Associate Strategy Director

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Hires local to the Twin Cities Metro-Area can anticipate an in-office component of 1-2 days a week, employed with Bold Orange. If this position lists, “Open to Remote”, hires outside of the metro area can anticipate travel to our Minneapolis, MN office on an as-requested basis. We value human connection and some travel is anticipated.

About Bold Orange:

Bold Orange (BOCO) is a customer experience company. We believe authentic human connections are the single most important driver of business and societal progress. We exist to create these connections across the customer lifecycle, from acquisition to engagement to retention. Our culture is one of curiosity, collaboration, proactivity and always bringing the outside, future focused perspective to our clients.

Position Summary:

Bold Orange is seeking a curious, versatile, and business-minded Associate Strategy Director to help our clients solve complex customer and growth challenges.

Strategy at Bold Orange sits at the intersection of business, brand, customer experience, data and technology. Our strategists help define the problem, determine the right approach, develop the strategy, and stay connected through execution. Our work spans the end-to-end customer lifecycle from awareness to conversion to retention, which means you might be shaping a value proposition or go-to-market strategy on one engagement and designing a customer journey, CRM strategy or experience roadmap on another.

At the Associate Director level, you’ll independently lead strategy engagements from ambiguous client questions through actionable recommendations. You’ll facilitate senior client conversations, guide other strategists, collaborate closely with Creative, UX, Analytics, Technology and Client Services, and remain hands-on in the development of the work.

We’re especially interested in strategists who have worked across both upstream business, brand and go-to-market challenges and downstream customer experience, CRM and lifecycle challenges. You don't need to be a MarTech implementer, but you should understand how data, audiences, platforms, channels, and journeys come together to create connected customer experiences.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Lead the end-to-end development of strategy projects like: brand creation and value prop development; campaigns and go-to-market plans; experience mapping and journey design, messaging hierarchy and content strategy, developing near and long-term roadmaps.
• Work collaboratively with client services/account management to intake client business challenges and opportunities and translate them into a well-defined approach or project plan that delivers against the objectives.
• Partner closely with cross-functional teams, including Creative, Design, UX, Analytics, and Technology, to gather requirements upfront—and stick around to ensure the strategic vision is executed seamlessly.
• Facilitate senior-level client conversations related to how we approach and deliver our work, giving them the “why” behind the “what.”
• Translate research, industry trends, competitive analysis, and data insights into compelling strategic recommendations.
• Map, audit, and analyze customer journeys and experiences, identifying opportunities for improvement and optimization, and building the roadmap to deliver them.
• Conduct and analyze qualitative and quantitative research, including stakeholder interviews, surveys, 3rd-party tools like SEMRush or MRI Simmons, Hotjar, Persado, etc.
• Advocate for user-centered design methodologies and incorporate a human-centered POV into strategic planning.
• Stay ahead of emerging industry trends, digital innovations, and marketing technology advancements to bring forward strategic recommendations.
• Create and deliver compelling presentations and strategic storytelling in PowerPoint, Miro, and other tools.
• Manage and mentor early career strategists, fostering professional growth and development.

Required Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, communications, or equivalent certifications/work experience.
• 8+ years relevant work experience in digital marketing, customer experience, brand strategy or content strategy roles. Agency or consultancy experience is required.
• Working knowledge and experience with martech strategy and platforms (e.g. Salesforce, Braze, AEM) including the creation or modification of journeys, segments, campaigns, etc.
• Comfortable working in cross-functional teams that require deep collaboration with designers, analysts, developers, marketers, and more.
• Ability to synthesize data and research findings that tease out insights beyond simple reporting; we are the storytellers that paint the picture and design the roadmap.
• Experience in a “lead” role on an account or with a client, encompassing strategic leadership at both the project and account level.
• Experience designing and architecting projects and scopes of work.

You’ll thrive in this role if you:

• Like turning messy questions into structured problems.
• Have strong opinions, loosely held.
• Are as comfortable in a working session as you are in a polished presentation.
• Can zoom from business strategy to the details of a customer journey.
• Get energy from collaborating with people who know things you don't.
• Are willing to challenge the brief when you think we're solving the wrong problem.
• Enjoy making other strategists better, not just doing great work yourself.
• Are curious about what is changing outside the walls of the agency and bring it back to clients.

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$110,000 - $140,000 a year

We benchmark salaries across industry standards and local markets to ensure we offer competitive, fair compensation. Final offers reflect a candidates skills, experience, and location at the time of hire. This position is anticipated to fall between $110k - 140k annually in the Greater Minneapolis/St. Paul market.

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Benefits That Matter:

Our benefits are designed to support life’s many stages—expected and unexpected. Eligible employees can access:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance

• Virtual mental health support

• Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts (including dependent care)

• Infertility and critical illness benefits

• 401(k) with generous 6–10% employer contribution

• Paid parental leave

• Tuition reimbursement

• Free parking and commuter support

Note: Some benefits apply only to full-time employees.

Who We Are:

Our tone is professionally sassy. We embrace meat raffles, hot seats, and the occasional Jell-O shot. We like staff meetings that are informative, educational, and at times, damn funny. We believe in no hierarchy, no bullshit, no politics. Just honest, hard work and great fun.

Important to note: While we value AI as a tool, AI is not invited to Bold Orange interviews. We want to meet the wonderfully talented human you! Any suspected use of AI to inform or assist, while actively in an interview with Bold Orange, will result in exclusion from consideration for the role to which you applied or were referred.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

We are an equal opportunity employer, dedicated to a policy of nondiscrimination in employment on any basis including race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, national origin, marital status, familial status, ancestry, status as a veteran, status with regard to public assistance and any other characteristic protected by law. Bold Orange does not and will not discriminate against employees, prospective employees, clients, or vendors.