Strategy Director

ACE

ACE

Welcome to ACE. Our Young & Savvy teams work at the intersection of culture and technology. Driven by curiosity and the ambition to make a real impact, we create, accelerate and innovate the iconic brands of tomorrow.

Young & Savvy is a mentality. Unbiased curiosity, timelessness and the energy to keep reinventing ourselves. We see every challenge as an opportunity to learn and to create something special together. As one team, with impact on many.

Let’s make some waves together!

About this role

A Strategy Director is responsible for developing direction, perspective and growth opportunities for a number of our clients.

ACE Community focuses on Social, Creator Marketing and PR. Within Community, as Strategy Director you ensure that we continuously work on the right questions, opportunities and challenges of our clients. You help clients move forward by developing new perspectives, making opportunities visible and giving direction to the deployment of our expertise.

You understand how brands move in a culture that is constantly changing. You know what is going on among consumers, communities and creators, and you can translate developments in social, creator marketing, PR and culture into relevant strategic choices for brands. In doing so, you move easily between business, brand, culture and communication.

As a member of the Client Leadership Team (CLT), you help clients be successful by translating their ambitions, challenges and market dynamics into clear choices, distinctive propositions and concrete growth opportunities.

For this role it is important that you understand the Dutch market and consumer culture well. You know what is going on in the Netherlands and can translate cultural developments into opportunities for brands. From that knowledge, you are able to advise clients sharply and develop strategies that not only work on paper, but are also relevant to the people you want to reach.

You combine strategic thinking with entrepreneurship. You understand the client's business, bring new insights to the table and connect the expertise of the agency to the questions that truly matter to the client.  

You work closely with the Client Lead, Creative Lead and Project Lead and share joint responsibility for the success, growth and development of the client relationship.  

Responsibilities

Strategic partnership

• Building deep insight into the client's business, market and ambitions.

• Acting as strategic sparring partner for clients and internal teams.

• Understanding what is happening within social, creator culture, PR and broader social and cultural developments.

• Spotting developments, trends and changes that are relevant to clients.

• Translating complex business, brand and communication questions into clear strategic choices.

• Actively contributing to the long-term development of client relationships.

Developing perspectives

• Identifying opportunities for growth, innovation and renewal from knowledge of market, culture, consumer and communication.

• Challenging existing assumptions and ways of working.

• Developing strategic propositions and growth scenarios.

• Connecting consumer insights, cultural developments and business objectives to concrete opportunities for brands.

• Introducing relevant knowledge, insights and best practices from social, creator marketing, PR and related disciplines.

• Ensuring the agency visibly adds value beyond ongoing assignments.

Connecting expertise

• Actively exploring which expertise within the agency may be relevant to clients, particularly in the areas of Social, Creator Marketing and PR.

• Connecting specialists to client questions.

• Encouraging integrated solutions across disciplines.

• Spotting opportunities to broaden the collaboration.

• Contributing to the development of new propositions.

 Leadership within the CLT

• Co-owner of the account plan.

• Active contribution to client growth and client development.

• Working with the other leads on the long-term strategy for the client.

• Safeguarding the substantive quality of proposals, projects and recommendations.

• Encouraging a culture of curiosity, learning and innovation.

Result areas

The Strategy Director is assessed on:

• Client growth.

• Client retention.

• Client satisfaction.

• Strategic impact of the work.

• Broadening of the collaboration.

• Development of new propositions and opportunities.

• Quality of strategic recommendations.

• Contribution to the agency's reputation as thought leader and partner.

A successful Strategy Director has, after 1 year

• Developed a deep understanding of their clients, their business, target groups and position within the Dutch market.

• Developed a sharp picture of relevant cultural, social and consumer trends and knows how to translate these into concrete opportunities for clients.

• Made an active contribution to the growth of client relationships.

• Identified and developed new strategic opportunities arising from developments in social, creator culture, PR and broader culture.

• Successfully connected various expertises to client questions and visibly made use of the power of Community.

• Built a reputation as a trusted adviser and substantive challenger for clients.

• Demonstrably contributed to the development of new propositions and commercial opportunities.

• Visibly contributed to the substantive development of both clients and the agency.  

One more thing: client intelligence

We want to make the Strategy Director explicitly responsible for client intelligence.

In other words: within the CLT, you are the one who ensures that we truly understand our clients. Not only their brief, but also their business, organisation, market, competitors, target groups, culture, growth plans and change agenda.

In doing so, you explicitly look at what is happening outside the client organisation. What is changing in Dutch consumer culture? Which communities and creators are becoming relevant? Which social or cultural developments are affecting the brand? Where do new tensions, needs or opportunities emerge?

You actively bring that knowledge in and do something with it. You translate signals from the market and culture into insights, hypotheses and concrete opportunities for clients and ACE.

Precisely because of this, the relationship is substantively enriched and you prevent the agency from only responding to briefs.

In our model, the Strategy Director is the one who ensures that ACE is not only a supplier of work, but a source of new ideas, insights and opportunities. Someone who sees earlier what is coming at the client and starts the conversation about it before the client writes the brief.

What we offer you

At ACE you get the chance to help build the biggest brands within one of the most forward-thinking branding agencies in the Netherlands. In addition:

• Working with inspiring brands

• A challenging position with opportunities to learn, develop, grow and build

• A market-conform salary of between € 6,000 and € 6,500 gross per month, depending on experience

• A great working environment at Club ACE with a beautiful view of the Houthavens and fantastic lunch and coffee

• Everything you need to do your work. We take good care of you

• Additional birth/partner leave (100%)

• The option to work remotely up to 2 weeks per year

• A home working arrangement, smartly aligned with your team

• 100% travel expense reimbursement (based on public transport)

• A good pension plan

• 27 holiday days

Sounds good?

Then do get in touch!