Director, Commerce Strategy & Retail Media Planning

Job Description

The Commerce & Retail Media team at dentsu helps clients navigate an increasingly complex commerce ecosystem by connecting business objectives, retailer priorities, shopper behavior, eCommerce growth opportunities, and retail media investment strategies. We are looking for a strategic, collaborative, and experienced leader to join our growing Commerce organization.

As the Director, Commerce Strategy & Retail Media Planning, you will serve as a strategic lead responsible for translating client business priorities into clear, actionable commerce and retail media strategies across key retail partners, including Amazon, Walmart, Target, Kroger, Instacart, and other retail media networks. This role acts as the strategic bridge between Client Service, Planning, Activation, Analytics, retailer partners, and client stakeholders to ensure commerce programs are grounded in clear objectives, thoughtfully prioritized investments, aligned KPIs, and actionable planning outputs.

This role reports to the VP, Commerce & Retail Media.

• Lead the development of integrated commerce and retail media strategies that connect client business objectives, retailer priorities, shopper behavior, eCommerce goals, and media opportunities.
• Translate complex business challenges into clear strategic recommendations, planning frameworks, and commerce roadmaps.
• Shape annual, quarterly, and campaign-level commerce planning initiatives across priority retailers, brands, and business units.
• Identify opportunities where retail media investments can accelerate sales growth, support customer priorities, drive new-to-brand acquisition, improve share performance, and strengthen retailer partnerships.
• Develop strategic POVs, recommendations, thought leadership, and planning frameworks that inform client investment decisions.

• Lead strategic retailer prioritization and investment planning across retail media networks.
• Develop budget allocation recommendations, investment rationale, and scenario planning models aligned to business objectives.
• Create retailer-specific planning approaches that reflect customer priorities, market opportunities, and commerce growth objectives.
• Connect Joint Business Plan (JBP) priorities, shopper insights, eCommerce objectives, and media opportunities into a unified planning narrative.
• Partner with client and agency leadership to evaluate emerging opportunities, innovation programs, and growth strategies across the commerce ecosystem.

• Serve as the primary strategic interpreter of client requests, ensuring all work streams have clear objectives, business context, decision criteria, and expected outcomes.
• Establish planning frameworks, briefing standards, and strategic processes that improve planning quality and alignment across teams.
• Build strategic briefs and recommendation frameworks that enable Activation and Analytics teams to define executional requirements and measurement approaches.
• Identify strategic gaps, conflicting priorities, unclear direction, and missing inputs before work progresses into execution.
• Drive greater consistency, rigor, and clarity across commerce planning activities.

• Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to client stakeholders and cross-functional agency leadership teams.
• Lead client-facing discussions related to commerce strategy, retailer prioritization, budget allocation, measurement frameworks, and growth opportunities.
• Present executive-ready recommendations, planning narratives, and business cases to internal and external stakeholders.
• Partner closely with Client Service, National…