At every level, from CSO to junior planner, our strategists are makers who take pride in creating things, not just managing projects. We hold ourselves to a high standard of creation, putting hands on keyboards and turning ideas into tangible outputs, fostering a culture of hands-on involvement and tangible creativity that make ideas in our heads a reality in the world. 

We Cherish a Growth Mindset. We value and fuel a growth mindset, encouraging our strategists to be their best and embrace feedback that challenges their thinking and actions. Our culture is hard on the work but kind to our people, recognizing that personal growth is key to our agency's success. 

We’re Radical Collaborators. We are radically collaborative, working fluidly across teams and skill sets with the outcome in mind, not personal egos. Our strategists know that together we are stronger, actively seeking others' input to solve problems and elevate the work, fostering a culture of collective excellence. 

About the Role

We’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 Information

At 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, 
  • 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 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.

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