Sr. Director, Strategy

Senior Director, Strategy

Location:

New York City (Hybrid / Near NYC Office)

We drive intelligent growth for ambitious businesses and leading brands. Customer understanding is more potent when insights are directly applied within marketing and experience priorities. Much of our work involves connecting consumer intelligence with customer demand generation to build lasting relationships.

Aruliden, a world‑class global design agency, is part of Material. This senior, client‑facing role at the intersection of design, brand, culture, and commerce seeks a strategist who combines rigorous inquiry with creative ambition. As Senior Director of Strategy, you will lead the strategic backbone of a multidisciplinary design practice and grow the practice through exceptional thinking and client relationships.

Strategy Leadership & Client Engagement

Lead the strategic vision for complex, multi‑capability client engagements across brand, product, digital experience, packaging, and go‑to‑market work. Serve as the senior strategic voice in client relationships and translate business challenges into design and brand opportunities. Drive discovery, insight synthesis, and strategic framing at the outset of projects and develop strategy frameworks that connect consumer understanding to creative decision‑making, ensuring coherence across deliverables.

Team Leadership & Practice Development

Lead, mentor, and develop a small dedicated team of strategists embedded within the Design Service Line. Establish a strategic methodology that meets design‑led engagement demands, build the team’s craft, create a learning environment, and define the strategy team’s role across the service line.

Business Development & Growth

Actively participate in new business development, originating opportunities, leading pitch strategy, and articulating the value of strategy‑led design work. Build client relationships that generate organic growth, contribute to scope development, writing proposals, and meet revenue targets for the strategy practice.

Cross‑Capability Collaboration

Partner with leaders of industrial design, digital experience, product design, brand design, and creative services to integrate strategy into the full arc of work. Support content and creative strategies, create client‑facing narratives, case studies, and champion a culture of curiosity across the Design Service Line.

Growth Strategy Community of Practice

Engage as an affiliate member of Material’s Growth Strategy community, contributing new strategy offerings, frameworks, methodologies, and insights across the broader strategy community.

• 12+ years of strategy experience in design consultancies, brand agencies, innovation firms, or integrated creative organizations with a track record of leading complex, multi‑disciplinary engagements.
• Experience across design strategy, brand strategy, and content or channel strategy, moving flexibly between them.
• A portfolio that demonstrates strategic rigor and creative partnership, where strategy has shaped design outcomes.
• Experience building and leading small high‑performing strategy teams with a coaching orientation.
• Proven ability to develop new client relationships and contribute to business growth, comfortable in a selling environment.

• Exceptional strategic thinking, synthesizing complex information and framing opportunities to move people to action.
• Strong qualitative and cultural intelligence: ethnographic research, trend analysis, cultural mapping, consumer insight, with judgment on appropriate tools.
• Ability to design and direct research inquiries, and translate findings into strategic narratives.
• Outstanding communication skills: clear writer and presenter who can hold a room with clients, inspire a creative team, and articulate strategy value.
• Fluency in the language of design, partnering effectively with industrial designers, experience designers, brand designers, and creative directors.
• Comfort as a player‑coach: capable of delivering high‑level work while developing people around you.
• Collaborative, generative spirit that improves work by being present.

$ – $ (Location specific; exact amount may vary based on skill set.)

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other factors prohibited by law.