Mike Litman × TikTok EMEA · Head of Culture & Trends

Why Mike
Litman.

Culture strategy · 15+ years Built by The System · mikelitman.me/run

What the role actually requires

The brief.

"You need someone who understands culture deeply, moves fast, and can translate platform signals into business strategy."

"That's not a job description. That's a 15-year career."

I have been doing this job. Under different titles.

Three columns of evidence

The proof.

01 · Tools

Culture intelligence, built

The System, Trove, and a suite of 20+ AI-native products. Real-time cultural analysis tools used by senior strategists. Not decks about AI — working software.

Live · mikelitman.me/run

02 · Platform work

TikTok strategy, delivered

TikTok-native campaign strategy for Nike, Google, and EA at MediaMonks. Algorithm-aware content briefs. Creator frameworks. Platform mechanics understood from the inside.

Nike · Google · EA

03 · Recognition

BIMA 100 Tech Pioneer

BIMA 100 Tech Pioneer. Published author (BCS, 2024). 15+ years of trend translation for global brands at Contagious, MediaMonks, R/GA, AnalogFolk, and Poke.

Author · Pioneer

The changed nature of cultural intelligence

Culture now.

Culture no longer bubbles up — it erupts. TikTok compressed the trend cycle from 18 months to 18 days. What used to be a quarterly intelligence report is now a live feed that demands real-time interpretation.

That requires a different kind of intelligence. Not just observation — translation. The gap between what is trending and what a brand should actually do about it is where strategy either earns its keep or disappears.

platform speed. brand clarity. that's the role.

AI workflow for cultural strategy

The System.

A real AI pipeline that goes from brief to four outputs — landing page, strategy deck, tailored CV, and LinkedIn optimisation — in approximately 90 seconds. Used by VPs, CMOs, and Heads of Marketing from Google, IBM, Block, and Philip Morris.

The pipeline

Input

Brief

→

Output 1

Landing page

→

Output 2

Strategy deck

→

Output 3

Tailored CV

→

Output 4

LinkedIn copy

mikelitman.me/run · ~90 seconds end to end

Work that proves platform fluency

Platform depth.

Nike campaign strategy built around TikTok-native creative formats — not adapted from TV, designed for the platform from the first brief.

Gen Z behavioural analysis for EA: understanding how gaming culture travels between TikTok, Twitch, and Discord — and what that means for a launch moment.

Algorithm-aware content briefs for Google: not what to say, but when to say it, how to format it, and what the first three seconds need to do.

The acceleration argument

Intelligence
at scale.

"I built tools that do in minutes what used to take days — not to replace thinking, but to accelerate it."

The Visible Shelf: 295-book library with AI-curated takes. Trove: cultural briefing platform for senior strategists. The System: brief-to-output in 90 seconds. These are not experiments — they are working infrastructure for cultural intelligence.

The System Trove The Visible Shelf Cultural Terminal First Order With Moshi Buggy Smart + 13 more

If I started on Monday

90 days.

1 Map the gap. Audit what is actually trending across EMEA markets versus what brands are still briefing — the lag between platform reality and brand response. That gap is where the value lives.

2 Build the system. Create an internal culture tracking infrastructure for EMEA teams — signals, formats, cadence. A tool that makes the whole organisation more culturally fluent, not just the strategy team.

3 Publish the report. Launch a quarterly TikTok EMEA culture intelligence report that becomes required reading for brand marketers across the region. Define the format, own the distribution.

Why this role, at this moment

The ask.

Not just a job. A platform to do the most interesting work in culture strategy right now.

TikTok is where culture is made. The Head of Culture role is the job of being in the engine room — not analysing the platform from the outside, but shaping how it is understood, briefed, and acted on by the brands that matter most. There is no more important seat in culture strategy right now.

Available immediately. Based in London. Ready to move at TikTok speed.

Head of Culture & Trends · TikTok EMEA

Let's make
culture.

Mike Litman hello@mikelitman.me mikelitman.me linkedin.com/in/michaellitman

Generated by The System · mikelitman.me/run · April 2026

Why MikeLitman.