Senior Strategist

Location: Los Angeles

Contract: Permanent, full time contract

Salary: $115,000 – $125,000 per annum, depending on experience

About Your Studio

YourStudio is a dynamic strategy and creative agency specialising in next-generation experiences and environments for global brands. With studios in London, Melbourne, New York and LA, we work supportively as one global team to deliver award-winning retail experiences that are recognised globally.

The Opportunity

The Senior Strategist is the thinking, rigour, and organising force behind the studio's work on a major retainer account. You are the person who holds the whole thing together — orchestrating inputs that arrive from many directions and at unpredictable times, keeping every workstream aligned, and making sure nothing is dropped as the account moves at pace. Equal parts strategic thinker and air-traffic controller, you will bring structure and momentum to the retainer: coordinating deliverables and timelines, pushing work forward, and applying sharp, constructive judgement to raise the quality of thinking across the team. An understanding of retail strategy is a real advantage — but a genuine appetite to learn it matters just as much. This makes it an ideal next step for an established Mid-weight Strategist looking to step up into their first senior role with the guidance and backing of our Strategy Director. Success in this role means work that is well-organised, well-argued, and delivered on time — with a clear strategic thread running through it — and an account environment built on deep trust and clarity.

What You'll Do

Strategic Thinking & Rigour

• Provide the intellectual rigour behind the work — interrogating briefs, pressure-testing thinking, and pushing ideas forward.

• Give constructive, critical feedback that sharpens the quality and clarity of the team's output.

• Structure complex, multi-source information into clear, well-argued strategic narratives and frameworks.

• Hold the strategic thread across the retainer, ensuring individual deliverables ladder up to a coherent point of view.

Retail Strategy & Insight

• Build an understanding of retail strategy, the brand's audience, and its commercial context.

• Act as a voice for the consumer and the cultural landscape, keeping thinking relevant and grounded in insight.

• Share inspiration and trends — consumer, cultural, retail, and industry — with teammates and external stakeholders to keep the studio's perspective fresh.

Team & Collaboration

• Collaborate closely with Design, Account, and Strategy colleagues so that strategy is embedded throughout the work, not just at the start.

• Support and guide junior and mid-weight team members through clear, constructive direction.

• Contribute to a culture of shared ownership, rigour, and continuous improvement across the account.

Orchestration & Delivery

• Act as the organising hub of the retainer — keeping an eye on every workstream, deliverable, and deadline, and keeping the whole picture aligned.

• Manage inputs that arrive at irregular times and in varying states of readiness, sequencing and triaging them so the team always knows what's happening and what's next.

• Communicate proactively with Directors and Project Managers, flagging risks and bottlenecks early.

What You’ll Bring

Strategic & Organisational Skills

• Highly organised, with a natural ability to hold many moving parts in view and keep them aligned under pressure.

• Strong critical and constructive thinking — able to interrogate work, spot gaps, and push ideas to a higher standard.

• Ability to synthesise complex, multi-source information into clear, compelling, and actionable narratives.

• Understanding of retail strategy, brand positioning, and consumer behaviour — or a clear appetite and aptitude to learn.

• Comfortable with research and workshop facilitation, brief creation, and framework development.

Technical Skills

• Confident building clear, visually considered strategic documents in Keynote / Google Slides.

• Proficient in using AI tools to explore, test, and iterate within the strategic process.

• Proficient in FigJam and Miro.

Interpersonal Attributes

• Calm, organised, and dependable — the person others trust to keep things on track.

• Confident, articulate communicator who can present thinking persuasively and rally teams internally.

• Intellectually curious and culturally engaged, with a real appetite for understanding people, brands, and retail.

• Naturally collaborative; builds trust across disciplines and thrives in a multidisciplinary, fast-moving environment.

How We Support You

• An environment that empowers you to lead complex, fast-moving accounts with growing independence, accelerating your career growth.

• Work alongside a collaborative, multidisciplinary team where you act as a genuine thinking partner, bringing depth, cultural intelligence, and organisational rigour to high-impact accounts.

• In line with our B-Corp commitment and the YS Makers Programme, we offer the opportunity to thread principles of responsible, renewable thinking through both the work you produce and the relationships you build.

What We Offer

We offer a competitive salary, plus our benefits package, which includes:

• 3 days in the office and 2 day WFH hybrid working pattern

• Generous Paid-Time Off allowance, including 25 days plus 10 Public Holidays, a well-being day, a community day and your birthday off! Alongside additional extra service allowance & Christmas studio closure

• Private Medical and Dental

• 2 week Working Abroad Opportunity

• Opportunities to work from our global studios whilst travelling

• Dedicated learning platform

• Enhanced parental leave policies

• Lunch club, Thursday office drinks, Summer and Christmas parties!

We would love to hear from you.

YourStudio is an equal opportunity employer — we welcome applications from all backgrounds and encourage you to apply even if you don't meet every requirement. Accommodations are available upon request throughout the recruitment process.