Strategic Planning Manager

About the Vacancy

Viola is at the forefront of the communications industry in UAE delivering exceptional quality work for our clients.

We employ a talented group of professionals who are passionate about their work, but never forget to have fun!

We provide an engaging work environment that is designed to nurture creativity.  We call ourselves Violans and are guided by our four Living Breathing Values - Passion (Love Work. Live Work), Fun (Work Hard. Play Harder), Collaboration (Diverse Views. One Voice), Innovation (Breathe Ideas. Nurture Creativity).

We are currently hiring for a talented Senior Strategist / Strategic Planning Manager based in Abu Dhabi.

• Work closely with the Head of Account Management, Account Management and Creative to uncover and understand the underlying communication opportunities and challenges that exist for our clients and prospective clients to shape and inform powerful, insightful strategic and creative solutions
• Develop best-in-class strategies across key clients and new business opportunities and bring them to life through crafted and powerful narratives and decks
• Inspire Creatives, and the agency as a whole, to create ideas that find solutions to these opportunities and challenges in the most creative imaginatively way possible. Help execute with excellence
• Identify opportunities to constantly improve the quality of thinking applied to our clients’ business. Manage and grow a team of planners and strategists
• Be a key player in the triumvirate that is strategy, creative and account management across existing client business and new business pitches

Responsibilities & Deliverables

Brand & Comms Strategy:

• Ensure the highest quality briefs and strategic inputs are fed into the Creative Department, partnering with other stakeholders
• Ensure strong collaborative relationships within the agency network and externally with key agency and client partners to consistently elevate the quality of thinking and ideas
• Translate consumer insight into actionable brand ideas and steward ideas, from brief to execution, through the creative process

Consulting, Advising, Presenting:

• Develop and implement standardized strategic planning tools to foster consistency over time and across projects, continuously enhance the process through specific planning / strategy tools
• Actively grow the abilities and skill of the department members through formal training programs, mentorship and hands-on learning
• Build the talent, tools, and best practices to leverage insights into powerful communications strategies and ideas

Growth & New Business:

• Pro-actively work with clients, internal team members, and other agency partners to drive towards ideas that are strategically powerful, as well as creative, innovative and measurable
• Be a central part of the new business process, by delivering modern and inspiring strategies to win, whilst also being accountable for the overall process
• Relentlessly raise the bar of best practice across accounts
• Partner across all disciplines and functions of the team to find new ways to provide value for our clients

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Required Skills

• The ideal candidate will be a combination of business leader, visionary, inventor, builder, and operator. They must be passionate about the opportunity to work with Viola and our clients to become successful on a regional and global scale.
• At least 6-10 years experience, preferably with a multinational digital / social media agency
• Will need to be based in / flexible to relocate to Abu Dhabi