Media Strategy Jobs

Media strategists work upstream of planners. They define how a brand should show up in market — the comms architecture, the audience thesis, the cultural insight, the channel philosophy — before the planner builds the actual schedule. Strategy is the discipline closest to brand thinking inside a media agency, and the role tends to attract people who could also have ended up in account planning, brand strategy, or insights consulting.

Senior strategy roles (Strategy Director, VP Strategy, Chief Strategy Officer) are some of the highest-paid positions in agency media, reaching $200K-$350K+ at major shops. Junior strategy roles can be hard to break into directly — most strategists pivot in from planning, account, or research backgrounds. The 2026 trend: strategy roles are increasingly expected to combine traditional comms planning with data fluency (audience platforms, MMM literacy, retail media positioning).

Top employers: holdco strategy practices (Mindshare, Mediahub, Wavemaker, Initiative), independents with strong strategy reputations (Mekanism, Goodby Silverstein, Anomaly's media practice), and brand in-house teams at companies that treat media as a strategic discipline (Apple, Nike, Liquid Death, Allbirds, Patagonia). Below: every open media strategy role we've verified this week.