Strategy Lead

As a Strategy Lead, you'll help our clients grow through Agentic Customer Experience (ACx): the practice of designing brand experiences that show up with intelligence, relevance and continuity across every part of a customer's ecosystem.

Reporting into the Strategy team, you'll lead ACx initiatives working with cross-functional teams to bring strategies to life, grow client relationships into new opportunities, and help evolve our strategic practice for an agent-mediated future.

Read our full ACx report here: https://www.applydigital.com/insights/learn/the-acx-report/

RESPONSIBILITIES

Client Partnership & Business Development:

• Build and lead senior client relationships grounded in genuine understanding of their business.

• Identify and develop new opportunities within accounts through rigorous insight and point of view.

Strategic Leadership:

• Lead primary and secondary research to surface business insights and identify strategic opportunities.

• Develop deliverables that connect audience and experience findings to commercial outcomes.

• Bring domain depth in sports,media, and entertainment to add credibility and context to the work.

• Facilitate workshops with executive stakeholders to align on direction and build momentum.

Team Management & Mentorship:

• Partner with the Head of Strategy and peers to evolve how we work, including integrating agentic and AI-native approaches.

• Contribute to methodology, tools, and ways of working that make the team sharper.

Communication & Delivery:

• Create compelling presentations that engage and inspire clients and stakeholders.

• Partner across disciplines - product, experience, engineering - to see strategy through to execution.

• Apply business casing and value frameworks to test proposed directions.

REQUIREMENTS

• 8+ years of experience in strategy or digital/customer experience design roles.

• 3+ years in consulting or agency environments.

• Proven experience working with entertainment, sports, and/or media clients or within an entertainment, sports, or media organization.

• Proven track record in digital and customer experience strategy development.

• Strong expertise in primary and secondary research methodologies.

• Experience designing and facilitating workshops with executive-level stakeholders.

• Comfortable using AI tools in your day-to-day work, with an eye on how they're reshaping customer experience.

• Excellent data analysis, research and communication skills.

• Ability to thrive in dynamic environments while managing multiple projects.