Mid Level Creative Strategist

Role Intent

The Creative Strategist leads defined workstreams within projects, ensuring strategic thinking is clear, structured, actionable, and connected to meaningful experience outcomes.

This role is responsible for independently leading key parts of the strategy process—from research and synthesis through to framework development, workshop facilitation, storytelling, and client engagement. You take ownership of your workstreams while collaborating closely with multidisciplinary teams to ensure strategy informs every aspect of the experience.

This is a hands-on strategy role. You are expected to actively contribute to the thinking, guide junior strategists, engage confidently with clients, and help translate business, brand, customer, and experience challenges into clear strategic direction.

This role is suited for strategists, designers, consultants, researchers, or experience thinkers with 3–6 years of experience in strategy, design, consulting, research, innovation, brand, experience design, or related fields who are ready to independently own strategic workstreams, facilitate discussions, and deliver high-quality strategic outcomes.

What You Do

1. Research and Discovery

   • Plan and conduct qualitative and quantitative research activities across projects

   • Lead stakeholder interviews, customer research, market analysis, audits, and precedent studies

   • Identify meaningful behavioural, cultural, operational, and business insights

   • Evaluate research findings critically and identify emerging opportunity areas

   • Ensure research activities provide a strong foundation for strategic decision-making

   • Translate research into clear evidence that informs experience design

   • Insight and Strategy Development

   • Synthesize research into clear insights, opportunity areas, and strategic recommendations

   • Develop strategic frameworks that connect customer needs, business objectives, and experience opportunities

   • Define experience principles, value propositions, audience strategies, and success criteria

   • Translate ambiguity into structured thinking and actionable direction

   • Ensure strategic recommendations are evidence-based, relevant, and practical

   • Protect the integrity of the strategic thinking throughout the project

2. Experience Strategy and Service Design

   • Lead the development of customer journeys across physical, digital, and human touchpoints

   • Develop personas, audience frameworks, ecosystem maps, and service concepts

   • Define human outcomes alongside business objectives

   • Shape experience strategies that influence service design, operational thinking, communications, digital experiences, and environments

   • Connect strategic thinking across multiple customer touchpoints

   • Ensure recommendations create meaningful customer and business impact

3. Workshops and Facilitation

   • Plan and facilitate workshops, co-creation sessions, stakeholder interviews, and working sessions

   • Structure discussions that help clients and project teams align around opportunities and decisions

   • Capture workshop outputs and translate them into actionable strategic direction

   • Encourage collaboration across disciplines and stakeholders

   • Help build alignment around project priorities and experience vision

   • Facilitate productive conversations that move projects forward

4. Storytelling and Strategic Communication

   • Build compelling narratives that communicate strategic thinking clearly

   • Structure presentations, frameworks, and strategy documents that connect insight to action

   • Present work confidently to internal teams and clients

   • Translate complex ideas into simple, persuasive communication

   • Ensure recommendations are clearly documented and easy to understand

   • Help clients understand not only what is being recommended, but why it matters

5. Project Leadership

   • Lead defined strategy workstreams from discovery through delivery

   • Take ownership of timelines, deliverables, and quality within your scope

   • Coordinate with multidisciplinary teams to ensure strategy informs creative, digital, and spatial outcomes

   • Proactively identify risks, dependencies, and opportunities

   • Ensure strategic outputs are clear, actionable, and ready for implementation

   • Deliver work that balances strategic ambition with project realities

6. Team Development

   • Support and mentor Junior Creative Strategists

   • Review work and provide constructive feedback

   • Share knowledge, tools, and ways of working with the wider team

   • Help create a collaborative and supportive project environment

   • Contribute to raising the overall quality of strategic thinking across the team

   • Lead by example through curiosity, accountability, and strong project discipline

7. Collaboration Across Disciplines

   • Work closely with Communications & Digital to ensure strategy informs storytelling, content, and digital experiences

   • Collaborate with Environments to translate strategic thinking into physical experiences

   • Support multidisciplinary teams in connecting customer insight with design decisions

   • Align business objectives, customer needs, and creative outcomes across disciplines

   • Ensure strategy contributes to one coherent experience across every touchpoint

   • Build strong working relationships across project teams

How You Show Up

You take ownership of your work and move it forward with confidence.

