THE ROLE & THE TEAM
Zalando Studios is seeking a Senior Creative Strategist currently excelling at a top-tier culture-focused agency or publisher, who knows that the pitch is the engine of creativity. You are hungry for a role that combines the fast pace of an external agency with the massive scale and data access of Europe’s leading fashion and lifestyle platform.
You would be joining the Creative Strategy and Cultural Research team - the strategic engine within our in-house creative agency that drives cultural strategy to secure investments from our top external brand partners (e.g., Nike, Adidas, Salomon in Sports; Carhartt WIP, New Balance and Vans in Streetwear; Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger and Levi’s in Premium; Susanne Kaufmann, Esteé Lauder and Armani in Beauty; Marc Jacobs, Diesel and Camper in Designer) and create creative strategies for those brand partnerships.
This is a critical, high-impact function. You will own the strategic narrative from external commercial brief to winning concept, positioning Zalando as the essential partner for brands looking to shape culture and commerce in 2026.
You will be the primary strategic POC, translating external partner brand objectives and opportunities on Zalando into compelling, innovative, and commercially effective creative campaigns. Your core focus is on:
Pitch-Ready Strategies: Framing the creative challenge from the external commercial brief, building a compelling, culturally-resonant narrative for the creative team.
Cultural Authority: Operating as a domain expert in Premium Fashion, Streetwear, Sports, Designer, Kids and Beauty, ensuring every concept is rooted in deep, actionable cultural and consumer insight and appeals directly to our external brand partners.
End-to-End Ownership: Leading and owning the strategic development for the highest-complexity pitches and projects, from social-first media campaigns and creator collaborations to large-scale events and live shows.
WHAT WE’D LOVE YOU TO DO (AND LOVE DOING)
Your Impact & Responsibilities
Creative Concept Strategy: Serve as the strategic mind for all Zalando Partner concepts and pitch decks, ensuring frameworks are instantly scalable and culturally potent for external brand partners.
Creative Brief Ownership: You receive the commercial target from the Zalando Partner team, and shape it into a clear, actionable creative strategy for our in-house Creative Team to execute.
Cultural Narrative Development: Translate deep cultural, community, and consumer insights into potent strategic platforms and editorial directions.
Creative Vision Keeper: Actively ensure that Zalando’s creative vision is consistently upheld and embedded in all concepts.
Client Influence & Strategic Ownership
Workshops & Leadership Meetings: Independently lead high-stakes client workshops and meetings, building strong internal and external brand confidence through clear, compelling, and structured strategic storytelling.
Counterpart Collaboration: Serve as the key strategic counterpart to the Zalando Partner team (including their brand strategy team), ensuring seamless alignment between external brand partnership objectives, opportunities on Zalando and the creative output.
Thought Leadership: Drive internal conversations around emerging trends to position Zalando as a cultural authority and valuable brand partner.
WE’D LOVE TO MEET YOU IF
You bring significant proven experience (3+ years) as a Senior Strategist within a culture-focused media platform, publisher, or creative agency that manages high-volume brand partnerships and creative campaigns.
Communication & Presentation: Exceptional ability to distill complex insights into a clear, single-minded strategy, and to convincingly present creative concepts to senior internal and external stakeholders. Building client confidence under pressure.
Strategic Maturity: You can autonomously lead and win high-complexity projects, translating multi-million Euro external commercial objectives into clear, inspiring creative frameworks.
Cultural Fluency: Deep, critical knowledge, and a genuine passion for Fashion, Luxury, Beauty, Sports, and/or Streetwear culture is non-negotiable.
Highly collaborative: This role necessitates to bridge many departments and inspire a lot of different stakeholders. Being able to switch hats should be second nature to you.
Process & Operations: Proven experience in establishing and improving ways of working and strategic processes to enable creative teams at scale.
OUR OFFER
Zalando provides a range of benefits, here’s an overview of what you can expect. Ask your Talent Acquisition Partner to learn more about what we offer.
Employee shares program
40% off fashion and beauty products sold and shipped by Zalando, 30% off Lounge by Zalando, discounts from external partners
2 paid volunteering days a year
Hybrid working model with up to 60% remote per week, actual practice is up to each team to best support their collaboration
Work from abroad for up to 30 working days a year
27 days of vacation a year to start for full-time employees
Relocation assistance available (subject to prior agreement)
Family services, including counseling and support
Health and wellbeing options (including Wellhub, formerly Gympass)
Mental health support and coaching available
Drive your development through our training platform and biannual peer-to-peer review
INCLUSIVE BY DESIGN
At Zalando, our vision is to be the leading pan-European ecosystem for fashion and lifestyle e-commerce - one that is inclusive by design. We only assess candidates based on qualifications, merit, and business needs. We welcome applications from people of all gender identities, sexual orientations, personal expressions, racial identities, ethnicities, religious beliefs, and disability statuses. We only want to know why you’re great for this role, so please avoid including your picture, age, and marital status in your CV as well.
We want to provide you with a great candidate experience. Please feel free to inform us of any accommodations you may need, so we can best support and assist you throughout the hiring process.
do.BETTER - our diversity & inclusion strategy: https://jobs.zalando.com/en/our-culture/diversity-and-inclusion
