Hakuhodo Inc.

Job Responsibilities

♦ Strategic Leadership

• Guide strategic direction for key clients and major campaigns.
• Ensure consistent strategic quality across teams.
• Provide strategic perspectives that support brand and business growth.
• Support new business and major pitch opportunities.

♦ Team Leadership & Management

• Lead and align multiple strategy teams toward shared objectives.
• Coach and develop Strategy Managers and Associate Directors.
• Guide team leaders on workload management, priorities, and delivery timelines.
• Encourage collaboration across teams with diverse viewpoints.

♦ Cross‑Functional Collaboration

• Partner with Creative, Account, and Media teams to translate strategy into effective campaigns.
• Collaborate with senior leadership on strategic initiatives.
• Engage with key clients when strategic leadership is required.

♦ Organizational Development

• Strengthen processes and collaboration across the Strategy Department.
• Develop future strategy leaders.
• Build a stable, engaged, and high‑performing strategy team.

Required Leadership Mindset & Capabilities

• Growth mindset.
• Entrepreneurial mindset – Thinks beyond managing the Strategy Department as a functional team, bringing a business-building mindset and contributing to the growth of both the agency and client businesses.
• Accountable leadership with a servant leadership mindset.
• Strong collaboration and influence across cross-functional teams and back-office functions.
• Ability to manage complexity and prioritize effectively in a fast-paced environment.

Experience & Education

• 15+ years of experience in strategic planning, preferably within advertising agencies, brand consultants, or related strategic environments.
• Proven experience leading strategy teams and managing team leaders, with responsibility for teams of approximately 15–20 members or more.
• Experience working with major brands or complex client organizations is preferred.
• Experience working with diverse international client portfolios across Western and Asian markets, including Japanese, Vietnamese, and ASEAN clients, is a strong advantage.
• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, business, communications, or related fields.
• Fluent in English; Vietnamese or other Asian languages is a plus.

Benefits

• Working in a dynamic, friendly, and supportive environment.
• Growing business.
• Once the employee has passed probation and signed a labor contract, the employee will have other benefits as follows:
  • 16 annual leave per year;
  • 13th-month salary;
  • Year-end bonus based on performance and business result;
  • Salary review annually;
  • Annual health check;
  • Social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance (Vietnamese Law);
  • Insurance benefits package;
  • Mobile phone fee allowance based on the company’s policy;
  • Participate in company events, company trip;
  • Participate in the company’s training programs, self-studying program (supported by the company).

By submitting your CV, you consent to us processing and retaining your personal information for recruitment purposes, including potential future opportunities.

Supervisory Responsibility

As part of this role, you will directly mentor and guide a team of 1- 2 members including Planners and Senior Planners. You foster their professional development and ensure high-quality output by providing direction and support to them to achieve departmental and organizational goals, helping them sharpen their thinking and deliverables through structured feedback and mentoring.

Job Responsibility

• Participate in the client’s briefing sessions. Take the overall responsibility and lead the full strategic planning process.
• Examine the information or insights from the research and develop a strategic direction to formulate and develop creative briefs
• Conduct and manage any necessary research including but not limited to desk research, internal research, etc.
• Collaborate actively with Account teams, Creative teams and Media teams, contributing to idea development and ensuring strategic consistency throughout the creative process.
• Build strong working relationships with Creative Directors by being a reliable strategic partner and communicator.
• Create plans for the strategy with measurable KPIs for marketing communications campaigns. This typically necessitates tight coordination between Planners and Media Specialists/ Media agencies/ Market research agencies.
• Oversee the execution of strategic plans to ensure alignment with the intended direction, proactively monitoring campaign progress to identify and address any deviations or opportunities for optimization in real time
• Deliver clear, concise, and engaging presentations in both Vietnamese and English, tailored to client needs with a strong emphasis on storytelling and logic.
• Assist in designing and facilitating internal and external workshops (e.g., alignment, idea development), under the guidance of the Planning Director or Strategic Lead.
• Mentor and support young strategic talents in the department.

