Brand Strategy Associate — Learn by Doing & Lead

Craft; New York (NY); On-site; USD 60,000 - 75,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental and vision

401(k) with company match

HSA with employer contribution

Employer-paid life insurance

Job summary

Craft is partnering with AREA 17 on the launch of their 2026 Cohort to nurture junior talent into leaders. You’ll work in small autonomous teams with senior strategists and designers, learning by doing rather than observing.

You’ll join a five-person brand practice, report to an Associate Strategy Director, and be trained directly by the Head of Brand as you move through six-to-eight week sprints and longer transformation engagements. Onboarding spans 12 weeks.

Qualifications

• You're one to two years into strategy work, past the first-job hump but not a fresh graduate.
• Your background could be semiotics, UX, media strategy, or any commercial environment built on strategic problem-solving.
• You're a maker - someone who has built or launched something independently, and your research goes well beyond what an AI can generate.

Responsibilities

• You'll join a brand practice of five, spanning two studios.
• You'll report to an Associate Strategy Director and be trained directly by the Head of Brand, who leads the practice globally.
• Your work will move between six-to-eight-week acceleration sprints and transformation engagements running six months or more.
• You'll partner with designers to articulate strategy before execution, ground creative ideas in business logic, and help clients move from positioning through to brand systems they can own.
• Onboarding is a structured 12-week programme: intensive training, shadowing on an internal R&D project, then a live project role.
• Because no rigid split exists yet between senior and junior strategists, you'll help define how this practice actually works.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Brand strategy

Team collaboration

Learning mindset

Job description

Craft is partnering with AREA 17 on the launch of their 2026 Cohort to nurture junior talent into leaders. You’ll work in small autonomous teams with senior strategists and designers, learning by doing rather than observing.

You’ll join a five-person brand practice, report to an Associate Strategy Director, and be trained directly by the Head of Brand as you move through six-to-eight week sprints and longer transformation engagements. Onboarding spans 12 weeks.