Associate Strategy Director

BarkleyOKRP; Town of Tonawanda (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading creative agency in New York seeks an Associate Director to connect insights to strategies. This role involves leading strategic efforts, partnering across teams, and generating actionable ideas. The successful candidate will have 7+ years in creative strategy, exemplifying strong writing and presentation skills. The agency prides itself on diversity and inclusion, fostering unique perspectives for creative growth.

Qualifications

• Experience in creative strategy field of 7+ years.
• Expertise in insight and research practices.
• Strong reasoning ability with problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead strategy development for clients and new business.
• Generate actionable strategic ideas in brand engagements.
• Write and present micro and macro-level creative briefs.

Skills

Insight generation

Strategic thinking

Creativity

Writing skills

Presentation skills

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

As our newest Associate Director on the Strategy team, you connect insight to idea, obscure culture into specific opportunity, data points into brand action, and disparate signals into a path forward. You lead the “hub” of strategic activity within the agency, partnering closely with creative, account, media, social, and innovation teams. You inspire, guide, and lobby for the right idea—for the brand, the business, and the humans.

You work high and low: execute high‑level brand strategy and day‑to‑day planning, love writing clear, succinct product briefs, and jump to overarching brand challenges. You push the thinking, see past the noise to find the more human idea, ask better questions, and make the brave idea happen. You’re a person of action, operating in real time, quick, lean, and collaborative, and you’re responsible for generating a product that is thoughtful yet wholly relatable.

Responsibilities

• Contributes to best‑practice solutions for the overall strategic process at BarkleyOKRP.
• Leads and participates in strategy development for clients and new business.
• Responsible for generating actionable strategic idea in any brand engagement.
• May begin to manage and mentor strategists.
• Becomes an invaluable resource for clients providing overall strategic guidance.
• Writes and presents micro and macro‑level creative briefs for all initiatives.
• Leads integrated idea teams in idea sessions and workshops.
• Recommends and manages research that will aid in consumer insight‑gathering and the strategic process.
• Monitors and interprets cultural and social trends relevant to client business.
• Presents insights, implications, opportunities in client and new business contexts.
• Finds creative, differentiating ways to gain insights, using known tools (qualitative and quantitative) and unique approaches.

Qualifications

• Sample work will be requested in the interview process.
• Exhibit high‑level writing and presentation skills.
• Must demonstrate deep experience in insight and research practices.
• Excellent reasoning ability: define problems, collect information, establish facts, draw valid conclusions, and make creative leaps.
• Bachelor’s degree is preferred.
• 7+ years of direct work experience in the creative strategy field preferred.

Diversity & Inclusion

BarkleyOKRP’s commitment to diversity and inclusion: We believe that being radically diverse and inclusive is the key to becoming one of the world’s great creative idea companies. We embrace what makes our partners unique, creating conditions for creative and original thinking to thrive. BarkleyOKRP is committed to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging through a formal DEI+B program, Employee Resource Groups, dedicated Diversity leadership, and various initiatives.