Strategists — The Next Generation

Strategy, or Planning, is a bit of a mysterious job.

It cannot agree on its own name. It is not represented in Mad Men. It struggles to be explained to grandparents. We don’t do the deals. We’re not the ones making the stuff (however many ‘thought-starters’ we smuggle in). And whilst what we do is fundamental to winning pitches, winning client trust, and winning over consumers’ hearts and minds, most people who enter our industry barely know we exist. 

Most of the people sitting around the department table didn’t start out in strategy, they found it, or crucially, it found them.

This lack of visibility around our role is not a good thing. Above all, it puts a big barrier in the way of attracting a broad range of talent from all backgrounds. But Strategy’s mystery has always been, to a certain extent, counterbalanced by a generosity of spirit:

A generous ability to spot the account exec who screws up just about everything they do apart from having a surprising point of view on culture, offered at precisely the wrong moment. And a generous willingness to seek them out and bring them into the fold.

Many of us who started out in Account Management, New Biz or any other role, share a similar story. Someone said, you know you’re actually a strategist and I’m going to help you never write another contact report again. A magical Harry Potter moment that transformed our careers.

But crucially that generosity of spirit went beyond just opening the door.

Our discipline has also always given enormous amounts of responsibility to juniors, alongside a major amount of on-the-job training. Why? Because beyond the PowerPoints, the frameworks, and the workshops, we know that the absolute heart of strategy’s value is bringing the voice of the consumer and culture into the room.

And we know that junior talent are an essential part of that. Training is a small price to pay for it.

Becoming a member of the APG Committee this year has brought me closer to the reality of what it is like to be a young strategists or would-be strategist today. And what I’m hearing is that agencies are not doing for the next generation what was done for us. 

Juniors are squeezed on two fronts. As agencies are pushed to do more with less, there is less time for internal training.

And with AI producing the traditional deliverables of junior Strats, the value that they used to bring immediately is now harder to justify. The result — a preference in the market for hiring only midweight and above, along with juniors being left to fend for themselves.

We cannot accept this. Unless we change course, the strategy discipline will reduce in strength, reduce in number, and ultimately, reduce in influence. It will start slowly and then it will happen very, very quickly.

So what can we do about it?

Three things.

Firstly, we can mobilise.

What we struggle to change as individuals, we can change as a community. This is exactly where the APG is stepping in to fill the gap. Since 2022, Arrive and Thrive has brought together big groups of juniors and hopefuls with senior people to teach them about the practice of planning and strategy. Its volunteer-led Night School, planning A-Z, and How-To series gives all the basics for a next to nothing cost, and its AI workshops aimed at juniors are turning this group from potential causalities of technology into its in-demand experts and beneficiaries.

Secondly, we can push harder to 'juniorise' the roles we do have.

Next time we are scoping the strategic roles on a piece of business we can ask ourselves, could this role go down a level? Could I take on someone with much less experience if I were willing to put in the extra hours, realistically in my own time, to show them the way? (Or use my hiring savings to send them on training and still be quids in). That’s not an impossible business case to make.

Lastly, we can remind ourselves to be talent agents again. When there are absolutely no roles on offer, we can start proactively warming talent up. We can be on the lookout for that account exec who doesn’t quite fit the mould.

We can give them spec briefs and get them to write them again, and again, and again and teach them over lunch. And when budding planners message us on LinkedIn we can send them tasks to do, mark them, and advise them.

When I wrote my first ‘Future of Strategy’ article a couple of years ago, I realise now that I forgot the one essential ingredient in the future of strategy - strategists. Their existence and their success is not guaranteed.

Together, we need to make sure Strategy is on the front foot of finding the next generation of talent, just as it made sure it found us.

Matthew Waksman is the head of strategy for Droga5 London