Strategy Lead
Ghost Note
Ghost Note is a cross-cultural studio crafting brands and stories that honor the truth of the modern world. As one of the nation’s leading Black-owned creative agencies, we partner with movement makers and iconic organizations alike. Ghost Note’s team of award-winning strategists and designers bring a range of expertise and worldviews that inform truly authentic work.
We know real culture bubbles up from passionate communities with their own codes, languages, and rituals. Our role is not to claim that "we are culture", but to understand the human motivations and inspirations that drive it — creating work that's truly felt rather than just heard.
The Role
Ghost Note is hiring a Strategy Lead to own and drive strategy across our client portfolio—from brand platforms to campaigns to cultural strategy and narrative systems. This role sits at the center of how ideas become action. You will shape the thinking, lead the conversations, and ensure that what we put into the world is both strategically sound and culturally resonant.
You'll report to the Director of Strategy and work closely with the Strategy team and cross-functional partners. This is a hands-on role. You're not reviewing from a distance—you're building the strategy, presenting it, and collaborating across Design, Operations, Accounts, and the broader Strategy team to ensure seamless translation and handoff that ladder back to your core strategic vision.
This role requires both perspective and presence, and the ability to shape how teams think and move forward. You bring a point of view, interpret culture, and translate complexity into clear, usable strategic direction.
Key Focus Areas & Time Allocation
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- Strategy Development & Delivery (50%) – Research, strategic frameworks, briefs, brand platforms, campaign strategy.
- Client Leadership (20%) – Day-to-day client contact on your projects. Presenting, managing expectations, and navigating feedback.
- Team Collaboration & Cross-Functional Work (20%) – Partnering with fellow strategists, Design leads, and project teams to keep work aligned and grounded in strategy.
- Pitches, Marketing, & Internal (10%) – Contributing to Ghost Note’s marketing endeavors, new business pitches, and helping evolve how the Strategy department works.
Own the Work- Lead projects from kickoff through delivery — holding the strategic direction and the quality of the work.
- Build thoughtful, comprehensive research and discovery approaches that unearth insights and create the foundation for strategic and creative execution.
- Develop sound, inspired brand platforms, campaign strategies, audience frameworks, and narrative briefs—translating research and cultural insight into clear, actionable direction.
- Build and present strategic recommendations that clients can act on. No decks that sit on a shelf.
- Serve as the primary strategic contact for your clients — the voice they trust to hold the strategic thread throughout the project.
- Present with clarity and confidence. You can make complex strategy feel simple and inspired.
- Facilitate workshops and working sessions that move projects forward and surface the insights that shape the work.
- Navigate ambiguity, misalignment, and shifting client priorities without losing the strategic plot.
- Work with the Strategy team to move projects forward—coordinating research, deck builds, and insight synthesis across workstreams.
- Partner with Design leads to ensure creative work is grounded in strategy. You're the bridge between insight and execution.
- Flag capacity issues, scope creep, and structural problems to the Director of Strategy proactively.
- Contribute strategic thinking to pitches and new business efforts.
- Work with Director to help refine and evolve Ghost Note's strategic methodology and tools.
- Stay deeply tuned into culture—advertising, social justice, politics, technology, music, entertainment, art, film/TV, fashion, and any myriad of subcultures—and bring that into the work.
Qualifications
- You've led projects end-to-end—not just contributed to them. You know what it means to hold a project and be accountable for what comes out the other side.
- You can present charismatically and concisely. Build a narrative, hold a room, make clients feel confident in the direction.
- Strong strategic writing and communication skills — able to build clear, compelling narratives through briefs, decks, and client-facing documents that make complex thinking land simply and persuasively.
- You're comfortable when the brief isn't perfectly clean. You can define the problem when the problem isn't defined yet.
- You work well across disciplines—designers, producers, account leads—not just other strategists.
- You have working knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods, audience development, and cultural analysis.
- You understand what it means to build brands in a diverse, digital, culturally complex world—and you bring that understanding into how you approach strategy, not just what you put on a slide.
Nice to Have
- Experience at a boutique or independent agency where you had to build both client work and processes, not just execute.
- Background in community-driven research, co-creation, or participatory strategy.
The Nitty Gritty
- This is a remote position (and will remain so for the foreseeable future)
- Please note that candidates must be eligible to work in the United States
- Base Salary Range: $100,000–$110,000 annually, commensurate with experience.
Benefits include:
- Unlimited PTO
- Health, dental, and vision with company contribution
- 401k with company match
- Company equipment provided
- Parental Leave, and more