Executive Strategy Director New London, United Kingdom

Established in 2004, OLIVER is the world’s first and only specialist in designing, building, and running bespoke in-house agencies and marketing ecosystems for brands. We partner with over 300 clients in 40+ countries and counting. Our unique model drives creativity and efficiency, allowing us to deliver tailored solutions that resonate deeply with audiences. As a part of The Brandtech Group, we're at the forefront of leveraging cutting‑edge AI technology to revolutionise how we create and deliver work. Our AI solutions enhance efficiency, spark creativity, and drive insightful decision-making, empowering our teams to produce innovative and impactful results.

Location: London, United Kingdom (2‑3 days a week from our client's offices)

About the role:

You’ll be the strategic engine behind Dove's social presence, turning audience understanding, cultural signals, and platform data into briefs, frameworks, and recommendations that guide the creative team to produce stand‑out work. Working across always‑on content, campaign activations, creator partnerships, and reactive cultural moments, you’ll ensure Dove's social output is strategically coherent and creatively ambitious.

We're looking for someone who can think at brand level and act at platform level, someone equally comfortable articulating a long‑term content strategy as they are writing a sharp brief for a trending moment on TikTok. Success means social work that is rooted in real insight, aligned with Dove's brand purpose, and demonstrably effective in driving engagement, conversation, and brand affinity.

What you will be doing:

• Lead social‑first strategy for Dove, developing content strategies, campaign platforms, and always‑on frameworks that connect brand purpose to audience behavior on social.
• Mine consumer, cultural, and category insight to identify opportunities for Dove to show up meaningfully in social conversations and cultural moments.
• Translate platform data, social listening, and audience research into actionable creative briefs that give the team a clear strategic springboard.
• Develop audience and community strategies that deepen Dove's connection with diverse audiences across markets and platforms.
• Partner with the creative team to shape ideas from brief through to execution, providing strategic input that sharpens and elevates the work.
• Collaborate with social media managers to align strategic recommendations with publishing plans, platform priorities, and performance learnings.
• Inform creator and influencer strategy, identifying partnership opportunities that are authentic to Dove's brand and relevant to target audiences.
• Present strategic thinking and campaign recommendations to the Dove brand team with clarity, confidence, and a strong point of view.
• Analyze social performance data and campaign results to refine strategy over time, building a continuous learning loop between insight, creative, and outcomes.
• Stay ahead of social platform evolution, emerging audience behaviors, cultural trends, and competitive activity in beauty and personal care.
• Mentor and develop junior strategists within the studio, building strategic capability and fostering a culture of curiosity and rigour.
• Shape strategic processes and tools for the studio, including briefing templates, insight frameworks, and reporting approaches suited to social‑speed workflows.

What you need to be great in this role:

• 8+ years of strategy experience, with a significant focus on social‑first or digital‑first work for consumer brands.
• Deep understanding of social platforms (TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and emerging channels), including how audiences behave, how content is discovered, and what drives engagement.
• A track record of developing strategies that led to effective, measurable social campaigns or content programmes.
• Experience in beauty, personal care, wellness, or FMCG, with a strong grasp of category dynamics, consumer motivations, and cultural context.
• Proven ability to turn research, data, and cultural observation into sharp, actionable briefs and strategic frameworks.
• Experience working with or briefing content creators and influencer partnerships as part of a social content strategy.
• Confidence presenting strategic recommendations to senior brand stakeholders, with the ability to simplify complexity and build conviction.
• Strong analytical skills, with experience using social listening tools, platform analytics, and audience research to inform strategy.
• A collaborative working style, with experience partnering closely with creative, production, and media teams.
• Experience mentoring or developing other strategists.
• Professional proficiency in English; additional languages are a plus.
• Proficiency with Gen AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, research assistants) to enhance insight generation, trend analysis, audience research, and strategic development.
• Agentic mindset: ability to deconstruct complex strategic challenges, map out the most effective approach, and execute with rigor and adaptability.
• Experience using AI to accelerate research, identify patterns in data, and stress‑test strategic hypotheses.
• Understanding of AI capabilities and limitations, with strong critical evaluation of AI‑generated insights and a commitment to human judgement and contextual nuance.
• Ability to guide teams in using AI tools responsibly and effectively within the strategic process.
• Formal degrees are welcome but not required. Equivalent experience counts. Experience can be gained through work, study, volunteering, or self‑directed learning.
• Experience working on Dove or Unilever brands.
• Multi‑market or global brand strategy experience, with an understanding of adapting social strategy across regions and audiences.
• Experience in a social‑specialist, in‑house, or embedded agency environment.
• Familiarity with social commerce, community management strategy, or earned media approaches.
• Experience with brand purpose, inclusion, or social impact strategy.
• Knowledge of the evolving regulatory and ethical landscape in beauty marketing.

Our values shape everything we do:

• Be Imaginative to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
• Be always learning and listening to understand.
• Be actively pro‑inclusive and anti‑racist across our community, clients and creations.

OLIVER, a part of the Brandtech Group, is an equal opportunity employer committed to creating an inclusive working environment where all employees are encouraged to reach their full potential, and individual differences are valued and respected. All applicants shall be considered for employment without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, neurodivergence, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by local laws.

OLIVER has set ambitious environmental goals around sustainability, with science‑based emissions reduction targets. Collectively, we work towards our mission, embedding sustainability into every department and through every stage of the project lifecycle.