Senior Social Commerce Strategist (Permanent)

VML is a global creative company that combines brand experience, customer experience, and commerce to create connected brands that drive growth. Guided by a Human First philosophy, VML is known for its innovative work for brands and consistently ranks among the world’s leading creative companies, including the WARC Creative 100. VML’s global network spans 55+ markets with principal offices in Buenos Aires, Kansas City, London, New York, São Paulo, Shanghai and Singapore.

VML is part of WPP, the trusted growth partner for the world's leading brands. Powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform WPP Open, WPP unites cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, creativity, production, enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel.

For more information, please visit www.vml.com and follow along on LinkedIn #WeAreVML.

### Senior Social Commerce Strategist needed to join our Global Social Commerce Team on a permanent basis.

We are looking for a commercially minded Senior Social Commerce Strategist to join our Global Social Commerce Team. This is a senior role for someone who thinks like an operator as much as a strategist: you will own the strategic and commercial thinking behind how some of the world’s biggest brands build, launch, trade and scale on social - with TikTok Shop at the centre - and you will be accountable for the quality of that thinking in front of senior clients.

You will translate client business objectives into social commerce strategies that hold up commercially: channel economics that work, forecasts that are defensible, measurement that proves incrementality, and operating models that can be exported market to market. You will be the connective tissue between strategy, creative, media, data and platform partners - and the person clients call when they need a point of view on where social commerce goes next.

You will also lead people: line-managing a small team of strategists, setting the standard for the craft, and raising the commercial literacy of everyone around you. Depth across the social platforms and their commerce ecosystems - TikTok Shop above all, alongside Meta, YouTube and emerging AI-led discovery - is essential.

What you’ll be doing:

Commercial strategy & value creation

Channel Economics & Business Case: Build and own the commercial case for social commerce investment - channel P&L modelling, unit economics (COGS, commission, fulfilment, returns, promotional depth), contribution margin and payback - so recommendations are grounded in what actually makes money for the client.

Trading & Forecasting: Set and pressure-test the numbers behind the plan: GMV, AOV, conversion, basket and attach rate, CAC, ROAS/MER and repeat rate. Build forecasts and scenario models across always-on trading, LIVE, affiliate and peak moments, and diagnose performance against them.

Investment & Mix Strategy: Advise clients on where budget works hardest across paid, organic, affiliate/creator and platform tooling (GMV Max, Spark Ads, retail media), making the trade-offs explicit - including what to stop doing.

Margin & Pricing Discipline: Protect client margin as volume scales - promotional architecture, discount dependency, bundling and pack strategy, and repeat-purchase mechanics.

Strategic leadership

Channel & Category Strategy: Develop social commerce strategies aligned to client business objectives and category dynamics - defining role of channel, audience and demand strategy, portfolio and SKU selection, and the route from discovery to conversion.

Operating Model & Market Expansion: Design the operating model that makes the strategy deliverable - crawl/walk/run sequencing, roles and responsibilities across client, agency and platform partners, governance, and blueprints that export into new markets rather than being rebuilt each time.

Launch & Commerce Readiness: Own the go-to-market gate: fulfilment and 3PL models, dispatch SLAs, customer service, returns and Shop Health - ensuring commercial ambition is matched by operational readiness.

Paid & Organic Integration: Build strategies that unify paid, organic, creator and affiliate activity into a single commercial system rather than parallel channels with separate objectives.

Content & Creator Strategy: Work with client editorial, creative and marketing teams to define content-to-cart strategies, creator and affiliate programmes (including commission architecture and creator economics), and LIVE formats that convert.

Platform & Ecosystem Expertise: Maintain authoritative depth across TikTok Shop, Meta, YouTube and emerging social and AI-led commerce surfaces - including partner ecosystems, betas and platform roadmaps - and translate it into first-mover advantage for clients.

Client & business leadership

Senior Client Counsel: Act as trusted strategic advisor to senior client stakeholders up to Marketing Director, Commercial Director and GM level - as credible in a commercial conversation as a creative one, and able to disagree well when the data says so.

Scoping & Commercial Shaping of Work: Interrogate and shape briefs, define scope and approach, input into resourcing, estimates and statements of work, and ensure what we sell is what we can brilliantly deliver.

Growth & New Business: Identify and shape opportunities to extend the work - new markets, brands and workstreams - and bring senior strategic firepower to pitches, RFPs and capability sessions.

Presentation & Persuasion: Build and deliver arguments that land in the