Director, Strategy & Insights

About WPP Media WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth.  WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working. For more information, visit wppmedia.com . About WPP Media WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships, all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth. WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalization at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working. For more information, visit wppmedia.com. About EssenceMediacom EssenceMediacom is a new kind of media agency, combining the performance, data, analytics, and creative technology capabilities of Essence with MediaCom’s scaled multichannel audience planning and strategic media expertise. We help brands break through by using media to create meaningful business growth and stronger consumer connections. Role Summary The Director, Strategy & Insights is a senior strategic leader responsible for turning audience, category, cultural, and performance intelligence into clear growth strategies for clients. Based in Los Angeles, this role leads the development of integrated communications strategies, inspires teams with compelling insight, and partners with client leaders to connect media decisions to measurable business outcomes. You will guide major client assignments from problem definition through strategic recommendation, ensuring that research, analytics, planning, and activation work together around a distinctive consumer and business opportunity. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable shaping a senior client narrative, interrogating data, facilitating collaborative working sessions, and coaching strategists to produce rigorous, actionable work. Key Responsibilities • Lead the development of integrated media and communications strategy for key client businesses, translating marketing objectives into clear strategic choices, audience priorities, channel roles, and measurement frameworks. • Turn complex research and data into a focused story about the client’s growth opportunity, including consumer motivations, category dynamics, cultural context, competitive behavior, and media implications. • Serve as a trusted strategic partner to senior client stakeholders, bringing a proactive point of view and connecting recommendations to brand and business outcomes. • Design and facilitate strategy workshops, briefings, and working sessions that align cross-functional teams around a shared problem, insight, and strategic platform. • Partner closely with Communications Planning, Analytics, Research, Investment, Creative, Data, and Activation teams to ensure strategy is actionable and consistently expressed throughout the plan. • Develop audience frameworks and segmentation approaches using available research, first-party data, platform intelligence, and syndicated tools. • Establish learning agendas and measurement approaches with Analytics partners, ensuring hypotheses, KPIs, and optimi