Senior Strategist

Senior StrategistLocation: Hackney, London, with three studio days each weekSalary: c£60,000 plus profit shareExperience: Five years or more in a relevant strategy roleAbout StitchyStitchy is the post-social agency, built for a world in which social media is no longer a channel sitting at the edge of marketing, but the operating environment through which culture moves, platforms learn and brands are increasingly discovered, experienced and remembered. We are a strategy-led agebcy, so this role sits right at the heart of the business.Social and marketing science sit at the heart of everything we do, even when the strategic answer is not “social”. We combine an understanding of platforms, creators, feeds and contemporary culture with the established principles of brand growth, mental availability, distinctive assets and memory formation, using both to determine what a brand needs rather than allowing channel convention to dictate the solution.We believe brands grow by becoming easier to recognise, retrieve and predict across fragmented encounters, which requires stable, distinctive patterns that people and platforms can learn over time. Our work brings together brand strategy, social, creators, modern media and creativity to help clients build coherent systems that compound, rather than producing disconnected campaigns that disappear as quickly as they arrive.We are looking for a Senior Strategist who understands that modern strategy cannot stop at positioning, propositions or presentation decks. It must shape how a brand behaves across platforms and environments, impose meaningful choices and give clients a practical system for producing better, more recognisable work over time.The roleThe Senior Strategist will be a central member of Stitchy’s growing strategic team, working closely with our founders and alongside our CSO to lead important client relationships, develop distinctive strategic thinking and turn complex business and brand problems into clear, consequential direction.You will work across brand, platforms, social, creators and modern media, bringing together cultural understanding, analytical rigour and creative instinct. You will be expected to care deeply about the quality of the work, contribute actively to its development and challenge thinking that is familiar, fashionable or insufficiently grounded in how brands actually grow.This is not a role for someone who sees strategy as the production of decks or the translation of client requests into creative briefs. We are looking for someone who wants to help shape an agency’s intellectual product, codify a distinctive strategic process and build work that can influence both our clients and the wider industry.What you will do* Lead strategic work across major client relationships alongside our CSO, becoming a trusted adviser who can move confidently between business challenges, brand decisions, platform dynamics and creative development.* Diagnose the real constraints on growth and translate them into focused strategic choices, clear operating principles and coherent actions that clients and creative teams can use.* Develop brand strategies and Brand Operating Systems that connect positioning, distinctive assets, category entry points, creator behaviours, social formats, media environments and rules for repetition.* Place social thinking at the centre of the strategic process, understanding how brands are learned through feeds, platforms, creators and culture, while retaining the judgement to recognise when social is not the answer.* Work closely with creative and production teams throughout the process, helping to ensure that strong strategic thinking becomes distinctive, effective work rather than remaining trapped in a presentation.* Bring a sophisticated understanding of platforms, social behaviour, creator ecosystems and modern media, recognising that channels are not neutral distribution pipes but different cognitive and cultural environments.* Anchor recommendations in marketing science, including mental availability, distinctive assets, penetration, memory formation and the importance of broad reach, while avoiding the empty application of theory for its own sake.* Help codify and strengthen Stitchy’s strategic process, creating practical frameworks, tools and ways of working that make our thinking more consistent, teachable and valuable.* Play a leading role in new business, from diagnosing the opportunity and shaping the strategic argument through to writing the response and presenting with conviction.* Conduct and interpret research without confusing description with strategy, using evidence to sharpen judgement rather than allowing data to replace it.* Write with clarity and intelligence across briefs, strategic narratives, thought leadership, pitches and client recommendations.* Contribute to the intellectual life of the agency by bringing new perspectives, questioning received wisdom and helping Stitchy continue to develop a distinctive point of view.What we are looking forYou will have at least five years of experience in strategy, ideally gained within a creative, social, brand, media or integrated agency environment, although we are more interested in the quality of your thinking and work than the neatness of your career path.You should be:* Well versed in platforms, modern media, brand strategy and social, with a clear understanding of how algorithmic feeds, creator ecosystems and fragmented exposure have changed the conditions in which brands are built.* Creatively inclined and genuinely invested in the work, with the instinct to make ideas better and the willingness to stay involved beyond the strategic presentation.* Grounded in marketing science, but capable of applying it intelligently and pragmatically rather than treating established principles as a substitute for thought.* Comfortable leading senior client relationships, establishing trust through judgement, candour and a strong understanding of the client’s commercial reality.* Excellent at new business, with the ability to identify the real problem, construct a compelling argument, write persuasively and present with authority.* A strong communicator whose writing is precise, engaging and free from unnecessary complexity.* Analytically capable, with the ability to interrogate evidence, distinguish signal from noise and form a defensible point of view when the answer is not obvious.* Confident working closely with founders who are established and regarded within the industry, while bringing your own judgement rather than waiting to be directed.* Motivated by the opportunity to help codify a growing agency’s strategic product and influence how Stitchy develops.* Able to work from our Hackney studio at least three days each week.What you will getWe have big ambitions. You will join an ambitious, extremely fast-growth independent agency at a stage when your contribution can materially shape the business, its work and its reputation, while working directly with founders who have built successful agencies and developed recognised perspectives on strategy, creativity and modern brand building.The role offers a salary of £60,000 plus profit share and benefits, meaningful access to clients and decision-making, considerable influence over Stitchy’s strategic direction and the opportunity to help build an agency around a clear belief: the goal of modern marketing is not simply to make brands visible, but to make them learnable.