Strategy Director

Recess Studios; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Recess Studios is seeking a Strategy Director to lead the strategic vision across brand, communications, social, content, and experiential work for diverse clients. You will mentor strategists, raise the diversity of thought, and establish a single source of truth for outcomes, audiences, and KPIs.

The role emphasizes measurable impact and reduced founder dependency. You will guide governance, performance reviews, and high-level client sessions, translating research into actionable narratives

Qualifications

• 8+ years in brand, communications, social, or experience strategy within a creative or integrated agency, including leadership of major pitches and programs.
• Demonstrated experience developing integrated strategies that connect brand positioning, communications, social platforms, content, and consumer experiences.
• Strong understanding of the social media landscape, including platform behaviors, audience development, creator ecosystems, content strategy, and social measurement.

Responsibilities

• Lead the strategy function end to end. Own the standards, tools, rituals, and decision rights for how we diagnose, brief, plan, and measure.
• Establish and uphold strategic standards across brand, communications, social, content, and experiential work, ensuring every service vertical operates from a cohesive strategic foundation.
• Make the plan the single source of truth. Align the client to outcome, audience, path, and KPIs. Log changes fast and keep partners informed.
• Manage and grow a team of strategists. Set clear goals, coach craft, run structured reviews, and uphold an A level bar across all outputs.
• Reduce founder dependency. Run weekly governance and approvals so strategy decisions move on time and with clarity.
• Establish annual goals for the strategy team and run timely performance reviews against those goals.
• Partner with Project Leads and department leadership to load balance work across the team and protect delivery speed and quality.
• Establish and maintain senior client relationships. Lead working sessions and run key meetings when needed.
• Work independently to drive strategic development for key accounts and pitches. Push work forward without oversight and remove roadblocks for the team.
• Review team outputs for accuracy, logic, and readiness. Ensure briefs, frameworks, POVs, and decks are complete, on time, and on strategy.
• Translate research into narratives and frameworks that clients adopt. Use primary and secondary sources, social listening, cultural analysis, and data to shape clear decisions.
• Partner with Social leadership to guide the development of audience strategies, platform strategies, content pillars, creator and influencer strategies, and measurement frameworks that align with broader client objectives.
• Ensure insights from social performance, community behavior, and audience engagement inform ongoing brand strategy, creative development, and future strategic recommendations.
• Craft tight creative briefs that state the problem, target outcome, audience choice, and rules for the work. Present briefs in person or virtually and gain commitment.
• Provide guidance to Creative, Social, Client Services, Experiences, and Production to keep work on time, on scope, and on margin.
• Develop regular performance reports that connect back to the briefed KPIs. Use results to inform future work and strengthen the plan.
• Partner with Social leadership to establish shared measurement principles that connect social performance to broader brand, audience, and business objectives.
• Draft clear, concise Keynote presentations that convey strategy and the path to results.
• Develop and write up strategic concepts for content, activations, seeding, partnerships, and experiences.
• Identify opportunities to expand existing client relationships through integrated strategic recommendations that connect Recess's capabilities and address evolving client needs.
• Advance the agency's collective intelligence by establishing systems for sharing knowledge, developing original perspectives, identifying emerging opportunities, and applying insights across departments, client relationships, and new business initiatives.
• Lead the development of original research, strategic perspectives, and thought leadership through Recess Research, translating emerging consumer behaviors, cultural shifts, and industry developments into actionable insights for clients and new business opportunities.
• Recruit and cultivate diversity of thought on the team. Create room dynamics and habits that surface strong ideas and reduce groupthink.
• Stay current on category, consumer, cultural, and channel shifts across brand, digital, social, influencer, and experiential. Turn signals into actionable opportunities.
• Continuously evaluate and evolve the agency's strategic methodologies, tools, and capabilities to reflect changes in consumer behavior, technology, media consumption, and the relationship between brands and their audiences.

Skills

Strategic leadership

Brand strategy

Team leadership

Client relationship management

Research & analytics

Tools

Keynote

PowerPoint

Data dashboards

Job description

TheStrategy Directorat Recess Studios plays a pivotal role in leading brand, communications, social, content, and go-to-market strategies for a wide range of clients while fostering the growth and development of the strategy team. This position is ideal for a visionary leader who blends rigorous analysis, strategic thinking, and creative insight to craft compelling strategies that resonate with audiences, shape culture, and drive measurable business results. In addition to guiding client work, the Strategy Director will develop team members, cultivate a culture of excellence, and inspire cross-disciplinary collaboration to ensure the agency consistently delivers breakthrough ideas.

