Chief Strategy Officer

Company Overview

Zinc Network has over fifteen years of experience helping governments and businesses navigate complex challenges through communications, technology, and behavioural science. We tackle tough briefs such as protecting children online, strengthening democratic resilience, and preventing violent extremism. Working in partnership with a global network of media outlets, communities, and influencers, we help clients understand complex issues, design and deliver behavioural interventions, create compelling campaigns, activate trusted grassroots networks, and evaluate impact.

We are building Kora – an AI‑powered platform that systemsises this expertise into scalable technology, enabling clients to work faster, more impactfully, and more cost-effectively.

Zinc is seeking a Chief Strategy Officer to lead our strategic, research, creative, and digital capabilities. Reporting to the Managing Director, the Chief Strategy Officer will oversee the Head of Research and MREL, Creative Director, Head of Digital, and a team of strategists, working closely with the Kora team to integrate AI and technology into our work. They will lead the technical vision for business development, ensure technical excellence across all our project outputs, drive innovation in how we work, reinforce Zinc as a thought leader around the emerging issues of the day, and ensure Zinc remains at the forefront of behaviour change and strategic communications practice.

This role demands deep expertise in intervention design, behaviour change, and strategic communications, as well as the ability to lead multidisciplinary creative and insight teams. We seek a systems thinker who can translate complex problems into compelling solutions and build rigorous and scalable methodologies. The ideal candidate is motivated by delivering real impact for our clients, has an agile, campaign‑mindset, and wants to win.

• Technical Leadership and Innovation
  • Lead the Head of Research and MREL, Creative Director, Head of Digital, and team of strategists — ensuring these functions operate as a high‑performing, integrated unit
  • Drive technical excellence and innovation across all of our project delivery including strategy, research, evaluation, digital, and creative work
  • Work closely with the Kora Director to advance our AI and technology capabilities, ensuring the teams use Kora to enhance how we deliver insight, design interventions, and measure impact
  • Champion quality standards across all client deliverables
  • Codify and continuously improve Zinc's methodologies across research and analysis, strategic planning, creative, digital, and campaigning
• Technical Leadership for New Business
  • Lead and write technical sections of major bids and proposals, ensuring they are strategically sound, methodologically rigorous, and creatively ambitious
  • Ensure programming and strategy teams are developing new opportunities with existing clients by providing a steady drumbeat of ideas for innovations and uplifts
  • Work with our Head of BD to map future opportunities, based on emerging policy issues and priorities
  • Design innovative methodologies that differentiate Zinc's offer and demonstrate our expertise to government clients
  • Work with the Head of BD to identify opportunities where Zinc's technical capabilities create competitive advantage
  • Identify and attend fora where Zinc can build its reputation and convert that into new clients and projects
• Strategy, Research, and Measurement
  • Ensure tight integration between research, strategy, and MREL functions — so insights inform design, evaluation demonstrates impact, and learning is used to optimise our approach
  • Oversee development of strategic frameworks and behavioural change approaches that advance Zinc's practice
  • Drive quality assurance for research design, data analysis, and evaluation methodologies
  • Ensure all of our analytical products are rigorous, concise, compelling, and actionable
  • Build Zinc's reputation for thought leadership in behaviour change, strategic communications, and influence operations
• Digital and Creative Excellence
  • Guide digital innovation, ensuring Zinc adopts emerging technologies and…