Media Strategy Director

DEPT® is a Growth Invention company built to help the world’s most ambitious brands grow faster. Operating at the intersection of technology and marketing, our 4,000+ specialists deliver growth invention services across Brand & Media, Experience, Commerce, CRM, and Technology & Data. We’re 50|50 tech and marketing, partner-led, and first to move. Clients include Google, Lufthansa, Meta, eBay, and OpenAI. We have been certified B Corp and Climate Neutral since 2021.

This role is part of our Creative & Media team based in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Our team is a vibrant mix of talents, ranging from Creatives, Influencer Marketers, Brand & Content Strategists to Account Managers, Programmatic and Marketing Automation Consultants. Together, we blend imaginative storytelling and performance-driven strategies with cutting-edge technology to create engaging digital experiences that build lasting relationships with our clients like Netflix, Canva, Foot Locker, Philips & Biscoff.

Media Strategy Director

JOB PURPOSE

As a Media Strategy Director at DEPT®, you are the senior strategic lead and media figurehead for one of our most complex and high-profile accounts. You own the media agenda for the client and act as the primary point of contact for media strategy, content leadership, and cross-disciplinary collaboration.

You balance long-term strategic direction with hands-on leadership in execution, ensuring that ambition translates into impact. You connect media, content, creative, influencer, and performance disciplines into a cohesive full-funnel approach that challenges competitors and drives tangible business outcomes.

In this role, you operate comfortably within a complex, political corporate environment and are trusted by senior client stakeholders as a strategic partner. Internally, you are a connector, motivator, and decision-maker who brings clarity, urgency, and focus to teams, especially during high-pressure, large-scale campaigns such as international sports or brand moments.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Act as the senior media lead and content figurehead for the client, owning the media narrative and strategic direction
• Steer the overall media agenda, ensuring consistency, quality, and ambition across brand and performance activities
• Serve as the primary senior point of contact for media strategy towards the client's senior stakeholders
• Navigate a complex, client environment with sensitivity, authority, and confidence
• Present clear, compelling, and persuasive strategies to senior client management, translating complexity into actionable direction
• Balance long-term strategic vision with day-to-day urgency, knowing when to zoom out and when to step in
• Take hands-on leadership of large, high-impact campaigns (e.g. international brand moments, sponsorships, World Cup-scale activations)
• Ensure strategies are executable, prioritised correctly, and delivered with pace and quality
• Act as the link between disciplines, connecting media, creative, influencer, content, brand, and performance teams - both internally and externally
• Challenge teams and clients to push beyond conventional media thinking
• Proactively spot opportunities to expand the scope of work into broader strategic territories
• Contribute to new business opportunities, organic growth, and competitive positioning
• Help shape DEPT®’s media propositions, best practices, and strategic thought leadership

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

• Senior media strategist/media director-level professional with extensive agency experience
• Proven track record leading large, complex, and demanding corporate accounts
• Strong understanding of how to operate within multi-stakeholder organisations
• Full-funnel media expertise with a solid foundation in both digital and traditional media (e.g. digital TV, influencer, creative, brand & performance)
• Ability to bridge brand and performance, strategy and execution
• Knowledge of crafts beyond media and is capable of briefing and guiding a team of data, creative or tech experts
• Excellent stakeholder management skills with strong political sensitivity
• Persuasive, energetic, and inspiring communicator
• Confident presenter to senior client leadership, able to simplify complex strategies
• Strong process insight and prioritisation skills
• Ability to distinguish between theoretical strategy and what requires immediate action
• Comfortable getting hands-on and leading from the front when needed
• Natural connector who brings together people, disciplines, and ideas
• Fluent in Dutch and English

WE OFFER

• Everything to focus on your health: from free bootcamp to yoga lessons, mindfulness sessions, mental health services, serious discounts on sport memberships, healthy lunches at the office, and above all: a safe work environment.
• Great fringe benefits; use of OV-bikes, an NS Business Card and many other goodies.
• A reputation for doing good. DEPT® has been named a Great Place To Work in 2023 in the Netherlands and has been a Certified B Corp® since 2021 and named ‘Agency of the Year’ at both The Lovies and The Webby Awards.
• Awesome clients. Whether big or small, local or global — at DEPT® you’ll get the opportunity to work with clients of all sizes and across all industries. And we celebrate all of our successes together!
• The opportunity for possibility. We want to enable you to do what you do best and help you develop your skills further with training, development and certifications.
• Global annual DEPT® Cares Month in which employees come together and donate their skills to support local charities.

WHY DEPT®?

We are drawn to people who stay curious, move with intent, and never stop inventing. Our culture runs on three values: better together, relentlessly curious, and get sh*t done. It is how we work, how we grow, and how we make things that matter.

At DEPT®, you will find the freedom to explore, the space to collaborate, and the trust to make a real impact for our clients, for each other, and for the world we are helping to build.