As Global Chief Strategy Officer at AKQA, Miriam Plon Sauer shapes strategic direction for world-renowned brands at the intersection of imagination and AI. With over two decades of brand strategy experience spanning global markets, she leads AKQA’s global strategy community and serves on the Executive Committee, guiding the agency’s positioning as the Frontier Agency.
Miriam’s work centers on a fundamental conviction: AI is most powerful not as an efficiency tool but as a curiosity partner, one that helps strategists ask braver questions and pursue more original solutions. She has developed proprietary methodology frameworks that embed AI-augmented thinking into strategy at scale, helping clients including Volvo, Samsung, and Google move from incremental thinking to genuine creative and commercial breakthroughs.
At the heart of her practice is a belief that the most enduring strategies are built on authentic human truths. She has led brand and audience strategy for some of the world’s most culturally resonant brands, including Netflix, LEGO, TikTok, and Nike, developing the deep consumer understanding that turns brand purpose into lasting relevance.
Most notably, she played a key role in the groundbreaking “Sounds Right” initiative for the Museum of the United Nations and Spotify, which made NATURE an official artist on streaming platforms for the first time, channeling music royalties directly into frontline conservation projects. The campaign won four Cannes Lions including the Grand Prix for Innovation in 2025.
A passionate advocate for brands as transformative forces, Miriam champions strategies that connect creativity with commercial success while pushing boundaries through approaches that merge human imagination with cutting-edge technology. She is a regular judge for creative effectiveness awards and writes and speaks on how the industry can move beyond efficiency-first thinking toward a new era of strategic imagination.
