Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Chief of Brand Strategy

🎯 Role Definition

The Chief of Brand Strategy is the senior leader accountable for defining, protecting, and activating the brand’s strategic direction across all touchpoints and markets. This role translates business objectives into a cohesive brand architecture, positioning, and narrative that drive preference and commercial performance. The Chief of Brand Strategy partners closely with the CMO, product, sales, creative, and analytics teams to ensure the brand is consistently expressed and measured across paid, owned, and earned channels.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Head of Brand / Head of Brand Strategy
Senior Brand Director or Director of Brand Marketing
VP of Marketing, Brand or Product Marketing

Advancement To:

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)
President, Brand & Growth
Global Head of Marketing / EVP, Marketing

Lateral Moves:

Chief Creative Officer (CCO)
Head of Product Marketing
VP, Customer Experience (CX)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Own and evolve the global brand strategy and long-term brand vision, ensuring alignment with corporate strategy, business objectives, and stakeholder priorities across regions and product lines.
Develop and maintain the brand architecture and positioning framework, including naming conventions, sub-brand strategies, and portfolio rationalization to maximize clarity and commercial impact.
Lead consumer and market insight programs—commissioning qualitative and quantitative research, segmentation, ethnography, and trend forecasting—to identify white spaces and inform strategic brand choices.
Translate insights into actionable brand platforms, creative territories, and flagship campaigns that differentiate the brand and drive conversion, retention, and lifetime value.
Create and socialise a 3–5 year brand roadmap with clear milestones, KPIs, budget requirements, and cross-functional resourcing plans to scale brand initiatives systematically.
Direct development of brand guidelines, tone of voice, visual identity standards, and brand governance processes that ensure consistent global execution while enabling local market relevance.
Oversee the brief-to-execution lifecycle for major brand campaigns—writing or approving strategic briefs, selecting agencies, and guiding creative development to final delivery.
Set and measure brand health metrics (awareness, consideration, preference, equity, NPS) and establish a robust brand measurement framework that links brand activity to business outcomes and media ROI.
Own competitive and category intelligence—mapping competitor positioning, activation strategies, and pricing dynamics—to inform defensive and offensive brand plays.
Partner with product leadership to integrate brand strategy into product roadmaps, packaging, naming, pricing, and launch plans to ensure a cohesive market proposition.
Allocate and optimize brand investment across channels and markets using data-driven planning, media mix modeling, and channel performance analysis to maximize reach and efficiency.
Manage and mentor a multidisciplinary brand strategy team, setting objectives, coaching senior leaders, and hiring top-tier strategists, researchers, and planners to build capability.
Lead enterprise-level stakeholder management with the executive team and board—presenting brand strategy, risk assessments, and performance updates to secure buy-in and funding.
Build and manage relationships with external partners (creative agencies, media partners, research firms, influencers) and negotiate commercial terms, scopes, and SLAs to maximize creative output and accountability.
Champion integrated campaigns across paid, owned, and earned channels, partnering with performance marketing, CRM, PR, social, and content teams to ensure message consistency and measurable lifts.
Drive global-to-local rollout plans—working with regional marketing leads to localize creative assets, ensure cultural relevance, and deliver scalable toolkits and playbooks for market activation.
Ensure brand compliance and legal vetting for trademarks, endorsements, packaging claims, and partner co-branding to protect brand assets and reputation.
Lead brand crisis and reputation management planning—preparing rapid response frameworks and messaging playbooks for potential product, PR, or social incidents.
Design and operationalize brand governance councils, decision-making frameworks, and approval workflows that accelerate time-to-market without compromising brand integrity.
Collaborate with analytics and finance to develop a business case for brand initiatives, linking brand investments to short- and long-term revenue, retention, and cost-of-acquisition improvements.
Drive culture and internal brand advocacy programs—aligning employee communications, onboarding, and leadership storytelling to ensure the brand promise is lived internally.
Evaluate, pilot, and scale new brand-building technologies and platforms (brand tracking tools, creative production tech, digital asset management, personalization engines) to improve effectiveness and efficiency.
Lead sustainability, purpose, and CSR brand positioning—integrating environmental, social, and governance narratives into the brand architecture while ensuring authenticity and measurement.
Oversee major product and corporate rebrands or identity refreshes—developing transition plans, stakeholder communications, and phased rollouts that minimize disruption and maximize positive impact.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc cross-functional requests such as providing brand guidance for M&A communication, partnership co-branding, or investor presentations.
Maintain a central repository of brand assets, templates, and approved messaging for global teams and partners, ensuring quick access and version control.
Contribute to internal training and enablement sessions for sales, customer success, and regional marketing teams to ensure consistent brand execution and storytelling.
Monitor emerging cultural and social trends, competitor moves, and media innovations and report implications for brand strategy and campaign opportunities.
Participate in budgeting cycles and monthly financial reviews to reconcile brand spend, forecast impact, and adjust priorities against KPIs.
Provide strategic input to product naming, packaging, and launch committees to align market introductions with brand architecture and go-to-market plans.
Facilitate working sessions and brand sprints with creative, product, and engineering teams to accelerate idea validation and rapid prototyping of brand-driven experiences.
Serve as an executive sponsor for pilot campaigns and new market launches, providing final approval and strategic oversight to ensure alignment with brand imperatives.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Brand strategy development and brand architecture design (global and multi‑brand portfolio experience).
Consumer insight and market research expertise (qualitative & quantitative; familiarity with Nielsen, Kantar, YouGov, or similar).
Brand health measurement and marketing analytics (experience with brand tracking, media mix modeling, attribution).
Go-to-market and launch planning for products and campaigns, including cross-channel activation.
Creative brief writing, creative evaluation, and agency management (RFPs, SOWs, scorecards).
Digital marketing fundamentals (SEO/SEM, social media strategy, performance channels, programmatic advertising).
Data literacy: ability to work with analytics teams, understand dashboards, and interpret metrics (Google Analytics, Tableau, Looker, or comparable tools).
Financial acumen: budgeting, ROI analysis, and building business cases for brand investments.
Project and program management skills: roadmap planning, resource allocation, and governance frameworks.
Experience with brand governance tools and digital asset management systems.
Familiarity with legal, compliance, and trademark processes related to branding and claims.
Experience integrating purpose, ESG, and sustainability into brand narratives and measurement.

