Director, Commercial Strategy

Dentsu International Americas; New York (NY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Dentsu Creative in New York seeks a Director, Commercial Strategy to lead portfolio planning for a world‑class consumer brand portfolio. The role blends deep data work with presenting to senior leadership, ensuring insights drive business growth and client value.

You'll partner with Retail & Shopper strategy leaders to connect brand ambition with shopper behavior, turning complex questions into actionable plans across teams and agencies.

Qualifications

• Own the analytical tools that inform our portfolio recommendations, ensuring they are accurate, rigorous and repeatable.
• Frame the right business questions up front and adapt analyses as objectives change.
• Pressure-test findings against market reality and brand strategy to avoid noise.

Responsibilities

• Own the analytical tools that inform our portfolio recommendations, ensuring they are accurate, rigorous and repeatable.
• Frame the right business questions up front and make sure the analysis evolves with client objectives and data.

Skills

Analytical leadership

Strategic direction

Critical judgment

Data fluency

Client leadership

Team leadership

Job description

About Dentsu Creative

Business-Driven and Creatively Obsessed.

We are dedicated to helping our clients achieve growth. We understand the challenge of standing out in an increasingly competitive marketplace. We recognize that experiences are becoming indistinguishable across industries, and new technologies can both enable creativity and risk commoditization. In this context, the need for a distinct competitive edge is crucial.

We believe that embracing creativity is key for sustainable business growth. However, the conventional definition of creativity will not suffice. Our view on creativity goes beyond norms; it's not just how we execute, but a mindset that permeates our organization and our clients' businesses.

We call it Transformative Creativity. It's outcome-focused creativity unleashed to solve business problems. This unique brand of creativity sets us apart and drives our clients to success.

About Our Strategists

We're Proactive Leaders. Great strategists are proactive and take the initiative to lead teams and clients with new ideas and provocative thoughts. We get ahead of the ask, anticipating the next step and setting the agenda with the energy and optimism it takes to ensure that our work is fresh, our clients feel our partnership, and the team stays ahead of the curve and delivers exceptional ideas.

We Challenge the Status Quo. Our strategists take pride in challenging the status quo, always seeking fresh angles and leading with innovative ideas. We push past right, to find what is interesting. We challenge assumptions. We generate the energy and enthusiasm needed to help our teams and clients find the next level in an ever-evolving world, embodying a challenger mindset.

We're Makers and Doers. At every level, from CSO to junior planner, our strategists are makers who take pride in creating things, not just managing projects. We hold ourselves to a high standard of creation, putting hands on keyboards and turning ideas into tangible outputs, fostering a culture of hands-on involvement and tangible creativity that make ideas in our heads a reality in the world.

We Cherish a Growth Mindset. We value and fuel a growth mindset, encouraging our strategists to be their best and embrace feedback that challenges their thinking and actions. Our culture is hard on the work but kind to our people, recognizing that personal growth is key to our agency's success.

We're Radical Collaborators. We are radically collaborative, working fluidly across teams and skill sets with the outcome in mind, not personal egos. Our strategists know that together we are stronger, actively seeking others' input to solve problems and elevate the work, fostering a culture of collective excellence.

About the Role

We're looking for a Director, Commercial Strategy to help lead portfolio planning for one of the world's leading consumer brand portfolios. It's a role for a strategist who is as comfortable deep in a large dataset as presenting to a client's leadership team, and who cares as much about whether the answer is right as whether it's compelling.

You'll partner closely with our Retail & Shopper Strategy Lead to connect brand ambition with how people actually shop and buy. Together you'll turn complex, multi-brand portfolio questions into clear plans the business can act on.

Role Overview

• Analytical leadership: Own the analytical tools that inform our portfolio recommendations, ensuring they are accurate, rigorous and repeatable.
• Strategic direction: Frame the right business questions up front and make sure the analysis evolves as client objectives, market conditions and data change.
• Critical judgment: Pressure-test findings against market reality, category dynamics and brand strategy. Know the difference between an insight and noise, and when an approach needs rethinking.
• Recommendations that move the business: Turn complex analysis into clear, commercially grounded recommendations that senior client stakeholders can act on.
• Data fluency: Work confidently with large, complex datasets, integrating multiple sources and identifying gaps and anomalies so inputs are as trustworthy as outputs.
• Shopper and retail partnership: Partner closely with our Retail & Shopper Strategy Lead, bringing enough shopper, retail and channel fluency to be a genuine thought partner.
• Decision to activation: Collaborate with creative, media, data and retail teams so downstream work stays anchored to the commercial logic behind it.
• Client leadership: Be the senior commercial voice in the room with brand, category, sales and customer marketing leaders. Bring a point of view, back it with evidence, and hold it under challenge.
• Measurement and learning: Define what success looks like before plans go to market, and make sure results flow back into the next round of decisions.
• Team and practice growth: Build and mentor a team of strategists and analysts. Help grow the business by bringing commercial rigor to new clients and oppo