Director, Planning

About WPP Media

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth.

WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working.

For more information, visit wppmedia.com .

3710 - Director, Planning

Role Overview

As Strategy Director for OpenConnect, you will be the driving force behind the strategic comms planning output across BT Group’s complete brand portfolio, spanning consumer powerhouses (EE, BT, Plusnet) and BT Business. Reporting directly to the VP/Head of Strategy & Comms Planning, you will take operational charge of the planning floor, transforming upstream business logic into world-class, insight-led comms strategies that inspire both creative agency partners and senior client marketers.

This role is purpose-built to transform our day-to-day strategic craft. Historically, our challenge has been moving beyond tactical execution, mechanical planning, and dense data slides. Your mandate is to revolutionise our narrative storytelling, unearth genuinely motivating human and cultural insights, and package complex strategies into crisp, executive-ready presentations that command authority.

Sitting at the intersection of media, data, and creative, you will ensure our strategies are not just written, but deployed, partnering seamlessly with creative agencies across the BT Group roster to deliver unified, culture-shaping work.

Key Responsibilities

Elevating the Strategic Output

• Shape the Comms Output: Take direct ownership of the quality, consistency, and rigour of all comms planning deliverables emerging from the planning cohort across EE, BT, Plusnet, and BT Business.

• From Information to Insight: Move the team away from surface-level observations and data dumping. Unearth sharp, tension-led insights (category, cultural, consumer, and company) that unlock unexpected media behaviors.

• Stage 1 Architecture: Translate Stage 0 portfolio growth strategies into clear, actionable comms ecosystems, defining distinct role-for-channel tasks, full-funnel journeys, and Get/To/By frameworks that guide activation.

• The Applied Strategy Mandate: Champion applied discipline over theoretical deck-building. Ensure strategies actively steer media channel choices, investment weights, and creative formats ("If our strategy isn’t actionable, it’s useless").

Executive Packaging & Narrative Storytelling

• Rewriting the Narrative: Radically elevate the standard of strategic storytelling across the team. Replace tactical, jargon-heavy decks with compelling, commercially grounded narratives that captivate marketing directors and executive leaders.

• Executive Packaging: Master the art of the synthesis. Package complex media systems, technical mechanics, and multi-brand nuances into succinct, punchy, C-suite ready narratives that clearly articulate the "So What?".

• Visual & Verbal Clarity: Coach the planning cohort on visual layout, storyline momentum, and presentation delivery, setting a new benchmark for what an OpenConnect strategic deliverable looks and feels like.

Creative Agency Partnership & Ecosystem Integration

• Inter-Agency Roster Leadership: Act as a strategic partner to creative and BT strategists across the BT Group roster. Build collaborative, high-trust working relationships that dismantle agency silos.

• Upstream Creative Collaboration: Where possible, engage early in the creative development cycle to influence ideation, ensuring creative platforms and media channel architectures complement, push, and amplify each other.

• Bridge the Creative/Media Divide: Serve as the connective tissue between creative ambition and media capability, co-developing unified campaign playbooks where media environments make the creative idea unmissable.

Multi-Brand & Enterprise Breadth (Consumer + B2B)

• Consumer Portfolio Rigour: Maintain clear distinction, tone, and strategic guardrails across consumer brands, ensuring EE, BT, and Plusnet execute with distinct roles without internal friction or audience overlap.

• BT Business Acceleration: Partner with the enterprise leads to bring consumer-grade storytelling, behavioural insight, and dynamic comms planning into the B2B space (SMEs, Corporate, and Public Sector).

• Cross-Pollination: Identify shared learnings, testing frameworks, and effectiveness benchmarks across consumer campaigns and adapt them strategically for BT Business.

Team Upskilling

• Arms around the team: Actively mentor, manage, and coach planners in the team, transforming them from reactive brief-takers into proactive strategic partners.

• Support on comms planning culture within the Open Connect team, bringing planners together in weekly council sessions, leading stretch sessions, training etc.

• Embed Best Practice: Institutionalise consistent comms planning toolkits, framing templates, and insight-mining methodologies across the entire account team; get them using the data at our fingertips, always looking beyond TGI!

• Instill Strategic Confidence: Build a team culture anchored in conviction, strategic bravery, and clear point-of-view, empowering planners to defend ideas and challenge client briefs with commercial intelligence.

Candidate Profile & Qualifications

• Senior Comms Planning clout: Experience in senior Comms Strategy/planning, Connections Planning, or Integrated Strategy roles within top-tier media or creative agencies.…

Source: Arbeitnow (https://www.arbeitnow.co.uk/jobs/companies/wppmedia/director-planning-london-186603)