Global Director of Brand Strategy in London

Based within the Mandarin Oriental global brand organisation and based at the London Corporate Head Office, Mandarin Oriental is seeking a Global Director of Brand Strategy to define and guide the strategic frameworks that shape how the brand and its hotels are positioned, structured, and experienced worldwide. Reporting to the Vice President Brand, this role sits at the centre of the Brand team’s mandate to define, protect and evolve the strategic, cultural and creative foundations of the Mandarin Oriental brand.

The Director will own the Brand transformation roadmap - setting priorities, sequencing workstreams and tracking progress across the initiatives that professionalise end-to-end brand management. It partners closely with Brand Experience, Brand Identity, CMI, Development, Design & Technical Services, Marketing, Operations, Resorts, Retail & Partnerships and PR & Communications to ensure that every brand-impacting decision strengthens Mandarin Oriental’s long-term equity.

As Global Director of Brand Strategy, you will be responsible for the following duties:

• Brand Strategy, Governance & Transformation
  • Act as a strategic guardian of the Mandarin Oriental brand, ensuring that business decisions, property projects, partnerships, campaigns and new initiatives are accurate, distinctive and elevated expressions of the brand.
  • Own the Brand transformation roadmap, translating the Group’s strategic agenda into a clear sequence of priorities, workstreams, milestones and decision points.
  • Develop and maintain the Group’s brand strategy, brand positioning, platform and architecture, ensuring clarity across the masterbrand, sub-brands, product expressions and future growth opportunities.
  • Establish the strategic guardrails and governance approach that help teams make consistent, brand-led decisions while allowing each property and initiative to feel bespoke and locally relevant.
  • Partner with the Director of Brand Experience to ensure those expressions remain tightly linked to the wider brand strategy.
• Brand Positioning, Narrative & Creative Direction
  • Define, protect and continuously sharpen the Mandarin Oriental brand positioning, ensuring it remains distinctive, relevant and commercially powerful in the luxury hospitality landscape.
  • Build and evolve the wider brand universe around the positioning, including the brand platform, narrative territories, strategic messaging, proof points and expression principles.
  • Own the strategic positioning of Mandarin Oriental in the market and against the competitive set.
  • Provide brand creative direction for Group-level campaigns, ensuring creative briefs, concepts and outputs are anchored in the brand positioning.
  • Work closely with Marketing, PR & Communications and external creative partners to ensure campaign ideas are strategically coherent and creatively ambitious.
• Portfolio, Hotel & Project Positioning
  • Lead the strategic positioning work for new hotel, resort and residence projects.
  • Partner with Development, Design & Technical Services, Wellness, F&B, Resorts and Operations from early concept stage through opening readiness.
  • Review and challenge brand-impacting decisions across projects, renovations, repositionings and rebrandings.
  • Build a coherent portfolio narrative, ensuring the Group’s expansion strengthens Mandarin Oriental’s desirability and long-term equity.
• Insights, Customer-Centricity & Strategic Alignment
  • Work closely with the Customer & Market Insights team to ensure brand strategy is grounded in guest segments, behaviours, market dynamics and competitive intelligence.
  • Translate qualitative and quantitative insight into strategic direction.
  • Create alignment across Brand, Marketing, Operations, Development and regional teams.
  • Use insight and governance forums to surface risks and ensure initiatives are prioritised against the Brand transformation roadmap.
• Brand Stewardship & Operating Rhythm
  • Support the Vice President Brand in running the Brand operating rhythm.
  • Serve as a senior advisor to internal teams and external partners on brand strategy.
  • Identify where brand standards, tools, processes or approval gates need to be strengthened.
  • Contribute to the definition of brand success measures.

As Global Director of Brand Strategy, we expect from you:

• Significant professional experience in brand strategy, brand management or strategic marketing roles within luxury hospitality, lifestyle, luxury consumer or high-touch service sectors.
• Proven ability to manage complex brand architectures and strategic transformation agendas.
• Strong understanding of property, product or experience positioning.
• Highly comfortable using customer, market and competitive insight to inform strategic choices.
• Strong creative judgement, with the ability to guide campaign briefs and assess creative concepts.
• Excellent stakeholder management skills.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.
• Structured, organised and comfortable managing a roadmap of interdependent initiatives.
• Culturally astute, globally minded and passionate about luxury, hospitality, craft and brand-led growth.
• Willingness to travel internationally.

Our commitment to you:

• Learning & Development: Your success is our success. We craft unique learning and development programmes for various stages in your career.
• MOstay: As a member of the #MOfamily, you can stay with us wherever you go in the world.
• Health & Colleague Wellness: A variety of health benefits and wellness programmes are offered to all our colleagues, globally.
• Retirement Plans: We offer different retirement plans depending on the length of your service and your role.