Shanghai, China
APAC senior strategist
at WGSN
WGSN is seeking a APAC senior strategist to join its team in Singapore or Shanghai, China.
We’re looking for a senior strategist based in Singapore or Shanghai to join WGSN Insight’s team in the UK, specialising in retail strategy and consumer behaviour with a focus on the APAC regions.
Insight is WGSN’s fast growing consumer trends content platform. Its mission is to ensure that WGSN’s clients capitalise on the business opportunities emerging from changing consumer attitudes and behaviours.
The ideal candidate will have expertise in APAC shopper behaviour, retail trends, business strategy and the future of online and physical retail. They will be exceptionally articulate in both Chinese and English written and visual communication and be highly skilled in interpreting global market shifts.
The role involves writing content in English.
You research and write best-in-class analysis and forecast reports, such as yearly Asia shopper forecasts, everything from APAC focused beauty, luxury and sustainability retail strategies to APACS’s evolving influencer landscape feeding into Insight’s global content strategy. You will contribute to and manage projects, providing direction in your area of expertise by building and maintaining strong, global cross-department relationships. You will be a retail industry expert and a go-to APAC resource for our team and our clients.
The senior strategist for Insight will deliver:
- content direction: strategise and schedule content according to the needs of clients and in line with current market and industry trends
- content production: deliver concise written trend analysis reports showing a clear understanding of the subscribers’ needs
- content research: support the director and head of Insight on any content research for anchor forecast reports and collaborative projects
- content presentation: represent Insight for WGSN at client meetings, presentations, industry events and media engagements
Key responsibilities:
- Generate report ideas: research, create and deliver business strategy and retail reports in written and video format to a prescribed schedule and deadline
- forecast the impact of social, technological, economic, environmental and cultural change around the world on consumer lifestyles and attitudes
- define the actions needed to capitalise on those changes and direct clients on how to evolve their propositions to stay relevant to customers in a fast-changing market
- produce presentations and webinars of your research and deliver internally and externally
- collaborate with the global WGSN Insight content team and specifically deliver tailored reports to the director and head of consumer Insight
- work with WGSN’s consultancy business Mindset, when required, to deliver bespoke consumer insight to clients
- act as an ambassador for WGSN by speaking at global conferences and seminars
- work with the WGSN commercial teams to support client relationships by sharing and presenting our thinking
- take a lead in team meetings, putting forward new ideas and suggestions for content
- uphold a strong relationship with content teams in different regions and across territories to ensure consistency of trend messages across the company
Desired skills and experience:
- demonstrate a deep understanding of the retail industry in APAC regions
- exceptional knowledge of the global market around consumer behaviour, generational shifts and retail shifts across the industry, from fashion and beauty through to consumer technology, social commerce and e-commerce platforms
- strong level of experience in writing, editing and reporting through an extensive career path within consumer research, journalism or retail strategy
- an understanding of the role data and analytics plays in commercial success
- ability to analyse data and pinpoint trends that will impact the global retail sector
- excellent organisation, communication and collaboration skills with the ability to work within an international team to ensure production standards, reports or outputs are of a consistently high standard and submitted on time
- ability to work across multiple time zones (please note that your manager will be based in the UK)
- experience in managing and leading a team with strong editing skills
- experience in copywriting, journalism or strategy
Why choose us?
At Ascential, diversity, equity and inclusion is core to us. We’re a company built around our people – and we’re committed to supporting each and every one of them to be the best they can be. We love having a diverse team of people who bring new ideas and different strengths and perspectives to Ascential. Our employee-led networks, Ascential Pride, Black in Business and EmPower: An Ascential Women’s Initiative, help us to create a place where communities and allies can connect and share experiences. In addition, our Early Talent programmes help grow and foster diverse new talent for our sectors.
We are committed to supporting the environment and sustainability, including ensuring our pension plan defaults to sustainable options and striving to be net zero by 2030.
Recognising great performance is a key part of our culture. Our Awards schemes recognise and reward the brilliant achievements of our people.
We have a truly flexible working environment with a wide range of flexible, hybrid and agile-working arrangements. Conversations about flexible working have always been – and will continue to be – actively encouraged here.
We want to ensure everyone has the opportunity to perform their best when interviewing, so if you require any reasonable adjustments that would make you more comfortable during the process, please let us know so that we can do our best to support you.