Senior Strategist (Commerce)

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Who We Are

VML, part of WPP, is a leading creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce, creating connected brands to drive growth. VML is celebrated for its innovative and human first, award-winning work for blue chip client partners including AstraZeneca, Colgate-Palmolive, Dell, Ford, Microsoft, Nestlé, The Coca-Cola Company, and Wendy's. The agency is recognized by the Forrester Wave™ Reports, as a Leader among Marketing Creative and Content Service Providers, Commerce Services, Global Digital Experience Services, Global Marketing Services and, most recently, Marketing Measurement & Optimization. In addition, VML’s specialist health network, VML Health, is one of the world’s largest and most awarded health agencies. VML’s global network is powered by 26,000 talented people across 55+ markets, with principal offices in Kansas City, New York, Detroit, London, São Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, and Sydney.

About WPP

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information, visit WPP.com.

What We're Looking For

You've done your time on the tools. You know how to build an insight, write a brief that excites a creative team, and hold your ground in a client room. This role is the next step: leading the strategic direction on iconic global and UK brands, with the creative ambition and commercial rigour to match.

You'll operate with confidence across client, creative and planning teams. You'll be the trusted strategic voice in the room — not just the person who fills the deck before the meeting. You know how brands work. You know how people work. And you understand Commerce.  You're hungry to prove that communications can make a measurable difference and drive transactions.

A Global Beverage Icon – Global Commerce Strategy

VML has a substantial role in helping to concept, create and deliver global campaigns for one of the world's most recognisable and valuable consumer brands — a global beverage powerhouse whose portfolio spans some of the most iconic soft drink names on the planet, alongside category innovations including Alcoholic Ready-to-Drink.

As a senior strategist in the commerce team you will work closely with Client Teams, Strategy Directors and Creative Directors to help grow our client's businesses by bringing actionable insights to client briefs as well as inspire our creative teams. You will contribute to activating creative ideas across multiple retail & media channels and platforms; you will be curious to understand the motivations, beliefs and behaviours of people and translate insights into compelling propositions and actionable solutions.

While your core focus will be on this global commerce account — one of the most high-profile and commercially significant in the agency — you will also be part of a central team of strategists giving you exposure to a wider range of clients, projects and strategic problems to help solve.

Our focus is on growing our client's businesses across all commerce moments. As a result, having good commercial understanding of achieving growth is a must.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the strategic direction on your accounts with autonomy and confidence, from brief intake to creative sell-in.
• Write compelling, insightful creative briefs that take genuine leaps
• Build and sustain trusted relationships with mid-to-senior clients, positioning yourself as a strategic partner, not just a supplier.
• Actively contribute to new business pitches and proactive strategic thinking that opens new revenue opportunities for the agency.
• Manage and mentor junior strategists, setting high standards and investing in their development.
• Demonstrate an ability to extract and work with data to drive meaningful information & insight.
• Ensure creative ideas are supported by customer and marketing insights that will meet client business objectives.
• Drive effectiveness thinking across your accounts, building measurement into briefs from the start.
• Contribute to departmental initiatives and help raise the quality of strategic output across the strategy team.

Key Performance Indicators

• Quality and ambition of strategic output; measured through client satisfaction, creative outcomes, awards and peer review.
• Client satisfaction and trust; evidenced by client retention, scope growth and qualitative feedback.
• Effectiveness outcomes; demonstrated through post-campaign evaluation, effectiveness award entries and proof of commercial impact.
• Team development; progress & support of direct reports.
• Pitch contribution; proactive ideas and strategic inputs that meaningfully advance new business prospects.

Who You Are

• A self-starting strategist who takes autonomous ownership of clients and briefs, You don't wait to be told what to do.
• Analytically rigorous and creatively alive. You're as comfortable reading a balance sheet as you are writing a brief that sparks brilliant creative work.
• A confident, empathetic storyteller. Your decks are clear, compelling and built around a single-minded idea.
• Commercially literate. You understand what drives your client's business and you connect communications strategy to business outcomes.
• Culturally curious. You're a sponge for what's happening in the world, and you know how to bring that into the work.
• A generous team player and a demanding but fair manager. You want the people around you to be better.

What You'll Need

• Proven experience as a strategist in an integrated creative, CX or commerce agency environment.
• A portfolio of strategic work that demonstrates the ability to take real creative leaps, not just competent briefs.
• Deep fluency in comms and retail channel planning, with an understanding of how to orchestrate ideas across mass media, social, retail and digital.
• Experience managing and developing junior strategists.
• Confidence with data, from research interpretation to building effectiveness cases.
• An appetite for AI tools and a genuine curiosity about how they can sharpen and accelerate strategic practice. Familiarity with WPP Open is a plus.
• Demonstrable experience working on pitches and contributing to winning new business.

What's in It for You?

• The chance to work on globally famous brands, with a track record of award-winning strategy to build on.
• A strategy department that invests seriously in learning, development and career progression.
• A genuinely integrated agency model, where strategy works alongside world-class creative, data, CX and technology capabilities.
• A culture that values brave thinking, honest feedback and the courage to push for better work.
• A competitive package, hybrid working and access to the full suite of WML and WPP benefits.

We believe the best work happens when we're together, fostering creativity, collaboration, and connection. That's why we’ve adopted a hybrid approach, with teams in the office an average of four days a week. If you require accommodations or flexibility, please discuss this with the hiring team during the interview process.

WPP (VML) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers. 

VML is a WPP agency (NYSE: WPP). For more information, please visit  www.vml.com, and follow along on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.

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