Customer Strategy Director

Are you passionate about crafting exceptional customer experiences and forging deep connections through CRM strategies? Imagine propelling some of the globe's most prestigious brands to new heights with your expertise. We're on the hunt for a visionary Strategy Director eager to champion the expansion of our U.S. presence, in our vibrant Austin office. If the prospect of influencing customer loyalty and pioneering innovative paths for brand interactions excites you, let’s talk. Your next big opportunity awaits—dive in for more details! 

What will your day look like?

As part of growing our Austin office, you will play a crucial role in building our strategy capability and client relationships with leading global brands such as The Coca-Cola Company, IKEA and Ford. As part of the WPP network, you will be working with global teams across both the wider VML Group and WPP.    

More specifically, you'll be focused on: 

• Building stakeholder relationships and developing client accounts, ensuring strategic growth and supporting the transformation/implementation of new strategies. 
• Define and develop innovative digital marketing strategies for our clients, leveraging strong analytical skills to provide accurate and insightful recommendations. 
• Develop comprehensive CRM strategies, loyalty programs, and lifecycle optimization plans to enhance customer engagement and build lasting relationships. 
• Design seamless omni-channel strategies and lead management processes to optimize the customer journey and maximize conversion rates. 
• Taking ownership of developing and managing client deliverables and presentations, ensuring both strong visual appeal and strategic rigor. 
• Serve as a Subject Matter Expert, providing support to both client services and growth teams by contributing to sales initiatives and driving new business development. 
• Stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices in customer and business strategy. 
• With future growth, you will have the opportunity to build and lead a team of strategists, creating a supportive environment that prioritizes employee development and collaboration. 

Who are you going to work with?

This role is a key addition to our growing strategy capability, a group of 25 talented individuals dedicated to helping our clients achieve their business goals through innovative and customer-centric strategies. This role is based in our vibrant VML MAP Austin, TX office. As the team grows, you will have the opportunity to build and lead a small, high-performing team, fostering a supportive and collaborative environment. We pride ourselves on a caring and supportive management style, focused on employee progression and development, which is central to the Austin office culture. 

What do you bring to the table?

You are a strategic leader who can translate vision into action, working collaboratively across teams and geographies to achieve results. You find energy in thinking-out-of-the box and solving complex challenges in a structured manner with a strong grasp of detail. You possess a strong ability to collect and analyse qualitative and quantitative data, drawing sound insights and recommendations supported by a clear and concise storyline. 

In addition, we envision that you have:     

• Experience from a strategy consulting house or an in-house corporate strategy department. Experience in large, global matrix organisation is a bonus 
• Proven track record of developing and implementing successful customer-centric strategies that drive business growth. 
• The ability to thrive in a start-up mentality. 
• The ability to shift between working from a helicopter view down to the nitty gritty details.  
• Proven expertise working with data and data-driven strategies. 
• Strong analytical skills and problem-solving abilities.  
• A prominent level of proficiency in the use of PowerPoint and Miro. 
• A high skill level of business case modelling is an advantage, but not a pre-requisite. 
• Experience in B2B environments is a plus. 
• Knowledge of US data privacy laws (federal and state) is a plus 
• Must be based in Austin, TX, or willing to relocate. 

Many of our clients and colleagues are in other time zones, so it is important for us that you are willing to travel and have a flexible mindset. We envision that you’ll spend several weeks in Copenhagen, Denmark, with our European team in the beginning to ensure a strong onboarding. 

A leader in personalized customer experiences

VML MAP is a world-leading Centre of Excellence that helps businesses humanize the relationship between the brand and the customer through hyper personalization at scale, marketing automation and CRM. With the brain of a consultancy, the heart of an agency and the power of technology and data, we work with some of the world's most admired brands to help them on their transformation journey to becoming truly customer-centric. Together, we are 1000 + technology specialists, data scientists, strategic thinkers, consultants, operations experts, and creative minds from 55+ nationalities.

A global network

We are part of the global VML network that encompasses more than 30,000 employees across 150+ offices in 60+ markets, each contributing to a culture that values connection, belonging, and the power of differences. 

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