Havas Group
Chief Strategy Officer
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Job Description
Agency
Ledger Bennett
Job Description
We are seeking a transformational Chief Strategy Officer to shape the future of our agency and our clients' brands. As a key member of the Executive Leadership Team, the CSO will define and drive the agency's strategic vision, elevate our brand and creative strategy capabilities, and build a world-class global strategy function that powers sustainable growth across markets.
This is not a traditional planning leadership role. We are looking for a strategist who can connect business ambition, brand purpose, customer insight, creativity, data, technology, and culture to create competitive advantage for both our clients and our agency. They will work with other strategy leads across Havas agencies to create joint propositions that give us unique offerings for clients globally.
The successful candidate will be responsible for establishing and scaling strategic hubs across global markets, creating integrated centers of excellence that deliver consistent strategic thinking while enabling local relevance and market expertise. They will champion the next generation of B2B marketing, ensuring our agency stays ahead of shifts in buyer behavior, AI-enabled marketing, creativity, channel innovation, and brand building. This role will be instrumental in elevating our reputation as one of the world's most strategically influential B2B agencies.
Key Responsibilities
Agency Strategy & Vision
- Define and lead the agency's long-term strategic vision in partnership with the CEO and Executive Leadership Team.
- Shape the agency's market positioning, service evolution along with the CEO and other agency leaders to ensure continued relevance and differentiation.
- Identify emerging opportunities, industry trends, and market shifts that can unlock competitive advantage.
- Act as a strategic catalyst across the business, driving innovation and future-focused thinking.
Brand & Creative Strategy Leadership
- Build a world-class strategic planning function renowned for excellence in B2B brand building and creative effectiveness.
- Lead the development of transformative brand, communications, and customer experience strategies for key global clients.
- Ensure strategy serves as the foundation for outstanding creativity and measurable business impact.
- Champion the integration of brand, demand generation, customer engagement, and reputation-building approaches.
- Establish best-in-class strategic frameworks, methodologies, and planning tools across the agency (and international hubs).
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Global Markets & Hub Development
- Design and implement a global strategic operating model that supports agency growth across regions and markets.
- Establish and scale strategy hubs and centers of excellence across priority global markets.
- Create consistent standards, processes, and capabilities while allowing for cultural and regional nuance.
- Foster collaboration across geographic teams to create a connected and high-performing global strategy community.
- Identify opportunities for market expansion, acquisitions, partnerships, and capability building.
Client Leadership & Growth
- Serve as a trusted advisor to C-suite client stakeholders and senior decision-makers.
- Lead strategic engagements with key global accounts and participate in major business reviews.
- Support new business growth through compelling strategic thinking, positioning, and pitch leadership.
- Translate complex business challenges into actionable opportunities for clients and agency teams.
- Strengthen long-term client relationships through strategic value creation.
Innovation & Future Readiness
- Lead the agency's approach to AI, data-driven planning, customer intelligence, and predictive marketing.
- Ensure strategic thinking evolves alongside technological change and emerging customer expectations.
- Create a future-focused culture that embraces experimentation and continuous learning.
- Establish partnerships with industry experts, research organizations, and innovation networks.
Talent & Leadership
- Build, inspire, and develop a diverse, high-performing global strategy team.
- Create clear career pathways and a culture of strategic excellence.
- Mentor senior strategists and emerging leaders across the organization with the added challenge of being located in different markets/time zones.
- Foster strong collaboration between strategy, creative, client services, media, social, digital, and analytics teams.
- Raise the overall strategic capability and commercial acumen of the agency.
Experience
- 15+ years of strategic leadership experience within a leading agency, consultancy, marketing services business, or marketing department in a global brand.
- Significant experience leading brand, communications, and creative strategy at a regional or global level.
- Demonstrated success building and scaling high-performing strategy teams.
- Experience developing international operations, markets, hubs, or centers of excellence.
- Strong track record of driving agency growth, client retention, and new business success.
- Deep understanding of B2B marketing and the evolving relationship between brand building and commercial performance.
- Full funnel B2B marketing experience
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Key Outcomes
Within 12-24 months, the Chief Strategy Officer will have:
- Established a globally connected strategy organization with clearly defined market hubs and centers of excellence.
- Elevated the agency's reputation as a strategic leader in global B2B marketing.
- Supported the delivery of 20-25% agency revenue growth through strategic leadership of key accounts, proposition development, and new business activity.
- Ensured strategy function directly contributes to at least 50% of all new business wins.
- Built market-leading brand and creative strategy capabilities.
- Embedded innovative, AI-enabled, and insight-driven planning practices throughout the agency.
- Created a high-performing strategy, and globally scalable strategy team capable of supporting sustained international growth.
- Designed and launched a global strategy operating model within the first six months.
- Established new regional strategy hubs across key markets.
- Implemented standardized strategic frameworks, planning tools, and processes across 100% of agency locations and achieved adoption by all strategy teams within year one.
- Increased multi-market strategic project delivery by 30%.
- Ensured every major global client has access to integrated hub expertise.
- Developed and implemented a strategy quality framework.
- Reduced strategy development cycle times by 20% through improved processes and AI-enabled tools.
Contract Type
Permanent
Equal Opportunities
Here at Havas across the group, we pride ourselves on being committed to offering equal opportunities to all potential employees and have zero tolerance for discrimination. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applicants irrespective of age, sex, race, ethnicity, disability, and other factors that have no bearing on an individual’s ability to perform their job.
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