Senior Brand Strategist

Senior Brand Strategist

McAfee is seeking a world-class Senior Brand Strategist to serve as the strategic engine powering our brand, creative, and marketing communications. Reporting to the Director of Brand Marketing, this senior individual contributor will shape how McAfee shows up in culture, in market, and across every consumer touchpoint. You will bring together data, insights, creativity, and storytelling to define the brand's direction, clarify what matters for our audiences, and elevate the strategic rigor of creative work across McAfee. You will be an owner-driver of our new brand strategy, architecture and segmentation and apply this to all briefs, marketing and internal workstreams. We are seeking a creative and analytical thinker who can fluidly move between these modes —someone who is equally at home interpreting data as they are inspiring bold ideas. With deep experience both agency-side and brand-side, you'll bring a refined understanding of how insights translate to breakthrough creative and business impact. You'll be a strong collaborator and highly accountable doer. You will be a thought partner to senior leadership, a collaborator to cross-functional teams, and a strategic North Star for the internal creative studio and external agency partners. You will also work with internal partners like HR to infuse our brand strategy into everything we do at McAfee. This is a Hybrid position located in one of our Hub Locations: New York, NY, Frisco, TX, San Jose CA or Newport Beach, CA. We value in-office collaboration and meaningful interactions, so expect that you will be able to be in the office on a regular basis according to team needs. When you are not working on-site, you will be working from your home office. We are only considering candidates within a commutable distance to either New York, NY, Frisco, TX, San Jose CA or Newport Beach, CA as we are not offering relocation assistance at this time.

About the Role:

• Roll out McAfee's overarching brand strategy, positioning, promise, and narrative.
• Lead brief development and strategic oversight for brand, creative, campaigns, and internal initiatives
• Develop brand governance cadence and support brand governance by providing strategic engagement, briefings, guidance and approvals for other teams
• Translate audience, cultural, and category insights into actionable creative insights, briefs and clear direction for creative teams
• Partner closely with the VP Brand and cross-functional leaders to ensure brand and strategy alignment across all consumer experiences
• Author strategic narratives and business cases for brand extensions – partnerships, activations and more
• Build repeatable strategic frameworks, templates, and tools that elevate strategic consistency across the organization
• Advance McAfee's POV on cultural and behavioral trends, competitive landscapes, and category white spaces
• Drive clarity across messaging architecture, customer journeys, persona development, and brand storytelling

Insights, Research & Data Translation

• Support the development and interpretation of quantitative and qualitative research, brand health tracking, audience segmentation, and behavioral insights in partnership with insights and analytics
• Translate complex data into simple, compelling insights that inspire creative work and help stakeholders make informed decisions
• Drive measurement and optimization of brand equities - translate insights framework into brand storytelling, messaging, and positioning across all channels

Cross-Functional Influence & Collaboration

• Collaborate with Product, Creative, Comms, Growth Marketing, PMMs, internal stakeholders and Executive Stakeholders to connect brand strategy to business objectives
• Partner hand-in-hand with the in-house creative team to guide concepting, idea development, messaging strategy, and creative articulation
• Provide strategic leadership to external creative, research, and brand partners; evaluate and guide their strategic output

Thought Leadership & Vision

• Act as the brand's internal advocate for insight-driven thinking and creative excellence
• Bring fresh thinking, inspiration, and intelligence to creative reviews, leadership discussions, and brand planning cycles
• Proactively identify new opportunities for McAfee to differentiate, innovate, and lead in the digital safety space

About You:

• At least 10 years (we'd love more!) in brand strategy, creative strategy, and strategic planning within top-tier creative agencies, global brands, or innovative technology companies
• Demonstrated excellence in developing brand strategies, creative briefs, and insight-driven storytelling that leads to award-winning or high-performing work
• Experience working directly in consumer brands, ideally with exposure to tech, digital security, or subscription-based products
• Exceptional strategic thinker with strong analytical, conceptual, and narrative-creation abilities
• Expertise in synthesizing audience, business, competitive, and cultural insights into simple, inspiring direction
• Brilliant communicator—clear, persuasive, confident with executives and creators alike
• Ability to lead cross-functional alignment and influence without authority
• Highly collaborative, proactive, and self-directed—comfortable being the sole strategic authority
• Strong command of data interpretation, research methodology, segmentation, and brand measurement
• Innate understanding of how insights turn into big ideas, creative territories, and resonant messaging.

Company Overview

McAfee is a leader in personal security for consumers. Focused on protecting people, not just devices, McAfee consumer solutions adapt to users' needs in an always online world, empowering them to live securely through integrated, intuitive solutions that protects their families and communities with the right security at the right moment.

Company Benefits and Perks:

We work hard to embrace diversity and inclusion and encourage everyone at McAfee to bring their authentic selves to work every day. We offer a variety of social programs, flexible work hours and family-friendly benefits to all of our employees.

• Bonus Program
• 401k Retirement Plan
• Medical, Dental, Vision, Basic Life, Short Term Disability and Long-Term Disability Coverage
• Paid Parental Leave
• Support for Community Involvement
• 14 Paid Company Holidays
• Unlimited Paid Time Off for Exempt Employees
• 96 Hours of Sick Time and 120 Hours of Vacation for Non-Exempt Employees Accrued Each Year

We're serious about our commitment to diversity which is why McAfee prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or any other legally protected status.

The starting pay range for this position is $95,890.00-$157,540.00. McAfee takes into consideration an individual's skillset, experience and location in making final salary determinations. For further details, please discuss with the Talent Acquisition Partner.

Please click here to view and download the Job Applicant Privacy Notice, which applies to all McAfee job applicants who are residents of the state of California.