Director, Brand Storytelling

Sia; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Sia is seeking a Director of Brand Storytelling to set narratives, content, and messaging across client engagements. You will lead a team of strategists and freelance experts, guiding briefs from pitches through account life, with a social-first orientation and ongoing audience insight integration.

Based in NYC with hybrid work, you’ll shape throughlines, supervise cross-department workstreams, and drive execution across creative, social, and media teams to meet client business goals.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in storytelling, content strategy, or social-first brand strategy, including at least 3+ years at a director level or equivalent, managing people and freelance talent.
• Direct experience leading storytelling for new business pitches, comfortable building a story fast under pressure.
• Track record turning audience research and insight into brand, social and content strategy.
• Experience recruiting, briefing, and managing freelance SMEs or contractors.
• Experience authoring creative, social, and media briefs, not just reviewing them.
• Collaborative leadership with cross-functional teams.
• Fluent view on paid, organic, social, community, content, and brand to capture attention.
• Hands-on social-first instincts with community growth and creator content.
• BA

Responsibilities

• Establish brand narratives and develop content strategies grounded in audience research and insights.
• Build and maintain the throughline for each account across the content ecosystem, aligning teams.
• Develop messaging frameworks by persona based on audience segmentation.
• Ensure strategies pass the test of audience engagement and attention.

Skills

Storytelling

Content strategy

Brand strategy

Leadership

Freelance management

Education

BA

Tools

Job description

Ready Set Rocket (A Sia Company), partners with ambitious brands to solve complex business challenges through integrated marketing, digital experience, customer strategy, creative, media, data and technology. We are building on significant momentum and investing in the next stage of our growth. Our clients look to us for strategic partnership that connects business objectives with measurable outcomes across the full customer journey.

Location: Hybrid, NYC Reports to: Managing Director, Head of Strategy

About the role

The Director, Brand Storytelling sets brand narrative, content andmessaging strategies for clients, building it on audience research, data analysis and insights, setting a high bar with creative reference and inspiration, and leading this workstream from pitch meeting through the life of the account. Day to day, they guide how that narrative is brought to life across touchpoints, authoring or co-authoring the briefs that carry it into each one and evaluating the resulting agency deliverables, ensuringthe whole content ecosystem is magnetic, engaging and supports our clients’ overall business goals. This work is deeply social-first. Ongoing audience insights are fed continuously by social listening, creative performance analysis, and community sentiment, and what's actually landing with creators and audiences.

This role will lead ateam of full-timecreative strategists and freelance subject-matter experts, recruiting and evaluating new talent as needed. It’s also highly collaborative and cross-functional, setting a clear vision and then collaborating to drive execution acrosscreative, social, and media teams – both encouraging their newbuilds and ideas as well as correcting course when something isn't landing or laddering up to the central vision.

What you'll do

Vision-setting and strategy

• Establish brand narratives and develop content strategies for each account as well as new business pitches, grounded in audience research, insight and relevant creative inspiration
• Build and maintain the throughline for each account as work develops: the central idea, conversation, tone, and integrated architecture for the content ecosystem, so all teams are aligning around the same strategic goals.
• Based on audience segmentation strategies, develop messaging/social strategy frameworks by persona.
• Ensure all strategies pass the “will this audience actually pay attention and care?” test.

Vision orchestration across departments

• Author or co-author briefs for creative, media, and social so every department starts from the same throughline.
• As deliverables are developed, act as orchestrator and curator across strategy, creative, media, social, and community, translating the narrative into direction specific to each department and acting as an arbiter for taste.
• Provide critical feedback during the development process to ensure the work delivers on or exceeds the strategic promise. Does it cut through the noise and will it engage target audiences?
• Ensure the overall ecosystem vision is brought to life across paid, organic, earned, and owned with special attention to how audiences respond to channel context.

Team Leadership

• Build and lead a mixed team of full-time staff and freelance subject-matter experts.
• Recruit, brief, and evaluate freelance SMEs directly: define the expertise a pitch or program needs, source and vet candidates, and assess quality and fit before and during an engagement.
• Set direction without dictating execution, brief the vision clearly, then give creative, social, and SME collaborators real room to bring their own craft to it, staying a creative collaborator rather than the person handing down finished answers.

Modern, channel-fluent marketing

• Bring a current, practitioner's read on how paid, organic, community, content, creative, and brand each earn attention differently and shape storytelling strategy.
• Use creative performance analysis and social listening as ongoing inputs, tracking real-time audience feedback on what’s working and what’s not, insights from comments and conversations, brand sentiment, and creator/cultural trends and feeding what's found there back into the throughline.
• Cultivate and maintain a sophisticated, diverse cultural reference set, supplemented with research capabilities as needed, to help establish and align on a high bar for our work.
• Partner closely with social and community leads on community growth itself, and stay hands‑on enough to guide or brief creator content directly as needed.

This job description is not intended to beall inclusive. Duties, responsibilities, and qualifications may be added,deleted, ormodifiedat any time based on business needs.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in storytelling, content strategy, or social-first brand strategy, including at least [3+] years at a director level or equivalent, managing people and, ideally, freelance talent.
• Direct experience leading storytelling for new business pitches, comfortable building a story fast and under pressure.
• A track record of directly turning audience research and insight into brand, social and content strategy.
• Experience recruiting, briefing, and managing freelance subject-matter experts or contractors, including evaluating their quality and fit for a specific client or category.
• Personal experience authoring creative, social, and media briefs, not just reviewing them once someone else has written them.
• A collaborative leadership style, with evidence of bringing out strong work from cross-functional teams.
• A current, fluent point of view on paid, organic, social, community, content, and brand, and how to use them to capture attention, drive engagement, and build long-term trust and equity.
• Real social-first instincts: hands‑on experience with community growth and creator content, and a habit of working from social listening.
• BA

Nice to have

• New business or pitch leadership experience at an agency.
• A career that spans more than one of brand strategy, creative, social, and research/insights.

Compensation & Benefits

Sia invests in total rewards that support how our people work, live, and grow.

Compensation

• Base Salary: $180,000–$200,000. Actual compensation within this range will bedeterminedbased on experience, qualifications, geographic location, and other job-related factorspermittedby applicable law.
• Annual Performance Bonus

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision; company-paid life and AD&D; voluntary supplemental insurance and EAP
• 401(k) with company match and immediate vesting; HSA and FSA options
• College savings and student loan repayment programs
• Paid parental leave; generous PTO, nine company holidays, and one floating holiday
• Cell phone stipend; well‑being and professional development programs

Benefits are subject to applicable plan terms and eligibility requirements.

Workplace

Sia values in-person collaboration. When serving clients, consultants maybe requiredto work onsite at a client location based on engagement needs. Between client engagements, consultants are expected to work from a Sia office or approved coworking location at least three days per week. Candidates shouldresidewithin a reasonable commuting distance of a Sia office or approved coworking location. Sia maintains offices and coworking arrangements across multiple U.S. markets,includingNew York City, Charlotte, Greater Seattle, San Francisco Greater Bay Area,Los Angeles,Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago,Washington D.C.

Work Authorization

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States at the time of application and throughout their employment. This position is not eligible for employment visa sponsorship now or in the future.

Our Commitment

At Sia, we believe in fostering a diverse,equitable,and inclusive culture where our employees and partners are valued and thrive in a sense of belonging.