Group Strategy Director

Group Strategy Director

Spark Foundry is looking for a Group Strategy Director to join us in Sydney. We are one of the fastest growing agencies in Australia and the world.

At Spark Foundry our vision is to Fuel Famously Effective Ideas. Famous and Effective. Not one or the other, both. That sounds nice, but to get to famously effective ideas you need some key ingredients.

You need diverse thinkers and diverse thinking. We call this Allsorts. This helps us tackle challenges through different disciplines and perspectives. You need to thrive on the belief that great ideas are only great if they work. It’s not enough to be new, or cool, or interesting. Our solutions need to drive a business result. Everything else is vanity. You need to embrace both the art and the evidence. Right and left. Imagination and activation. Intelligence and technology. Big ideas, forensically measured.

All that while being a good human? Sound like you? Sound like where you’d like to be? We’d love to meet you.

WHAT BENEFITS DOES SPARK OFFER?

Be a part of the Publicis Groupe family, one of the world’s most progressive and dynamic modern communications businesses, enjoying all the perks that come with our network offering:

• A comprehensive Wholeself program supporting Physical, Mindful and Financial wellbeing
• A creative, fun and rewarding office environment backed up by our Publicis Liberté flexibility approach “working your way, with us!”
• Access to our Global AI Platform, Marcel, connecting Publicis Groupe employees with opportunities for career mobility and collaboration across our global network
• Extensive Learning & Development opportunities, including more than 15,000 learning programs via our online learning platform Marcel Classes
• A culture of open feedback and support to reach your goals through our Career Conversations program
• A committed Diversity, Equality and Inclusion strategy driven through our Viva! Women, Égalité, enABLE and Embrace (reconciliation action plan) programs 
• Work Your World program enabling employees the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world for up to 6 weeks per year
• Parental leave policy with up to 18 weeks paid primary carer leave and generous secondary carer benefits
• Access to counsellors, psychologists, and professionals through Sonder - an all-in-on digital wellbeing technology platform designed to support psychological, medical & safety needs

THE PURPOSE OF THIS ROLE

The Group Strategy Director is responsible for inspiring and driving the strategic direction of our clients and Spark’s overall strategic product.  

WHAT KEY RESPONSIBILITIES DOES THIS ROLE HAVE?

• Demonstrate leadership, commercial acumen, and provide vision & inspire a team of strategists to deliver a cohesive, proactive approach to strategy which helps our clients grow.​
• Works closely with the client teams and the senior leadership team to ensure that the product delivered to clients is truly integrated and best in class. ​
• Responsible for increasing the visibility of the Spark strategic product.​
• Accountable for financial performance, inclusive of revenue, client commercial agreements and team costs, encompassing long term planning for the team, reflective of client and team development needs.​
• Acts as a senior client escalation point, and trusted strategic advisor for key clients. ​
• Works with the relevant Strategy Directors/ Client Directors/ Client Partners to guide them on the output of work that works for their clients and the optimal use of agency resource to achieve this.  ​
• Works with the Chief Strategy Officer to define and deliver projects that enhance the output and efficiency of the team including managing resource in line with the ebb and flow of client work. ​
• Acting as a trusted advisor to clients and internal stakeholders​.
• Participation in agency new business.

Skills & Experience

• Ideally 12+ years industry experience.
• A bachelor degree or equivalent tertiary qualification in relevant field.​
• Proven business acumen in medium to large agency.​
• Proven experience identifying and executing organic growth opportunities. ​
• Possess an expert understanding of consumer psychology, behavioural economics, macro-economic influences, trends and current marketing science thinking and an exceptional ability to make this actionable.​

Behaviours

• Confident and engaging interpersonal, presentation and communication skills with an exceptional ability to guide and influence key stakeholders.​
• An exceptional leader that is inspiring, collaborative and enjoys mentoring, motivating, and developing strategy team and wider agency​.
• Passionate and relentless about delivering famously effective work that can unlock business growth for clients. ​
• Demonstrates a willingness to push the boundaries to deliver the best possible product. ​
• Is consistently learning across areas of marketing science, behavioural economics, consumer psychology and media.​
• Displays a curious nature and always seeking out new knowledge and insights​
• Be focused on ROI for both clients and the agency.​
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to juggle multiple team members, clients, and agency priorities.​
• Focused on building a best in class strategic product.​
• Passionate about the media and advertising industry with strong market knowledge.​
• Strives to produce effective work on all responses to briefs (no matter the size or scale) and proactively looks for opportunities to make that work famous.​

Spark Foundry, as a part of Publicis Groupe believes that to deliver the best solutions to our clients, our people need to reflect the diverse communities in which our clients operate. We value diversity and the skills, knowledge and experience that difference brings to our culture and solutions. We encourage applications from Indigenous Australians, people with disability, people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, mature age workers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people.