Associate Vice President, Strategy

Job description

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for an Associate Vice President, Strategy based in United States.** This senior leadership role oversees the Strategy discipline within a multidisciplinary brand and digital agency environment. You will shape strategic methodologies, raise the quality of strategic work, and guide complex engagements from research through activation. The position combines strategic leadership, team development, partner advisory, and business growth responsibilities. You will help teams transform research and stakeholder insights into clear recommendations that drive meaningful organizational and fundraising outcomes. As a trusted senior advisor, you will facilitate executive conversations, navigate complex stakeholders, and create alignment around critical decisions. You will also collaborate closely with Creative, Operations, Business Development, and Leadership to strengthen integrated delivery and agency capabilities. This is an opportunity to define the evolution of a growing Strategy discipline while developing talented strategists and contributing to mission-driven work. ### Accountabilities: - Lead the Strategy discipline, establishing clear standards, methodologies, frameworks, tools, and best practices that strengthen the quality and consistency of strategic work. - Directly manage, coach, and develop Strategy team members through regular one-on-ones, performance reviews, development planning, and ongoing feedback. - Establish expectations and accountability for strategic excellence while fostering a culture of curiosity, collaboration, candor, and continuous learning. - Support hiring, onboarding, career development, and capability building across the Strategy team. - Identify opportunities for team members to expand their skills and strategic capabilities while serving as the primary advocate for the discipline. - Own and continuously evolve strategic methodologies and processes, ensuring they are documented, scalable, effective, and consistently applied. - Develop training resources and guidance that elevate strategic capabilities across the team and broader organization. - Maintain strategic quality standards across the portfolio and serve as a senior reviewer for key recommendations, presentations, and deliverables. - Provide guidance on complex partner situations, ensuring recommendations are grounded in research, stakeholder insights, organizational realities, fundraising objectives, and partner goals. - Identify emerging trends, opportunities, risks, and innovations that can strengthen strategic offerings and improve the effectiveness of engagements. - Ensure strategic thinking translates into compelling creative, digital, campaign, and activation outcomes. - Maintain oversight across partner accounts, identifying risks and opportunities and providing senior-level guidance when needed. - Lead complex, high-profile engagements from discovery through activation, including research, analysis, strategic development, and implementation guidance. - Serve as a senior advisor to partner leadership teams and facilitate executive workshops, strategic planning sessions, and alignment conversations. - Guide strategic recommendations across positioning, messaging, naming, campaign strategy, donor engagement, and activation. - Partner with Creative and Operations leaders to align strategic direction, execution, and the overall partner experience. - Identify opportunities to deepen relationships, expand engagements, and create additional value as partner priorities evolve. - Support business development through discovery conversations, proposal development, partner pitches, strategic narratives, case studies, and presentations. - Contribute strategic and fundraising expertise throughout the business development process and help shape solutions around partner needs. - Serve as a senior agency leader by contributing to annual planning, departmental goals, strategic initiatives, innovation, and organizational priorities. - Champion strategic thinking and cross-functional collaboration across departments. - Contribute to thought leadership through speaking, writing, training, and knowledge sharing. - Act as a steward of organizational values, professional standards, and commitment to excellence. - Balance strategic thinking with practical execution while effectively managing time, priorities, budgets, and scope across multiple engagements. **Requirements:** - 10+ years of experience leading strategy engagements involving research, analysis, insight development, and strategic direction. - Significant experience within a brand, creative, or digital agency environment is strongly preferred. - Demonstrated success developing strategists, evolving strategic methodologies, and leading complex partner engagements. - Strong understanding of branding and how strategy translates across messaging, visual identity, digital experiences, campaigns, and activation. - Experience leading executive-level conversations, workshops, strategic planning sessions, and stakeholder alignment discussions. - Exceptional ability to uncover meaningful insights, challenge assumptions, create clarity from complexity, and translate research into actionable recommendations. - Strong relationship-building skills, with the ability to earn trust, manage senior stakeholders, and cultivate long-term partner relationships. - Demonstrated ability to identify opportunities for account growth, support renewals, and contribute to business development and expanded engagements. - Strong leadership and coaching capabilities, with a genuine commitment to developing people and strengthening team performance. - Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to confidently present and defend recommendations. - Strong facilitation, storytelling, analytical, and problem-solving capabilities. - Ability to navigate ambiguity, competing priorities, and complex stakeholder dynamics with sound judgment, empathy, and confidence. - Highly organized, proactive, curious, adaptable, and collaborative working style. - Ability to balance rigor and strategic thinking with practical execution and partner needs. - Experience in the nonprofit and fundraising sector is highly valued. - Passion for helping mission-driven organizations build brands and campaigns that inspire generosity and advance their missions. - Ability to work effectively in a fully distributed environment and collaborate across multidisciplinary teams. - Willingness to travel as required for partner engagements and team activities. - Candidates must currently reside in the continental United States. **Benefits:** - Full-time, salaried position with compensation commensurate with experience. - Fully remote position within a distributed team environment. - Travel opportunities associated with partner engagements and strategic work. - Opportunity to lead and shape an entire Strategy discipline within a multidisciplinary agency. - Significant leadership and professional development opportunities. - Opportunity to coach and develop strategists while building scalable methodologies and capabilities. - Exposure to high-profile strategic engagements spanning research, branding, campaigns, digital experiences, and activation. - Opportunity to work closely with senior leaders, creative professionals, operations teams, and business development stakeholders. - Meaningful work supporting nonprofit and mission-driven organizations and their fundraising efforts. - Opportunities to contribute to thought leadership, training, innovation, and broader organizational initiatives. - Collaborative culture grounded in integrity, candor, empathy, responsibility, and continuous learning.