Director – Marketing Strategy and Media Planning

Description

The company already supports clients across much of the promotional value chain, including targeting and segmentation, campaign delivery through its Direct Medical Engagement (DME) teams, and impact measurement. It has no in-house offer yet for the strategic front end of promotion: marketing strategy, channel and media planning, and media buying advice.

The company is hiring a senior Marketing Strategy and Media Planning expert to build this capability from scratch. You will design and sell the offer, personally lead the first engagements, and gradually use the existing Consulting team to deliver the work, with support, guidance and quality checks in place. The role is entrepreneurial and P&L-aware: part practice builder, part senior client adviser.

Responsibilities

• Define and launch the UK marketing strategy and media planning offer, covering service design, methods, pricing, reusable templates and IP, quality standards and the go-to-market story.
• Write down ways of working so the offer can grow beyond you.
• Lead client work on brand and portfolio strategy, positioning, messaging, customer journeys, channel mix, campaign planning and KPI frameworks, tying each strategy to the company's targeting, DME delivery and PromoSuite measurement tools.
• Advise clients on channel strategy for healthcare professionals and, where relevant, patients or consumers. Choose channels, set budget splits, plan flighting and recommend media mixes.
• Manage relationships with media agencies and owners, and oversee buying when partners carry it out.
• Carry a personal sales target. Build and close pipeline through existing company accounts and your own network. Lead proposals, pitches and commercial negotiations, and cross-sell Consulting, DME, OneKey, Real-World and Technology services. Sales specialists will support you and also drive client conversations.
• Act as the senior strategic adviser to clients such as marketing directors, brand leads, heads of omnichannel and commercial excellence leads, and build repeat relationships based on trust.
• Scope, staff, quality-check and commercially manage projects delivered by Consulting analysts, consultants and managers, and coach them in marketing and media skills they lack.
• Identify and manage a small, selected group of creative, media and production partners, either internal company teams or boutique agencies.
• Make sure all work meets ABPI, PMCPA, MHRA, BHBIA and relevant advertising codes (CAP/BCAP, ASA), along with the company's compliance and data-use rules.
• Represent the company externally through point-of-view papers, conference talks and client roundtables to establish the new capability in the UK.

Requirements

• 15+ years in marketing strategy or media planning in a healthcare or FMCG agency, consultancy or in-house brand team. Agency experience is strongly preferred.
• A clear record of owning end-to-end promotional strategy, from insight and positioning through channel plan and execution brief to measurement.
• Hands-on media planning experience and a working grasp of media buying, agency economics and the main UK healthcare professional and consumer media owners and platforms.
• A proven sales record: your own book of business, responsibility for revenue targets, and closing deals worth six or seven figures.
• An established senior client network in UK pharma or healthcare (marketing, omnichannel, commercial excellence) and/or FMCG.
• Strong commercial judgement in scoping, pricing, margin management and contracting.
• Excellent written and spoken communication, able to move between C-suite, brand teams and delivery analysts.
• Comfortable starting from nothing: entrepreneurial, pragmatic and hands-on.

Conditions

Desirable skills, not required: omnichannel orchestration across rep, email, digital, congress, paid media and content syndication, with familiarity with Veeva, Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Adobe Experience Cloud.

Desirable: performance marketing and analytics knowledge, including media mix modelling, attribution, A/B testing, GA4, programmatic, DSPs and retargeting.

Desirable: a data-led approach using company assets such as sales data, PromoSuite, OneKey and ALHP/Synmetrics to shape strategy and prove return.

Desirable: the ability to brief and challenge creative agencies on concept, messaging and production quality without being a creative yourself.

Desirable: regulatory knowledge of the ABPI Code, PMCPA and MHRA promotional rules. Awareness of EFPIA and equivalent EU codes is a plus.

Desirable: experience across EU markets or with global brand teams, and an understanding of how UK promotion fits into pan-European plans.

Desirable: depth in at least one therapy area, such as oncology, immunology, rare disease, vaccines, cardiometabolic or CNS.

Desirable: structured problem solving, project economics, ability to quality-check junior work, and comfort with MSAs and SOWs.

Desirable: a record of building and mentoring small teams and attracting talent to a new capability over time.

Desirable: awareness of adjacent company offerings (Real-World Evidence, Technology, Patient Solutions) to spot cross-sell chances.

The company is an equal opportunities employer and applications from all backgrounds are welcome.

Benefits

• You are building a practice rather than joining an established one, with senior sponsorship and an existing client base.
• You work where strategy, data and execution meet: the company provides targeting, DME execution and measurement, and you add the strategic link.
• The model has already been proven in other company markets, and the UK is the next logical step.