Social Strategy Director

Ogilvy, part of WPP, has been creating impact for brands through iconic, culture-changing, value-driving ideas since the company was founded by David Ogilvy 75 years ago. It builds on that rich legacy through Borderless Creativity – innovating at the intersections of its advertising, public relations, relationship design, consulting, and health capabilities with experts collaborating seamlessly across over 120 offices in nearly 90 countries. Ogilvy currently ranks as the #1 global agency network for creative excellence and effectiveness by WARC, signifying its ability to deliver creative solutions that drive unreasonable impact for clients and communities. Ogilvy is a WPP company (NYSE: WPP). For more information, visit Ogilvy.com, and follow us on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook.

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company – powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information, visit WPP.com.

This is an exciting opportunity at Ogilvy to play a pivotal role in elevating our social capabilities for 2026, helping us redefine our social and content offer and realize our new global ambition of ‘building social brands’.

Ogilvy is seeking an experienced Social Strategy Director, responsible for setting the standard for social-first strategic thinking within the agency and exciting our high-profile clients about the opportunities of social. The ideal candidate is relentlessly curious about social, deeply immersed in culture, trends and conversation, and a thought leader who can challenge traditional thinking. Collaborating closely with clients, you'll gain a deep understanding of their businesses, target audiences, and brand values, translating this knowledge to develop inventive strategic solutions tailored to meet each client’s distinct objectives, to secure social buy-in and drive tangible outcomes. Your experience will span socially led campaigns as well as always on organic social and editorial thinking.

As a mentor and leader, you'll guide and support junior team members in their professional growth, fostering an environment of collaboration and agility. You’ll advocate for diversity of thought and champion inclusive approaches. Your ability to lead, inspire, and collaborate with others will be integral to thriving in this ever-evolving industry.

• →Strategy leadership: Lead the development of best-in-class social strategies that are firmly rooted in clients’ overall business and brand objectives, incorporating the latest trends and best practices. Drive demand for the strategy department's services internally and externally (part of this will be through the consistent delivery of the teams’ exceptional strategic work).
  
  
• →Client relationship management: Build and maintain strong relationships with clients to deeply understand their business, target audience and brand ethos, and formulate campaigns that resonate and yield results. Quickly and intuitively uncover client business challenges, mine for unique insights, and develop innovative social and content strategies that uniquely solve those challenges in social and build their brand.

• →Team leadership & collaboration: Line manage a team of brilliant strategists and foster collaboration, curiosity and best-in-class delivery of strategy. Mentor the team through the development of their strategies, providing feedback and counsel. Offer mentorship and guidance to junior team members, cultivating their skills and fostering career growth. Partner with internal teams—creative, account, and media—to ensure campaign integration aligns with overall brand strategy. Craft briefs that distil that strategic thinking into clear direction for creative teams.
  
  
• →Thought leadership & industry influence: Emerge as a thought leader both within the agency and the industry at large, sharing insights, trends, and best practices with teams and clients. This may involve contributing to group-level thought leadership as well as championing social-first thinking within the agency. Push traditional thinking and develop unique social narratives. Stay abreast of industry trends, platform updates, and emerging technologies to establish yourself to senior clients and agency colleagues as a thought leader in social.
  
  
• →Social excellence & innovation: Support the Social Excellence Lead by contributing to the ideation, development and implementation of game-changing social initiatives. Think laterally about how to uncover unique insights by working closely with our in-house Marketing Science partners to test hypotheses. Stay updated on the latest trends, technologies, and tools in influence and social marketing, applying and scaling this knowledge to clients to enhance campaign performance.
  
  
• →New business & pitch support: Contribute to new business pitches and proposals, infusing creative and strategic ideas to differentiate Ogilvy (this will be on an ad-hoc basis and dependant on resource).

We are open minded as to your background, and to whether you are a creative, strategist, creator or a blend of all of those things. You might even be a two-person team and we are open to that too. You don’t need to have worked in a big network agency and we are not expecting you to have run a big team, but we are looking for an entrepreneurial spirit and someone who can seek out opportunities to make brilliant, stand-out work that drives fame for our clients and us. You will bring some great experience with brands and some of those would ideally be multi-national clients. Here’s some characteristics we’ll be looking for:

• Enthusiasm. This is first because it is the most important. We want people who radiate energy about the work and the impact they can have on it.
• Our values are – Do the Right Thing, Do the Best Work of Our Lives, Do it Together. If all of those speak to you, you’ll love it here.
• Innovation. Social is a space of constant change, experimentation is a huge part of how we get better and we’d love you to be bold about innovating and trying new things
• Collaboratio We want to hear about how you have succeeded with team-mates, clients, creators etc as much if not more so than what you have achieved alone.
• Cultural intelligence and inclusivity. You are culturally intelligent, champion diversity, and an inclusive culture and are supportive, inspiring and inclusive in the way you work and in the work that you produce.

•  25 days annual leave + 1 Volunteer Day   

• Bupa Healthcare  

• Enhanced Maternity, Adoption and Shared Parental Leave  

• We have a Flexible Working Model with core working hours: 10am – 4pm  

• A 1.5:1 Matching Pension Structure  

• Wellbeing and Health: Up to £25.00 per month towards physical or online exercise class membership, Unmind membership, LifeWorks tool and annual eye tests and development budgets and Wellbeing incentives and activities throughout the year   

• Season Ticket Loan and Cycle to Work Scheme  

• Life Assurance 

Ogilvy champions innovation and the thoughtful application of AI. We encourage you to use AI tools to enhance your application and achieve the best possible results. During interviews, we may explore how you leverage AI, showcasing your judgment and ability to integrate these technologies effectively.

Please ensure your application authentically reflects your own skills, experience, and unique contributions.