Head of Strategic Planning

About dunnhumby

dunnhumby is the global leader in Customer Data Science, helping the world's most ambitious retailers and brands put the customer at the heart of every decision. With nearly 3,000 experts across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, we partner with iconic businesses like Tesco, Coca-Cola, Meijer, Procter & Gamble and Metro to turn data into growth, innovation and measurable value for their customers.

Tesco Media

Tesco Media is the ultimate media partner to brands. Built on unrivalled customer insight, it’s a media owner with soul, scale, and storytelling power. Tesco Media helps brands and agencies connect meaningfully with customers, drive creative effectiveness, and grow at the point of purchase.

Tesco Media is looking for a Head of Strategy & Planning to lead an established, multidisciplinary function into its next phase of growth.

Our Strategy & Planning function brings together media planning, client strategy and insight to help brands and agencies make better, more effective decisions. The team develops client growth plans, delivers thought leadership and turns customer insight into compelling recommendations that create measurable commercial value.

This is not a traditional strategy role. It is a senior commercial growth leadership position for someone who can connect strategy with execution, simplify complexity and bring teams together around shared priorities.

You will lead a team of 19 across strategy, planning and insight, building the standards, tools and capabilities that enable high-quality client conversations and scalable revenue growth. Working closely with commercial, product, proposition, measurement, research and marketing teams, you will help shape the future of Tesco Media’s client offering and strengthen its position as a leader in retail media.

What you’ll be doing

Lead strategy, planning and commercial growth

• Set the vision, priorities and standards for the Strategy & Planning function.
• Lead the continued evolution from channel-led media planning towards integrated, insight-led commercial planning.
• Balance long-term strategic growth with strong in-year commercial performance.
• Partner with commercial leaders to identify growth opportunities and enable consistent, high-quality execution.
• Turn client, category and sales demand into clear priorities for propositions, go-to-market activity, product development and resource allocation.
• Build scalable planning frameworks, playbooks, tools, category narratives and reusable client growth models.

Strengthen client and agency partnerships

• Lead the strategic planning approach for major clients, including annual and multi-year client growth plans.
• Develop service models that meet the needs of different client groups, agency partners and emerging opportunities.
• Help commercial teams create more strategic, insight-led client conversations.
• Identify opportunities to grow existing partnerships and develop new revenue streams.
• Ensure that client and agency needs are clearly represented in Tesco Media’s commercial strategy and development roadmap.
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Champion insight and effectiveness

• Embed customer insight throughout planning, strategy, proposition development and external market narratives.
• Develop a programme of trend-led and category insight that strengthens client conversations and elevates Tesco Media’s market position.
• Work with measurement and insight teams to turn effectiveness learning into practical planning principles, commercial evidence and compelling client stories.
• Develop automated tools that improve planning quality, consistency, speed and scale.
• Ensure that recommendations are grounded in evidence and connected to measurable client outcomes.

Build an effective and scalable operating model

• Establish clear ways of working across Strategy & Planning, Commercial, Product, Propositions, Measurement, Marketing and other partner teams.
• Create governance, prioritisation and resource-planning processes that make the function easy to engage and able to scale.
• Use automation, standardisation and capability-building to improve everyday delivery while creating capacity for bespoke strategic work.
• Shape the future design of the function, including its structure, responsibilities, performance measures and development priorities.
• Oversee programme management across strategic workstreams, briefing, training, collateral and cross-functional delivery.

Grow Tesco Media’s market reputation

• Partner with Marketing to shape thought leadership, event narratives, case studies and industry award activity.
• Represent Tesco Media in senior client, agency and industry forums.
• Turn retail media, shopper, ecommerce and commercial trends into actionable growth opportunities.
• Use category intelligence and market narratives to strengthen commercial differentiation and senior client engagement.
• Build recognition for Tesco Media’s effectiveness, innovation and creativity.

Lead and develop a high-performing team

• Lead, coach and develop a large, multidisciplinary team with clear responsibilities and shared goals.
• Create meaningful development pathways and succession opportunities across strategy, planning and insight.
• Set clear expectations, decision rights and measures of success.
• Build an inclusive culture that values curiosity, commercial thinking, collaboration, pace and continuous improvement.
• Support the team to operate confidently and credibly with senior stakeholders.

What we expect from you

• Significant leadership experience within media strategy, retail media, commercial strategy, customer insight, strategic planning, or an agency or client environment.
• A strong record of developing commercial strategies that deliver client and revenue growth.
• Experience leading, coaching and developing high-performing, multidisciplinary teams.
• The ability to translate complex customer data and insight into clear, commercially compelling strategies.
• Confidence influencing senior stakeholders and delivering through cross-functional teams in a matrix environment.
• Strong media-planning knowledge and a clear understanding of how planning excellence contributes to commercial performance.
• Experience building, scaling or transforming a team, function or operating model.
• Excellent storytelling, facilitation and communication skills.
• The judgement to prioritise effectively, challenge constructively and turn strategy into action.
• Experience in retail media or agency planning leadership would be particularly valuable.
• Experience of client growth planning, joint business planning, thought leadership, industry events, awards or other market-facing activity would also be beneficial.

The person we’re looking for

You will be a strategic and commercially minded leader who can see the bigger picture while ensuring that ideas translate into practical action. You will be comfortable navigating complexity, creating clarity and building trusted relationships across different teams and disciplines.

You will combine planning excellence with a strong understanding of client growth, customer insight and commercial effectiveness. Most importantly, you will be an inclusive people leader who can set a clear direction, develop talent and inspire work that raises the standard for retail media.

What You Can Expect From Us

We won't just meet your expectations. We'll defy them. So you'll enjoy the comprehensive rewards package you'd expect from a leading technology company. But also, a degree of personal flexibility you might not expect. Plus, thoughtful perks, like flexible working hours and your birthday off.

And we don't just talk about diversity and inclusion. We live it every day – with thriving networks including dh Gender Equality Network, dh Proud, dh Family, dh One, dh Enabled and dh Thrive as the living proof. We want everyone to have the opportunity to shine and perform at your best throughout our recruitment process — please let your recruiter know what adjustments would help.

UK Benefits

• Flexible Allowance that can be used towards selected benefits, with any remaining unused allowance paid in salary or directed to pension contributions
• Private Medical cover through Vitality, including the option to add partner and/or dependants within the flexible allowance
• Mandatory Life Assurance cover, Income Protection and confidential Employee Assistance support for employees and their families
• Access to wellbeing and lifestyle benefits including gym support, cycle to work, travel insurance, dental options and technology purchase schemes
• Long Service Awards and Talent Scout referral programme
• Birthday leave plus a range of family and annual leave benefits available to eligible employees

Our approach to Flexible Working

At dunnhumby, we value and respect difference and are committed to building an inclusive culture by creating an environment where you can balance a successful career with your commitments and interests outside of work.

We believe that you will do your best at work if you have a work / life balance. Some roles lend themselves to flexible options more than others, so if this is important to you please raise this with your recruiter, as we are open to discussing agile working opportunities during the hiring process.

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