The strongest agency work starts with a clear understanding of the problem and a point of view about how to solve it. That takes someone who can understand a client's business, uncover what matters to their audience, and bring different disciplines together around a shared direction.

We're looking for that person to lead strategy at LT. This will be either a Sr. Director or VP role based on experience.

LaneTerralever is a full-service agency of about 70 people, helping brands move forward since 1962. As Senior Director, Strategy, you'll lead our strategic practice, set direction for key client engagements, and guide the strategic approach to new business. You'll connect the expertise across account, creative, media, content, and digital teams, helping turn strong individual contributions into a cohesive recommendation.

This is a senior individual contributor, intentionally built around practicing strategy. You'll have ownership of our strategic approach and standards, working alongside agency and discipline leaders to shape the work from the first question through execution. Currently, this role has no direct reports, but that is subject to change as the work grows. 

What you'll lead

Strategic direction for clients

You'll help clients define the challenges worth solving and make informed decisions about their brands and marketing investments. You'll lead discovery, research, positioning, and integrated planning, translating business goals and audience insights into a direction teams can act on. You'll stay involved as the work develops, helping teams and clients navigate trade-offs and evaluate progress.

Connected thinking across the agency

You'll bring the right expertise into the conversation and establish a shared strategic foundation across departments. In partnership with discipline leaders, you'll challenge assumptions, resolve competing priorities, and ensure recommendations support the same business objectives. You'll also strengthen how LT practices strategy through clear standards, useful tools, and coaching.

Strategic leadership in new business

You'll partner with business development and agency leaders to shape our approach to prospective clients. From early discovery through the pitch, you'll lead the strategic thinking: identifying the central challenge, developing our point of view, and connecting recommendations into a persuasive story. Once we win, you'll help carry that direction into the client engagement.

What you'll do

• Lead integrated strategy. Connect brand, audience, customer experience, content, digital, and media decisions to clear business goals.
• Develop brand direction. Lead positioning, brand platforms, messaging, architecture, and workshops that help clients define their place in the market.
• Own the research approach. Determine what we need to learn and how to learn it, using stakeholder interviews, qualitative and quantitative research, surveys, focus groups, competitive analysis, and research partners.
• Turn findings into decisions. Translate consumer behavior, cultural shifts, market intelligence, and performance data into insights that meaningfully shape the work.
• Guide the customer journey. Identify barriers and opportunities across discovery, consideration, conversion, and retention, working with specialists to determine where clients should focus.
• Set the standard for briefs. Define the problem, audience insight, strategic direction, and desired outcome, so teams have a clear foundation for development.
• Partner in creative development. Work closely with the Chief Creative Officer and creative teams, participate in reviews, and assess whether ideas deliver on the agreed strategy.
• Provide strategic counsel. Lead senior client conversations, clearly explain recommendations, and help clients choose priorities, investment, and measurement.
• Lead strategy for new business pursuits. Partner with business development and discipline leaders on discovery, pitch development, presentations, and the transition into delivery.
• Impact decisions across disciplines. You'll help navigate the role of websites, search, content, creative, media, analytics, and AI, and create solutions for our clients utilizing these disciplines as one. 
• Build LT's strategic practice. Establish planning standards, coach teams, and lead agency research reports that offer clients a useful perspective on their business and audiences.

What you bring

• 10+ years in marketing strategy, strategic planning, or brand strategy, including meaningful agency experience preferred. You've led complex engagements and understand how strategy carries through an agency's work.
• An integrated perspective. You can connect business objectives, brand positioning, consumer behavior, and channel decisions and explain how they support one another.
• Strong research judgment and hands-on experience. You've designed research, interpreted findings, and turned what you learned into recommendations clients acted on.
• Experience shaping creative work. You know how to write a brief that gives teams direction and possibility, and how to evaluate an idea against the strategy.
• Digital fluency. You understand the roles of websites, search, social, content, media, and analytics, with curiosity about how AI is changing discovery and decision-making.
• Leadership across disciplines. You bring a clear point of view, make room for expertise, and help people move toward a decision without relying on reporting lines.
• Senior client credibility. You can lead a workshop, navigate ambiguity, and challenge a client's assumptions with confidence and respect.
• New business experience. You've shaped pitch strategies, brought teams together around a recommendation, and helped make the case in the room.
• Clear writing and persuasive storytelling. Your briefs focus the work, your presentations build an argument, and your recommendations make the next decision easier.

What success looks like

Clients seek your perspective when they face a difficult business or marketing decision. Teams understand the strategy, see how their contributions fit, and use it to guide the work. New business pitches reflect a clear point of view supported by the agency's collective expertise.

Over time, your impact shows up in stronger recommendations, more effective work, and an agency that asks better questions from the start.