Strategy Director

Strategy Director – Huxly.

Are you a problem solver, consistently bringing your strategic mindset and natural curiosity to everything you touch? Do you love to get to the crux of the challenge and find creative answers?

If so, this unique opportunity in Huxly could be for you!

Introducing Huxly

Huxly is a fast-growing innovation and brand strategy consultancy. We have a unique focus on the food, drink, personal and pet care industry, and bring together:

• Deep human insights, understanding consumer ‘jobs to be done’ using unique and exciting projective techniques, cultural, semiotic, sensory and culinary expertise to build brands and concepts.
• Holistic innovation and sprint methodologies, creating tangible innovation that can be rapidly commercialized

We have deeply embedded relationships with some of the world’s finest CPG brands, and a team of 24. We have strategists on the ground in the UK and US and are working all around the world. The next phase of our exciting growth journey is to establish a new business in the APAC region, and that’s where you come in!

We are also proud to be a part of the MMR group, the UK’s largest privately owned market research company, and we have offices in Wallingford, London, Durban, Singapore, Shanghai, Sao Paulo and New York. Joining Huxly is a unique opportunity – to be part of a small, fast growing start up, backed by the strength and stability of a large global research business. 

The Role

The role of Strategy Director is all about being ‘The Code Breaker’, Owning complex projects as well as proactively spotting opportunities for Huxly. You will be able to independently develop approaches that give us a USP and leverage the skills of the wider MMR business.

A self-starter, you are able to work independently with authority while also building strong cross-functional relationships across the MMR group. You are a key face of Huxly to our clients, inspiring confidence and belief in our work. ​

The main responsibilities of this role are;

Owning complex projects, managing excellent client experience throughout and with tasks including:​

• Delivering amazing stories that showcase our strategic thinking ​
• Lead creative qual work – e.g. co-creation groups or creative communities and all the key elements that go into them, alongside the MMR Qual / Sensory Qual team.​
• Lead strategic and innovation workshops and sprints with clients – developing the programme, exercises and summary strategic output​
• Lead cultural or semiotic exploration (following a methodology devised by a method expert in the Global HX team)​
• Create brand positioning strategies.​
• You will build expert understanding of our core methodologies and can deploy them independently.​
• You will actively seek ways to work together with your MMR colleagues in delivering great client work. ​

You show credible expertise in our categories, client understanding and consistently adopt a strategic mindset by: ​

• Proactively exploring trends that can affect our brands and their challenges. ​
• Showing intellectual curiosity about brands, innovation and strategy as well as empathy for the people who buy what we create. ​
• Reading from external sources, finding interesting examples in the market and developing a strategic point of view and proactively sharing with the team. ​
• Proactively exploring our client’s categories both intellectually and sensorially – go and eat their food and drink their drink and have a point of view on it. ​
• Consistently demonstrating a strategic mindset in your projects, curating insights that are most relevant to a client’s challenge, developing the ‘so what’ and bringing this to life expertly in compelling and strategic storytelling.

You can work with our Growth Director to create winning proposals that show a clear, strategic point of view on the challenge by:​

• Using your understanding of our core methodologies to respond to a client challenge / brief. ​
• Understanding the commercial viability of approaches and building costed proposals to client briefs that deliver target GP levels. ​
• Developing interrogation of a brief to get to the heart of the client’s challenge. ​
• Owning a client account or two and building strong relationships with them, growing our reach within them.​
• You actively seek out opportunities to work with the MMR family, building strong relationships at a senior level, proactively looking for ways we can add extra value and support on MMR proposals. ​

What do we need from you?

• Previous experience leading complex projects within brand innovation, specifically in the FMCG space
• Excellent communication skills and able to inspire client confidence
• Ability to lead on creative qual work; creative communities and co-creation groups for example
• Able to create and build brand positioning strategies
• Lead cultural and semiotic exploration, working with a method expert on this
• Previous experience leading strategic and innovation workshops or sprints
• Complete knowledge expert with the ability to advise and guide clients throughout the project
• Possessing a strategic mindset and able to create winning proposals

Huxly is an equal opportunities employer; offering a competitive compensation package, ample holiday allowance and thriving culture.