Vice President, Group Director, Engagement Strategy Greater New York City, NY Area

Company Description

Digitas Health is the modern creative agency that takes on the biggest moments in healthcare, raises the standard of creative, and connects people, partners, and ideas to create work that earns its place in culture. Purpose-built for today’s complex and evolving landscape, we partner with some of the world’s largest healthcare brands to do big things by moving faster, connecting deeper, and unlocking new possibilities at the intersection of creativity, data, technology, and empathy. Guided by our purpose, Connected for Good, and fueled by a vibrant, magnetic culture—we deliver meaningful work that drives relevance, changes behavior, and creates lasting impact, always grounded in humanity, not just technology. As part of Publicis Health and Publicis Groupe, we bring together entrepreneurial energy with the scale, stability, and depth of one of the world’s leading communications networks.

At Digitas Health, what sets us apart isn’t just who we work with, it’s how we work and how it feels to be here. Our culture attracts curious, driven people who want to make a difference and be part of something bigger. Our teams are intentionally crafted across disciplines, perspectives, and experience levels, bringing strategy, creativity, data, and technology together from the start. We believe the best ideas come from curiosity, collaboration, and healthy debate and we expect people here to be thoughtful, engaged, and eager to shape what’s next. If you’re energized by complexity, motivated by impact, and excited to help redefine how healthcare connects with people, we’d love to meet you!

Overview

We're looking for a Vice President, Group Director, Engagement Strategy to lead the strategic vision for a major portfolio of clients, teams, and growth opportunities.

The VP, Group Director is a senior leader of the discipline and the business. This person is accountable for the quality, growth, talent, and operating health of Engagement Strategy across a substantial portfolio, setting standards that influence the broader agency and consistently raising the ambition of the work.

The successful candidate will combine enterprise-level strategic leadership, deep audience and healthcare fluency, commercial judgment, and organizational influence. They will be equally comfortable advising C-suite clients, directing complex integrated businesses, developing senior leaders, shaping agency capabilities, and turning emerging changes in behavior, technology, data, and AI into durable client advantage.

Responsibilities

Research and Insight Leadership

Set the research and intelligence agenda across a portfolio of teams and client relationships.

Connect primary research, audience intelligence, behavioral data, performance signals, market dynamics, and cultural trends to identify growth opportunities and strategic risks.

Challenge established category assumptions and bring an enterprise perspective to the development of differentiated strategies.

Anticipate shifts in patient, caregiver, healthcare professional, and Patient Services behaviors and translate them into portfolio-level implications.

Sponsor new insight capabilities, tools, partnerships, and methodologies that strengthen the discipline and create competitive advantage.

Establish a forward-looking point of view on AI-driven changes in discovery, consideration, engagement, access, and continued treatment support.

Audience Leadership

Set the audience engagement vision across DTC, HCP, Patient Services, and enterprise initiatives.

Ensure strategies address the distinct needs, motivations, barriers, behaviors, and decision roles of patients, caregivers, healthcare professionals, and support stakeholders.

Identify high-value connections across audiences, brands, and phases of the healthcare journey.

Direct teams in translating audience intelligence into differentiated engagement frameworks, journeys, ecosystems, and activation strategies.

Balance portfolio consistency and scale with the tailored experiences required by different audiences, brands, and markets.

Advise senior clients on how audience relationships intersect and where connected planning can unlock greater customer and business value.

Build agency-wide audience fluency by codifying best practices, elevating standards, and developing senior practitioners.

Define overarching strategic architecture for brands, portfolios, platforms, and long-term engagement initiatives.

Own the overarching strategic architecture for major brands, portfolios, platforms, and long-term transformation initiatives.

Integrate clinical, behavioral, cultural, audience, business, and channel intelligence to define clear choices and create measurable client value.

Hold integrated teams accountable for ensuring strategy, experience, content, media, technology, and execution ladder to one connected vision.

Set multi-year strategic priorities and anticipate client needs, organizational shifts, and growth opportunities beyond immediate assignments.

Evaluate marketplace, competitive, regulatory, and technology shifts to shape executive decisions and investment priorities.

Lead AI-enabled strategic transformation while establishing appropriate standards for human judgment, audience value, quality, and responsible use.

Shape future-state engagement ecosystems that drive audience and business value.

Define the future-state engagement ecosystem across complex brands, portfolios, audiences, and markets.

Establish scalable ecosystem models and operating principles that improve consistency, speed, and strategic quality.

Set the strategic roles of paid, owned, earned, CRM, media, social, service, technology, field, and emerging channels within one connected system.

Sponsor innovation across AI platforms, technologies, data opportunities, and partnerships, with clear criteria for business and audience value.

Oversee ecosystem performance and investment tradeoffs to improve ROI, relevance, experience quality, and alignment with enterprise priorities.

Ensure audience journeys, channel strategies, content systems, data plans, and measurement frameworks work together from strategy through optimization.

Scale successful approaches across the portfolio and retire fragmented practices that limit performance.

Represent the discipline in agency innovation, capability, and transformation initiatives.

Lead senior-level planning conversations, workshops, executive presentations, and moments of organizational change.

Serve as a trusted strategic advisor to C-suite clients, senior agency leadership, and key partner organizations.

Frame complex business challenges as clear strategic choices, implications, tradeoffs, and decisions.

