STRATEGIC PLANNING MANAGER - F/H

About the Role

We are looking for a Strategy Manager to join our Strategy team and take ownership of the strategic work for one of our flagship accounts: a leading global beauty retailer. You will be almost fully dedicated to this account, working alongside the team that leads it and in close, day-to-day collaboration with the client. You will also work hand in hand with our activation teams (traders, digital leads), so the strategies you set must be genuinely actionable and tightly coupled with execution. Building trusted relationships, both with the client and across these teams, will be central to your success. You will report directly to the Head of Strategy.

Responsibilities

• Own and elevate the strategic thinking for a major beauty account: set annual and campaign-level strategic direction.
• Advise the client on media topics shaping their category and contribute to the team’s thought leadership and R&D.
• Build annual strategic guidelines and campaign strategies that are clear, ambitious, and directly activatable by the execution teams.
• Collaborate with the client account team and activation teams to keep strategy and execution tightly connected.
• Act as a trusted strategic advisor on emerging media topics such as the influence ecosystem, social commerce and search, retail media, branding versus performance, and the growing role of AI in the consumer journey.
• Translate market, cultural, and consumer signals into clear creative and media angles.
• Anchor strategy in business objectives: define media’s role against clear KPIs, and feed campaign learnings back into the next planning cycle.
• Contribute to thought leadership and R&D through trends decks, points of view, case studies, and post-campaign assessments.
• Support competitive and sector monitoring across Beauty, Retail, Luxury, and adjacent categories.
• Build compelling presentations and confidently present and defend recommendations to the client.

Qualifications

• 3 to 5 years of post‑graduation experience in strategy or strategic planning, ideally within a media or communications agency or on the brand/advertiser side.
• Solid understanding of the media ecosystem (paid, owned, earned) and, given the retailer client, a deeper grasp of the digital media ecosystem (social, commerce, retail media, performance).
• Prior experience in the beauty, retail, or luxury sectors is welcome but not required.
• Strong strategic thinking that transfers across categories; comfortable moving between numbers and narrative, rigorous with data, sharp with words, and a storyteller in recommendations.
• Curious about culture, consumers, and forces reshaping communication.
• Awareness of the European media context is valued.
• Fluent English (spoken and written); a good level of French is an asset.
• Strong command of PowerPoint and Excel; familiarity with research tools such as GWI or IGI is welcome.
• Excellent interpersonal, presentation, and writing skills; autonomous, collaborative, and solution‑oriented mindset.

Contract & Practical Details

• Permanent contract (CDI) – full time.
• Location: Puteaux, Havas Village (Metro Line 1, Esplanade de la Défense).
• Start date: as soon as possible.
• Benefits:
  • 75% reimbursement of public transportation costs or €600 sustainable‑mobility allowance.
  • Access to the company restaurant and solidarity café, with employer contribution toward lunch.
  • Access to the "Tony Tonic" gym for €5/month (no commitment).
  • Access to CSE benefits.
  • Havas Village services: concierge services, electric bikes, shuttle between Havas Tower and La Défense, movie premieres, and more.

Equal Opportunity

We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applicants irrespective of age, sex, race, ethnicity, disability and other factors that have no bearing on an individual’s ability to perform their job.