Global Strategy Lead - FMCG & Brands

You've done your time on the tools. You know how to build an insight, write a brief that excites a creative team, and hold your ground in a client room. This role is the next step: leading the strategic direction on iconic global and UK brands, with the creative ambition and commercial rigour to match.

You'll operate with confidence across client, creative and planning teams. You'll be the trusted strategic voice in the room - not just the person who fills the deck before the meeting. You know how brands work. You know how people work. And you're hungry to prove that communications can make a measurable difference.

This is one of the world's most recognisable brands - and this role puts you at the centre of defining what it stands for culturally. Our work on this client has won the APG Grand Prix, Effie, WARC and IPA Awards. This is a rare opportunity to build on a genuinely celebrated body of work.

You'll define the creative strategy for global frameworks and individual market activations, working closely with the social team to bring ideas to life in culture. You'll need:

• A sharp instinct for cultural relevance; the ability to identify the partnerships, moments and platforms that make a famous brand feel genuinely alive to people.
• The ability to set creative strategy at a global level while adapting it meaningfully for individual markets; holding the tension between consistency and local resonance.
• Comfort working alongside a social content team, understanding the strategic role of social in building cultural momentum rather than just distributing messages.
• A willingness to get into commerce activation and measurement, contributing to effectiveness projects and helping build the evidence base for future work.

This is an opportunity to work on the most beloved confectionery brands in the UK, names that have earned their place in British culture over generations. On this client, no two briefs look the same, and that's precisely what makes it compelling.

You'll work across two distinct strategic challenges: activating the iconic brand platform for UK audiences, and originating new campaigns, including long-running brand platforms for sub brands and high-stakes seasonal work for a UK household name for the festive period. You'll need:

• The ability to flex between global platform stewardship and originating genuinely fresh, locally resonant campaign thinking.
• Comfort across the full media mix mass media, social, retail media, and the strategic judgement to know what role each plays.
• A working knowledge of data strategy and measurement, with the ability to partner with data teams to build audience strategies and demonstrate effectiveness.
• An appreciation of how iconic brand equities can be both protected and evolved, without losing the magic that made them famous.

• Own the strategic direction on your accounts with autonomy and confidence, from brief intake to creative sell-in.
• Write compelling, insightful creative briefs that take genuine leaps
• Build and sustain trusted relationships with mid-to-senior clients, positioning yourself as a strategic partner, not just a supplier.
• Actively contribute to new business pitches and proactive strategic thinking that opens new revenue opportunities for the agency.
• Manage and mentor junior strategists, setting high standards and investing in their development.
• Drive effectiveness thinking across your accounts, building measurement into briefs from the start.
• Contribute to departmental initiatives and help raise the quality of strategic output across the strategy team.

• Quality and ambition of strategic output; measured through client satisfaction, creative outcomes, awards and peer review.
• Client satisfaction and trust; evidenced by client retention, scope growth and qualitative feedback.
• Effectiveness outcomes; demonstrated through post-campaign evaluation, effectiveness award entries and proof of commercial impact.
• Team development; progress & support of direct reports.
• Pitch contribution; proactive ideas and strategic inputs that meaningfully advance new business prospects.

• A self-starting strategist who takes autonomous ownership of clients and briefs, you don't wait to be told what to do.
• Analytically rigorous and creatively alive. You're as comfortable reading a balance sheet as you are writing a brief that sparks brilliant creative work.
• A confident, empathetic storyteller. Your decks are clear, compelling and built around a single-minded idea.
• Commercially literate. You understand what drives your client's business and you connect communications strategy to business outcomes.
• Culturally curious. You're a sponge for what's happening in the world, and you know how to bring that into the work.
• A generous team player and a demanding but fair manager. You want the people around you to be better.

• Proven experience as a strategist in an integrated creative, CX or commerce agency environment.
• A portfolio of strategic work that demonstrates the ability to take real creative leaps, not just competent briefs.
• Deep fluency in comms and channel planning, with an understanding of how to orchestrate ideas across mass media, social, retail and digital.
• Experience managing and developing junior strategists.
• Confidence with data, from research interpretation to building effectiveness cases.
• An appetite for AI tools and a genuine curiosity about how they can sharpen and accelerate strategic practice. Familiarity with WPP Open is a plus.
• Demonstrable experience working on pitches and contributing to winning new business.

• The chance to work on globally famous brands, with a track record of award-winning strategy to build on.
• A strategy department that invests seriously in learning, development and career progression.
• A genuinely integrated agency model, where strategy works alongside world-class creative, data, CX and technology capabilities.
• A culture that values brave thinking, honest feedback and the courage to push for better work.
• A competitive package, hybrid working and access to the full suite of WPP and WML benefits.

WPP (VML) is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.