The Strategy Director leads the strategic vision for the function, the work, and the team. As Recess expands its services, the Strategy Director is responsible not only for the strategic quality of individual projects, but also for advancing the agency's collective intelligence. This role turns client goals into a clear problem to solve, a target outcome, an audience choice, and rules for the work. It starts with superior assessment and becomes a plan to confront the problem, secure client alignment, and define the metrics that mark success. The role ensures strategic continuity across Recess's service verticals, connecting brand positioning, communications, social, content, and experiences through a unified understanding of audiences, their behaviors, and their evolving relationships with brands.

You will build a strategy discipline that operates at an A grade without founder involvement. That means creating a single source of truth that concentrates effort, making explicit choices about outcome, audience, and path, respecting the plan with discipline and partnership, adjusting when new facts demand it, and communicating change immediately. You will mentor strategists, raise the diversity of thought in the room, and set a standard of excellence in the details.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead the strategy function end to end. Own the standards, tools, rituals, and decision rights for how we diagnose, brief, plan, and measure.
• Establish and uphold strategic standards across brand, communications, social, content, and experiential work, ensuring every service vertical operates from a cohesive strategic foundation.
• Make the plan the single source of truth. Align the client to outcome, audience, path, and KPIs. Log changes fast and keep partners informed.
• Manage and grow a team of strategists. Set clear goals, coach craft, run structured reviews, and uphold an A level bar across all outputs.
• Reduce founder dependency. Run weekly governance and approvals so strategy decisions move on time and with clarity.
• Establish annual goals for the strategy team and run timely performance reviews against those goals.
• Partner with Project Leads and department leadership to load balance work across the team and protect delivery speed and quality.
• Establish and maintain senior client relationships. Lead working sessions and run key meetings when needed.
• Work independently to drive strategic development for key accounts and pitches. Push work forward without oversight and remove roadblocks for the team.
• Review team outputs for accuracy, logic, and readiness. Ensure briefs, frameworks, POVs, and decks are complete, on time, and on strategy.
• Translate research into narratives and frameworks that clients adopt. Use primary and secondary sources, social listening, cultural analysis, and data to shape clear decisions.
• Partner with Social leadership to guide the development of audience strategies, platform strategies, content pillars, creator and influencer strategies, and measurement frameworks that align with broader client objectives.
• Ensure insights from social performance, community behavior, and audience engagement inform ongoing brand strategy, creative development, and future strategic recommendations.
• Craft tight creative briefs that state the problem, target outcome, audience choice, and rules for the work. Present briefs in person or virtually and gain commitment.
• Provide guidance to Creative, Social, Client Services, Experiences, and Production to keep work on time, on scope, and on margin.
• Develop regular performance reports that connect back to the briefed KPIs. Use results to inform future work and strengthen the plan.
• Partner with Social leadership to establish shared measurement principles that connect social performance to broader brand, audience, and business objectives.
• Draft clear, concise Keynote presentations that convey strategy and the path to results.
• Develop and write up strategic concepts for content, activations, seeding, partnerships, and experiences.
• Identify opportunities to expand existing client relationships through integrated strategic recommendations that connect Recess's capabilities and address evolving client needs.
• Advance the agency's collective intelligence by establishing systems for sharing knowledge, developing original perspectives, identifying emerging opportunities, and applying insights across departments, client relationships, and new business initiatives.
• Lead the development of original research, strategic perspectives, and thought leadership through Recess Research, translating emerging consumer behaviors, cultural shifts, and industry developments into actionable insights for clients and new business opportunities.
• Recruit and cultivate diversity of thought on the team. Create room dynamics and habits that surface strong ideas and reduce groupthink.
• Stay current on category, consumer, cultural, and channel shifts across brand, digital, social, influencer, and experiential. Turn signals into actionable opportunities.
• Continuously evaluate and evolve the agency's strategic methodologies, tools, and capabilities to reflect changes in consumer behavior, technology, media consumption, and the relationship between brands and their audiences.

QUALIFICATIONS

• 8+ years in brand, communications, social, or experience strategy within a creative or integrated agency, including leadership of major pitches and programs.
• Demonstrated experience developing integrated strategies that connect brand positioning, communications, social platforms, content, and consumer experiences.
• Strong understanding of the social media landscape, including platform behaviors, audience development, creator ecosystems, content strategy, and social measurement.
• Briefing and storytelling with executive client presence. Able to simplify decisions and earn alignment.
• Research and analytics: qual and quant methods, social and cultural analysis, data synthesis into frameworks, KPI trees and basic dashboards, fluency with modern planning and presentation tools.
• Team leadership and systems: set standards, coach craft, run structured reviews, and manage performance. Build and maintain the tools and rhythms that keep work moving without founder involvement.
• Cross-functional delivery with Creative, Social, Client Services, Experiences, and Production to land work on time, on scope, and on margin, with strong accuracy and change control.
• Ability to translate emerging cultural, consumer, and technological shifts into original strategic perspectives and actionable business opportunities.
• Commitment to diversity of thought with effective room facilitation that improves decision quality.