The Independents
Senior Strategist, Creative Strategy
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Karla Otto is a globally recognized public relations and communications agency, founded in 1982, with offices in 15 key cities across the UK, EMEA, US, and Asia. With a strong presence in fashion capitals such as Milan, London, Paris, and New York, the agency has built a reputation for representing some of the most prestigious names in fashion, beauty, and lifestyle.
In 2017, Karla Otto merged with K2 to form THE INDEPENDENTS, a global marketing, design, and communications group. This collective brings together industry leaders who share a commitment to innovation, excellence, and thoughtful collaboration across the luxury and lifestyle sectors.
At Karla Otto, our team of expert strategists, designers, planners, and publicists are dedicated to delivering exceptional results and establishing long-term partnerships with our clients. We are passionate about the world of fashion, beauty, and luxury, with everyone bringing their unique expertise and insights to the table. We are driven by a shared commitment to excellence and a deep understanding of the ever-evolving industry landscape.
The Role
The Senior Strategist is a senior member of Karla Otto’s Creative Strategy division, working across UK client teams, selected global clients, and new business. The role combines creative strategy, cultural insight, and concept development across fashion, beauty, lifestyle, hospitality, and FMCG.
Working closely with the Creative Strategy leadership team, the Senior Strategist translates strategic direction into clear, compelling ideas and platforms across campaigns, content, experiences, and programming. They will lead client briefs and presentations, develop creative-led work, and contribute to new business and the continued growth of the Creative Strategy offer.
Cultural fluency is central to the role. The Senior Strategist brings a strong understanding of the creative and cultural landscape, alongside the network and judgement to identify relevant talent, creators, partners, and collaborators, and translate emerging cultural shifts into original, future-facing ideas.
This is a senior, client-facing role for an ideas-led creative with strong conceptual judgment, cultural intelligence, and an active industry network. The role also offers opportunities to develop commercial and team leadership skills, with scope to progress to Director based on demonstrated readiness.
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Key Responsibilities
Creative
- Lead creative strategy and concept development on assigned UK client briefs, from identifying the opportunity through to campaigns, content, experiences, and programming, alongside selected global clients and pitches.
- Translate cultural and creative shifts into original thinking for client work and new business.
- Lead the creative direction and quality of assigned work, aligning with the Director on strategic direction and the SVP on departmental standards.
- Develop the strategic foundation for creative-led briefs and partner with the Director where broader brand or business strategy is required.
- Identify and shape experience-led and Insights-led opportunities in partnership with Special Projects and Insights respectively.
- Identify and recommend talent, creators, partners, and collaborators, working with the Talent team where relevant.
- Lead client conversations, presenting and defending strategic and creative recommendations and identifying opportunities to develop the work.
New Business & Growth
- Lead the creative response on assigned UK and relevant global pitches, with strategic and commercial guidance from the Director and SVP.
- Identify opportunities across existing clients and new prospects, and develop and sell Creative Strategy work alongside the senior team.
- Build integrated proposals with Insights, Communications, Talent, Beauty, Strategy, Special Projects, and other divisions.
- Contribute to scoping and pricing, accounting for resourcing, production requirements, and profitability, with final commercial approval from the senior team.
Team & Division Development
- Coordinate workflow and delivery on assigned briefs, identify resource needs, and flag scope or budget pressures to the Director and SVP.
- Guide colleagues and external collaborators, giving clear creative feedback and supporting the development of junior team members.
- Maintain and grow the external creative network required to deliver work at the right standard.
Key Attributes
- 6–8 years’ experience in creative strategy, creative direction, or an equivalent agency role, with a focus on social and digital channels, programming, and experiential work.
- A strong portfolio spanning campaigns, content, experiences, programming, and brand platforms.
- Strong creative problem-solving and conceptual thinking, with a highly developed visual eye and excellent art direction judgment.
- Deep reference knowledge across fashion, art, design, music, film, and photography, with the instinct to spot what is emerging, anticipate where culture is moving, and translate this into original creative thinking.
- An active network across talent, creators, and the wider creative industries, with a strong understanding of who and what is shaping culture now and next.
- Ability to translate strategy into clear, compelling creative ideas, communicate them through strong writing, visual storytelling, and presentations, and guide their execution within agreed budgets.
- Strong knowledge of creative platforms, partners, and production models, including how to commission, brief, scope, and price creative work.
- Proven ability to present, sell, and defend creative work.
- Able to move quickly across multiple briefs while maintaining a high creative standard and adapting to different senior stakeholders and working styles.
- Experience leading creative and project teams, directing external collaborators, and giving clear creative feedback.
- Naturally curious and eager to learn, keeping pace with industry changes and exploring how emerging tools and technologies, including AI, can strengthen creative thinking and open up new opportunities for clients.
- Strong proficiency in Keynote; working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite advantageous.
- Commercial awareness and experience working with budgets, resources, and delivery processes, with the ambition to develop broader leadership responsibility.
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At Karla Otto, we are always looking for personalities with positive charisma who are enthusiastic, self-motivated, and have a keen sense of aesthetics.
Karla Otto embraces and celebrates diversity, inclusivity, and equal opportunity. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. Karla Otto provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression.
We aspire to have a diverse and inclusive workplace and strongly encourage qualified applicants from a wide range of backgrounds to apply and join our team!
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