Lead executive planning conversations, high-stakes workshops, business reviews, pitches, and moments of organizational change.

Own the strategic health, senior client relationships, and growth agenda for a significant portfolio of business.

Translate evolving audience and business needs into organic growth, new capabilities, expanded scopes, and new-business opportunities.

Partner with account and finance leadership to connect strategic ambition with staffing, investment, scope, and delivery realities.

Identify portfolio-level risks early, align leaders around corrective action, and remain accountable for the path forward.

Establish clear standards for strategic rigor, communication, collaboration, and accountability.

Build, lead, and retain high-performing Engagement Strategy teams across multiple accounts or business units.

Develop Vice Presidents, Directors, and other senior leaders to independently lead complex client relationships, teams, and growth opportunities.

Set clear expectations for strategic rigor, executive presence, commercial leadership, collaboration, and accountability.

Own senior staffing, succession, talent-to-task, and workforce planning decisions across the portfolio.

Create leadership pathways and experiences that broaden audience, channel, healthcare, operational, and business fluency.

Establish a culture of candid feedback, inclusive leadership, high standards, and increasing autonomy.

Address performance, capability, and team-health risks directly and in partnership with discipline and agency leadership.

Contribute to discipline-wide talent strategy, recruiting, retention, and capability development.

Represent Engagement Strategy in senior leadership, integrated planning, and growth forums.

Build durable senior-level partnerships across Brand Strategy, Data and Analytics, Social Strategy, Creative, Media, CRM, Technology, Experience, Patient Services, Account, Project Management, and partner agencies.

Lead integrated strategy and business leadership groups, creating shared accountability for the vision, quality, and outcomes of the work.

Resolve systemic issues, cross-team tension, competing priorities, and unclear ownership that limit effectiveness or growth.

Champion team health and culture while holding leaders accountable for performance, inclusion, and sustainable ways of working.

Represent Engagement Strategy in executive leadership, portfolio planning, investment, staffing, and growth forums.

Establish operating models that improve strategic cohesion, decision velocity, quality, and efficiency at scale.

Build alignment across agencies, markets, and partner organizations when delivering complex, connected client solutions.

Use AI responsibly to strengthen executive communications, synthesis, and strategic storytelling.

Set communication standards that create clarity, trust, alignment, and momentum across complex organizations.

Anticipate the information and decision needs of C-suite clients, agency executives, and integrated leadership teams.

Translate complexity into concise, persuasive narratives that move senior stakeholders to decisions and action.

Model direct, adaptive communication during ambiguity, conflict, transformation, or high-stakes business moments.

Ensure written, verbal, and visual communications consistently reinforce the strategic vision and business case.

Coach senior leaders to strengthen executive presence, facilitation, strategic storytelling, and influence.

Use AI responsibly to accelerate synthesis and communication while maintaining accuracy, judgment, and a distinct point of view.

Track record of building teams, developing talent, coaching leaders, and establishing high standards for strategic quality.

Approximately 12 or more years of experience in Engagement Strategy, communications planning, customer experience, digital strategy, consulting, marketing, or a related discipline.

Extensive experience leading integrated strategic initiatives across major brands, portfolios, business units, or markets.

Demonstrated fluency across DTC, HCP, and Patient Services audiences, with the ability to connect decisions across complex healthcare ecosystems.

Expertise in audience strategy, omnichannel engagement, customer journeys, ecosystem design, experience planning, and performance optimization.

Proven ability to define enterprise-level strategic vision and translate it into scalable frameworks, operating models, and measurable plans.

Established credibility advising C-suite clients and influencing executive stakeholders through complex business decisions.

Track record of leading leaders, building senior teams, planning succession, and raising standards across a discipline or portfolio.

Demonstrated ownership of organic growth, capability development, new-business strategy, and the commercial health of client relationships.

Exceptional executive communication, facilitation, presentation, negotiation, and strategic storytelling skills.

Ability to lead through ambiguity, organizational change, competing priorities, and high-stakes business challenges.

Experience applying data, analytics, technology, and AI to strategic decisions, transformation, and performance improvement.

Demonstrated ability to manage portfolio-level staffing, investment, scope, and delivery tradeoffs in partnership with business leaders.

Significant healthcare, pharmaceutical, wellness, or regulated-category experience required; experience across multiple audiences, brands, or therapeutic areas strongly preferred.

Additional Information

Our Publicis Groupe motto “Viva La Différence” means we’re better together, and we believe that our differences make us stronger. It means we honor and celebrate all identities, across all facets of intersectionality, and it underpins all that we do as an organization. We are focused on fostering belonging and creating equitable & inclusive experiences for all talent.

Publicis Groupe provides robust and inclusive benefit programs and policies to support the evolving and diverse needs of our talent and enable every person to grow and thrive. Our benefits package includes medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401K, as well as parental and family care leave, family forming assistance, tuition reimbursement, and flexible time off.

If you require accommodation or assistance with the application or onboarding process specifically, please contact USMTTACompliance@publicis.com.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

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Compensation Range: USD $159,695.00 - USD $255,645.00/Annually. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. This role may also be eligible for bonus or incentive compensation. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. Temporary roles may be eligible to participate in our freelancer/temporary employee medical plan through a third-party benefits administration system once certain criteria have been met. For regular roles, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off. The Company anticipates the application deadline for this job posting will be 11/2/2026.