Soft Skills

Strategic thinking with the ability to synthesize complex data and craft simple, compelling brand directions.
Executive presence and strong influencing skills for presentation to C-suite and board-level stakeholders.
Exceptional written and verbal storytelling skills; adept at translating strategy into persuasive narratives.
Cross-functional leadership and collaborative mindset to drive alignment across marketing, product, sales, and operations.
Strong mentorship and people development capabilities to build and scale high-performing teams.
Decision-making under ambiguity and capacity to prioritize trade-offs in fast-moving contexts.
Creative curiosity and cultural fluency to spot and activate around emerging trends.
Resilience and crisis communications competency to guide brand reputation decisions.
Negotiation skills for vendor and agency contracts.
Attention to detail combined with a bias for action and results orientation.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business Administration, Communications, or a related field.

Preferred Education:

MBA or Master’s degree in Marketing, Strategic Communications, Brand Management, or related discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Marketing
Business Administration
Communications / Public Relations
Psychology or Consumer Behaviour
Design or Creative Studies

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 10–20+ years in marketing, brand strategy, or related roles with progressive leadership responsibility.

Preferred:

12+ years of experience with at least 5 years in senior leadership (director/VP+) owning brand strategy for national or global brands.
Proven track record in driving measurable brand growth, leading multi-market launches, and managing agency ecosystems.
Experience working in fast-growth, digital-first or complex matrix organizations is highly desirable.