You bring clarity to complexity and connect research, insight, and strategy into meaningful experience outcomes. You work independently while collaborating openly with others, knowing when to lead, when to listen, and when to seek input.

You show up with:

• Strong ownership and accountability

• Strategic curiosity

• Structured thinking

• Confidence in client interactions

• Clear communication

• Strong facilitation skills

• Collaboration across disciplines

• Initiative and problem-solving

• Attention to detail

• Commitment to continuous learning

You understand that strategy succeeds when it creates clarity, builds alignment, and leads to meaningful action.

What Good Looks Like

• Research is insightful, relevant, and well structured

• Strategic thinking connects customer needs with business outcomes

• Frameworks, journeys, and recommendations are actionable and easy to understand

• Workshops build alignment and generate productive outcomes

• Clients trust your thinking and engage confidently with your recommendations

• Junior strategists feel supported and continue to develop

• Teams work collaboratively around a shared strategic direction

• Risks and opportunities are identified early

• Strategic outputs consistently support better design and business decisions

• You contribute positively to project quality and team capability

What This Role Is Not

This role is not limited to executing tasks assigned by others.

It is not focused solely on producing presentations or documentation.
It is not about waiting for direction before taking action.

The Creative Strategist is expected to independently own workstreams, contribute original thinking, and actively move projects forward while supporting the wider team.

Collaboration

You will work closely with:

• Creative Strategy team, leading defined strategy workstreams and supporting project delivery

• Communications & Digital, ensuring strategy informs narrative, content, and digital experiences

• Environments, ensuring strategy translates into spatial and physical experiences

• Clients and stakeholders, facilitating discussions, presenting work, and building alignment across projects

You help ensure strategy connects people, business, brand, and experience into one coherent direction.

Qualities

You should demonstrate:

• Strong ownership mindset

• Confidence communicating with clients and teams

• Structured and analytical thinking

• Curiosity and empathy

• Strong facilitation capability

• Clear storytelling

• Collaborative leadership

• Initiative and problem-solving

• Adaptability under pressure

• Commitment to continuous improvement

Skills and Qualifications

• 3–6 years of experience in strategy, design, consulting, research, innovation, or related fields

• Degree or equivalent in Design, Business, Psychology, Anthropology, Communications, Marketing, Social Sciences, Experience Design, or a related discipline

• Proven experience contributing to end-to-end strategy projects

• Strong research, synthesis, and insight development capability

• Experience developing customer journeys, personas, experience strategies, and service design outputs

• Experience planning and facilitating workshops

• Strong storytelling, presentation, and communication skills

• Ability to build strategic frameworks and narratives independently

• Comfortable working across multidisciplinary teams

• Proficiency in Keynote, Google Slides, Miro, Notion, or equivalent collaboration and presentation tools

• Portfolio demonstrating clear thinking, structured outputs, and real project impact

Additional Strengths (Plus)

• Experience across multiple sectors or industries

• Experience contributing to business development or proposals

• Knowledge of behavioural science, design research, or service design

• Ability to translate strategy into digital, spatial, or operational experiences

• Strong visual communication skills

• Interest in organisational transformation and experience innovation

Commercial Expectations

• Maintain 85% billable utilisation

• Deliver work that meets both creative and commercial expectations

• Take ownership of defined workstreams, ensuring quality, timeliness, and value to the client

• Support project teams in delivering successful strategic outcomes

Growth Path

Success in this role is defined by the ability to independently lead strategic workstreams, facilitate client conversations, and consistently deliver clear, actionable strategy that shapes meaningful experiences.

Progression is based on:

• Leading increasingly complex phases of work

• Strengthening strategic judgment and client influence

• Developing deeper facilitation and storytelling capability

• Supporting and mentoring junior strategists

• Driving stronger multidisciplinary collaboration

• Contributing to project quality and broader team capability

• Progressing toward broader strategic leadership as a Senior Creative Strategist