Executive Director, Strategy

About Us
Cheil Worldwide is the 11th-largest creative agency in the world. Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, we were founded by Samsung in 1973 to grow its local and global business. While Samsung is still one of our main clients, our roster has evolved to include other globally recognized brands such as Adidas, Coca-Cola, ESPN, Lego, Nivea, PayPal, Starbucks and many more.

Cheil Dallas serves as the lead agency for all Samsung projects in North America and is located steps from their office at Legacy Central in Plano, Texas. It's the home base for more than 200 creative problem-solvers who share a passion for developing groundbreaking ideas rooted in data, driven by insights and enabled by innovative technology.

And that brings us to you... or rather you to us. Pushing boundaries beyond traditional advertising requires a curious mind undeterred by the never-been-done. We need a thinker and doer who's eager to explore new ways to connect with consumers beyond offering a product. If blending analytics with intuition and imagination makes your eyes sparkle, read on!

About the Role
The head of this team will build and lead a talented a group that provides strategic leadership for all work delivered by Cheil Dallas. You'll be working together with Creative, Account, PMO, Production and Tech as partners to deliver strategy rooted in powerful storytelling, formulated frameworks that place logic above all else, while taking on the uber-modern twist of incorporating measurement, data, insights and optimizations as part of your epic plan. You'll be working alongside the brains of the operation, from omnichannel strategists, campaign strategists, data activators and insights extractors to performance-based media experts.

So if you're into data and its power of influence in modern-age strategy and can convert that into tangible and actionable plans, you're in the right place and, yes, at the perfect time.

About You
Who you are is just as important as (if not more important than!) what you can do.

• You're a confident, trusted strategic planner who can create and deliver compelling stories to senior clients.
• You bring wisdom and weight to any strategic discussion, tossing back and forth ideas with industry and trend expertise that sparks dialogue and conversations. You're not afraid of different views in a debate.
• You know how to get fluff out of the air and transform it into tangible matter, to translate it into actionable and simple-to-understand logic, with high-caliber framework creations with insights rooted in research that lead the creative team to smart concepts.
• You're a smart communicator and problem-solver, with a successful track record of steering high-profile strategies that span across brand, omni-channel and data-driven performance marketing.
• Proactive at heart, you're a self-starter who seeks out ways to bring to life opportunities to elaborate, improve and inform internal and client briefs.
• You enjoy initiating powerful ideas and collaborating with subject-matter experts.
• You're passionate about learning new trends, new skill sets, and nearly everything about people and human behavior.
• You prefer a fast-paced agency environment, working across a variety of capabilities including creative, media, digital experiences, social, retail, experiential and beyond.
• You thrive on data and have a deep understanding of performance-marketing initiatives and sales-driving tactics.
• You can create mind-boggling presentation decks / plans that spark thoughts, dialogue and a lot of nodding of the heads.
• You're always compassionate, curious, and friendly but never afraid to challenge the status quo
• You're an experienced people leader with the ability to build, teach and grow the strategy team
• You carry the Cheil DNA: You can be both a leader and a doer who doesn't wait around - you're always willing to roll up your sleeves and get in on the action.

Your Responsibilities
Like you, this job is multidimensional. And every aspect is crucial to creating culturally relevant work.

• Your role is integral to leading, planning and delivering best-in-class strategic thought leadership across our client portfolio and new business prospects,with work spanning from creative campaigns, retail, experiential, digital, social, influencers and partnerships to next-level innovative solutions.

Day-to-day responsibilities - you'll:

• Serve as the strategic lead for the Dallas office, overseeing and owning strategy and data across all projects and agency teams
• Be the strategic champion and thought leader representing Cheil Dallas to senior client leadership
• Supervise teams comprised of omnichannel and campaign strategists and data-driven experts
• Formulate, develop and enhance strategic processes and frameworks that can be applied from briefing and planning to measurement and optimization stages
• Steer all briefs, plans and proposals with integrity and consistency, with hands-on involvement in creating presentation decks
• Provide POVs and insights at client and/or agency business levels
• Analyze data and monitor trends to uncover key insights and shape them into strategic recommendations
• Work alongside reporting and measurement teams to translate data into actionable optimizations
• Inspire with knowledge and lead with passion, guiding strategic discussions based on subject-matter expertise for agency teams and clients
• Build proposals and go-to-market plans based on logical and impactful storytelling
• Guide team members with best-in-class strategy knowledge and strengthen each member's capabilities
• Act as conduit for Cheil Worldwide's Centers of Excellence in Performance Marketing and Data Analytics
• Collaborate with business, creative and activation teams to ensure strategic alignment throughout
• Collaborate with Cheil network offices on projects and interagency workshops
• Create a best-in-class, performance-based strategy practice to become the Center of Excellence across the Cheil global network
• Reports to: Chief Operating Officer

About the Requirements

• 15+ years in strategy / account planning at an agency
• Experience in consumer electronics, communications or technology industry is a plus
• Must have senior client-facing experience, with the skills to present to C-level clients
• Understanding of data - measurements and KPIs, analytics, insights-driven optimization
• Diverse experience in agency functions ranging from brand, digital, experiential, retail, social and influencer strategy development and knowledge of how to leverage them to achieve marketing and program goals
• Can clearly and persuasively communicate strategic recommendations to internal and external audiences who have variable levels of understanding
• Deep understanding of and experience in consumer research (qual and quant) and a grasp of a wide range of approaches; facility with interpreting research, knowing the difference between an observation and an insight and how to best apply each to marketing strategies
• Ability to collaborate with the creative team in developing concepts and campaigns
• Comfortable working in a multichannel environment - able to be the team's trusted strategy voice through an understanding of retail, experiential, digital and social platforms, able to leverage insights and translate them into creative briefs and client presentations
• Proactive and savvy in identifying potential challenges for the business and not being afraid to take the lead in raising and addressing them
• Able to drive conversations and thought leadership with senior leadership agency-wide and with clients
• Deep understanding of how media platforms (digital, retail, experiential) work together to support one strategic concept
• A hands-on and proactive self-starter mindset