Based within the Mandarin Oriental global brand organisation and based at the London Corporate Head Office, Mandarin Oriental is seeking a Global Director of Brand Strategy to define and guide the strategic frameworks that shape how the brand and its hotels are positioned, structured, and experienced worldwide.
Reporting to the Vice President Brand, this role sits at the centre of the Brand team’s mandate to define, protect and evolve the strategic, cultural and creative foundations of the Mandarin Oriental brand. It owns the brand positioning, brand platform and narrative universe, ensuring these are not only clearly defined, but actively applied, governed and embedded across the Group.
The Director will own the Brand transformation roadmap - setting priorities, sequencing workstreams and tracking progress across the initiatives that professionalise end-to-end brand management. While this role may not directly own every initiative within the roadmap, it is accountable for ensuring the overall agenda is coherent, strategically aligned and moving at pace. It partners closely with Brand Experience, Brand Identity, CMI, Development, Design & Technical Services, Marketing, Operations, Resorts, Retail & Partnerships and PR & Communications to ensure that every brand-impacting decision strengthens Mandarin Oriental’s long-term equity
Brand Strategy, Governance & Transformation
Act as a strategic guardian of the Mandarin Oriental brand, ensuring that business decisions, property projects, partnerships, campaigns and new initiatives are accurate, distinctive and elevated expressions of the brand.
Own the Brand transformation roadmap, translating the Group’s strategic agenda into a clear sequence of priorities, workstreams, milestones and decision points.
Develop and maintain the Group’s brand strategy, brand positioning, platform and architecture, ensuring clarity across the masterbrand, sub-brands, product expressions and future growth opportunities.
Establish the strategic guardrails and governance approach that help teams make consistent, brand-led decisions while allowing each property and initiative to feel bespoke and locally relevant.
Partner with the Director of Brand Experience, who owns the definition and codification of brand markers, rituals and signature moments, to ensure those expressions remain tightly linked to the wider brand strategy.
Brand Positioning, Narrative & Creative Direction
Define, protect and continuously sharpen the Mandarin Oriental brand positioning, ensuring it remains distinctive, relevant and commercially powerful in the luxury hospitality landscape.
Build and evolve the wider brand universe around the positioning, including the brand platform, narrative territories, strategic messaging, proof points and expression principles that guide how the brand shows up across audiences, markets and touchpoints.
Own the strategic positioning of Mandarin Oriental in the market and against the competitive set, translating category shifts, competitor moves and guest expectations into clear implications for brand strategy.
Provide brand creative direction for Group-level campaigns, ensuring creative briefs, concepts and outputs are anchored in the brand positioning and elevate the brand’s desirability, distinctiveness and cultural relevance.
Work closely with Marketing, PR & Communications and external creative partners to ensure campaign ideas, content platforms and storytelling territories are strategically coherent, creatively ambitious and unmistakably Mandarin Oriental.
Portfolio, Hotel & Project Positioning
Lead the strategic positioning work for new hotel, resort and residence projects, ensuring each project reinforces the Group brand while articulating a clear and differentiated local proposition.
Partner with Development, Design & Technical Services, Wellness, F&B, Resorts and Operations from early concept stage through opening readiness to ensure brand intent is translated into clear strategic direction.
Review and challenge brand-impacting decisions across projects, renovations, repositionings and rebrandings, holding the bar on relevance, distinctiveness and elevation.
Build a coherent portfolio narrative, ensuring the Group’s expansion strengthens Mandarin Oriental’s desirability, price premium and long-term equity rather than diluting the brand.
Insights, Customer-Centricity & Strategic Alignment
Work closely with the Customer & Market Insights team to ensure brand strategy is grounded in guest segments, behaviours, market dynamics and competitive intelligence.
Translate qualitative and quantitative insight into strategic direction that improves brand relevance, strengthens differentiation and informs decision-making across the Group.
Create alignment across Brand, Marketing, Operations, Development and regional teams so that brand strategy moves from central intent to property-level reality.
Use insight and governance forums to surface risks, resolve inconsistencies and ensure initiatives are prioritised against the Brand transformation roadmap.
Brand Stewardship & Operating Rhythm
Support the Vice President Brand in running the Brand operating rhythm, including roadmap reviews, governance discussions and decision-making forums that keep cross-functional priorities moving.
Serve as a senior advisor to internal teams and external partners on brand strategy, portfolio logic, property positioning and strategic brand fit.
Identify where brand standards, tools, processes or approval gates need to be strengthened to improve consistency and reduce dilution across the portfolio.
Contribute to the definition of brand success measures, including brand health, consistency, price premium, adoption and delivery of agreed transformation priorities.
Significant professional experience in brand strategy, brand management or strategic marketing roles within luxury hospitality, lifestyle, luxury consumer or high-touch service sectors.
Proven ability to manage complex brand architectures, positioning frameworks and strategic transformation agendas across multiple markets or business units.
Strong understanding of property, product or experience positioning, preferably in collaboration with development, design, operations or experience teams.
Highly comfortable using customer, market and competitive insight to inform strategic choices and prioritise action.
Strong creative judgement, with the ability to guide campaign briefs, assess creative concepts and ensure marketing output is fully aligned with brand positioning.
Excellent stakeholder management skills, with the maturity to influence senior leaders, challenge constructively and create alignment across functions.
Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to turn complex strategic thinking into clear narratives, frameworks and decision materials.
Structured, organised and comfortable managing a roadmap of interdependent initiatives without necessarily owning every workstream directly.
Culturally astute, globally minded and passionate about luxury, hospitality, craft and brand-led growth.
Willingness to travel internationally.
Learning & Development. Your success is our success. We craft unique learning and development programmes for various stages in your career so that you grow, continuously.
MOstay. When you work as hard as our colleagues do, it’s important to take time off. As a member of the #MOfamily, you can stay with us wherever you go in the world. The MOstay programme offers complimentary nights and additionally attractive rates on rooms for you and your loved ones.
Heath & Colleague Wellness. Finding the right work-life balance is important. Your wellbeing matters to us. A variety of health benefits and wellness programmes are offered to all our colleagues, globally.
Retirement Plans. When you show commitment to us, we reciprocate. We offer different retirement plans depending on the length of your service and your role
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