Required Skills/ Abilities

• Rational thinker with strong strategic thinking capability.
• Ability to look at both the big picture and details.
• Excellent research and analytical skills. Ability to synthesize different data/ inputs into a clear and accurate roadmap or direction.
• Exceptional presentation skills to influence decision-makers and drive success for our business presentation.
• Deep understanding of all marketing communications platforms, especially emerging digital and social ones, ensuring our plans are integrated and scalable.
• Confidently applies Hakuhodo’s planning tools (e.g., Sei-katsu-sha Creative Brief) and contributes to embedding them into day-to-day team practice.
• Embraces and reflects Hakuhodo’s “Unimagined Way” philosophy in strategic recommendations, showing a growing ability to inspire fresh perspectives and challenge conventional thinking.

Experience and Education

• More than 7 years of working experience in planning/ brand strategy.
• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing/ Communications/ Journalism or related fields.

Benefits

• Working in a dynamic, friendly, and supportive environment.
• Growing business.
• Once the employee has passed probation and signed a labor contract, the employee will have other benefits as follows:
  • 16 annual leave per year;
  • 13th-month salary;
  • Year-end bonus based on performance and business result;
  • Salary review annually;
  • Annual health check;
  • Social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance (Vietnamese Law);
  • Insurance benefits package;
  • Mobile phone fee allowance based on the company’s policy;
  • Participate in company events, company trip;
  • Participate in the company’s training programs, self-studying program (supported by the company).

By submitting your CV, you consent to us processing and retaining your personal information for recruitment purposes, including potential future opportunities.

Job Responsibility

• Clarify client brief and understand client objectives from a business POV.
• Deep understanding of client business and the ability to analyze marketing requirements.
• Mine consumer insight and turn insights into a powerful strategy (with help from the supervisor) that will lay a solid foundation for developing creative big ideas and a full-pledged integrated campaign.
• Develop a strategy proposal that could not only address client briefs but also solve other aspects of client business that drive growth opportunities.
• Be able to create, sell & lead strategy presentations & discussions with internal teams and clients.
• Occasionally work on Consumer and Market Research.
• Conduct research and cooperate with research agencies if needed.
• Assist and support other teams if needed.
• Help other teams to roll out strategy direction with strategic POV on Creative, Social, and Media.
• Work closely with other departments for the successful delivery of campaigns.

Required Skills/ Abilities

• Critical & creative thinking.
• Be able to communicate and explain things simply, and logically.
• Effective communication skills for internal communication and client-facing situations.
• Strong time-management and organizational skills.
• Excellent command of English both written and spoken.
• Be able to cooperate smoothly with internal teams especially Client Service and Creative teams.
• Be able to handle pressure.
• Independent, determined; problem-solving first mindset.
• Strive for delivery excellence.
• Collaborative mindset – willingness to help others and ask for help when needed.

Experience and Education

• Brand/ Agency-centric experience or accumulated experience in brand & agency.
• At least 1-2 years of strategic planning/ IMC planning/ brand experience.
• Maturity to deal with complex situations and briefs.
• Experience in managing multiple, competing priorities, duties, and projects.
• Understand thoroughly the fundamentals & correlation of marketing strategy, brand strategy & communication strategy.
• Demonstrated ability to create good-quality proposals and build campaigns.

Benefits

• Working in a dynamic, friendly, and supportive environment.
• Growing business.
• Once the employee has passed probation and signed a labor contract, the employee will have other benefits as follows:
  • 16 annual leave per year;
  • 13th-month salary;
  • Year-end bonus based on performance and business result;
  • Salary review annually;
  • Annual health check;
  • Social insurance, health insurance, unemployment insurance (Vietnamese Law);
  • Insurance benefits package;
  • Mobile phone fee allowance based on the company’s policy;
  • Participate in company events, company trip;
  • Participate in the company’s training programs, self-studying program (supported by the company).

By submitting your CV, you consent to us processing and retaining your personal information for recruitment purposes, including potential future opportunities.