SHADOW is seeking a Strategy Director to drive the strategic vision and development of integrated marketing campaigns across our client portfolio. This role is a senior position reporting into a Creative Director and is responsible for guiding a growing strategy team of strategists. The ideal candidate brings at least 7 years experience in integrated marketing strategy, is fluent in today’s media landscape, curiosity about culture and people, and a portfolio that showcases transformative, insight-driven work.
This position requires the submission of a portfolio.
What You Bring:
- Strategic Leadership: You bring 10+ years of experience in strategic brand building across creative, PR, social, influencer, content, and experiential. You know how to provide briefs and insights to help campaigns move culture.
- Vision: You’re a natural storyteller who can unearth compelling insights from troves of information inputs.
- Creative Intelligence: You think like a creative, but with a strategist’s rigor. You understand the power of big ideas and how to connect them to culture, data, and business objectives.
- Operational Agility: You’ve led strategy across multiple clients and timelines, managing priorities with precision while mentoring and guiding junior team members.
- Cultural Fluency: You are a constant observer of culture and consumer behavior, with a pulse on macro and micro trends that can be leveraged for creative storytelling.
- Executive Presence: You’re a trusted partner to senior clients and internal leadership, confident in high-stakes presentations and comfortable offering strategic counsel to C-suite decision-makers.
- Resourceful & Research-Fluent: You’ve got a deep bench of go-to tools and platforms for research, insights, and cultural monitoring. You know where to look, how to dig, and what matters.
What You Do:
- Lead Strategic Development: Own and drive the strategy process from brief to execution—interpreting client needs, identifying key insights, and developing platform ideas and campaign narratives across creative, PR, influencer, social, content, and experiential.
- Guide Client Growth: Build strong relationships with client leadership, acting as a strategic advisor who brings clarity to ambiguity and drives long-term brand evolution.
- Inspire and Elevate: Manage a growing team of strategists, fostering a culture of curiosity, creativity, and excellence. Provide feedback and structure to help grow strategic thinking agency-wide.
- Business Development: Spearhead strategic thinking for new business opportunities—leading pitch strategy development, insight generation, and creative collaboration to support our business development team.
- Trendspotting & Insight Mining: Oversee cultural, competitive, and category research to identify whitespace and fuel breakthrough ideas. Translate trends into actionable insights that differentiate our clients in market.
- Interdisciplinary Collaboration: Work hand-in-hand with SHADOW’s various teams to ensure ideas are both strategically sound and creatively brave.
Annual Compensation
$110K - $150K (commensurate with experience)
What We Provide:
- Medical + dental + vision insurance
- Generous PTO and paid holidays
- Dedicated mental health days
- Unlimited sick time
- Give Back. We want SHADOWs to extend their hearts and give back to their various communities and interests, on the clock! We offer 40 hours of paid VTO annually (voluntary time off)
- 401(k) retirement plan with matching
- Pre-tax commuter and healthcare benefits
- 12 weeks paid leave for new parents
- Individualized career mapping
- Summer Fridays (early close Fridays Memorial Day - Labor Day)
- Hybrid work schedule (1-3 days in office per week, depending on role)
While SHADOW intends to maintain these employee benefits, the Company reserves the right to modify, amend or terminate these benefits at any time and for any reason.
Additional Information
SHADOW promotes a diverse and high performing company culture. SHADOW is dedicated to providing equal opportunities to all qualified persons, and to recruit, hire, train, promote, and compensate persons in all jobs without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or sexual orientation.
All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
What We Do
SHADOW is a creative marketing and communications agency with integrated disciplines across media relations, influencer marketing, experiential and event production, social media management and content development.
Using these services, we shape insights and ideas into stories, animate stories into moments and engineer moments into movements.
We are also connectors – we create inter-client synergies to maximize opportunity as well as leverage industry relationships for introductions, partnerships, business development and more.
With a robust portfolio of brand campaigns, cross-categorical experience, and a deep rolodex of industry relationships, we have captured the loyalty of some of the world’s most prestigious companies, including luxury and lifestyle brands, retailers, tech start-ups, publishers, personalities, non-profit organizations and hospitality groups. We are a New York-based agency, with a west coast presence made possible through our SHADOWest suite of services.
