Neighbourhood Strategy this week brought together 45 professionals from Melbourne's strategy and marketing community for its inaugural Strat Chats event.

The Neighbourhood Strat Chats initiative is the brainchild of Neighbourhood Strategy's founder and CSO, Jacqueline Witts, open to Melbourne's strategy community.

The initiative was officially launched at the event, with an address from Witts as well as Clemenger Strategy Partner, Mike Ronkoske.

The group plans to host future events to foster greater connection between strategists and to raise the value of strategy in business and creative.

"Strategy can sometimes be a bit of a lonely pursuit, and I wanted to connect with and connect up other strategists. I put a small post on LinkedIn a month ago, thinking I’d get six or eight interested for a coffee, and was blown away at the response. We’re already over 110 members in the group," said Witts. "We are thrilled with the turn out this morning, and clearly there is a network of passionate, energised strategists who are hungry to share. Generosity is clearly at the heart of this community."

"Culture is the operating system for everyday life...and fame is the most contagious fuel to accelerate the cultural change," Ronkoske said.

"We asked our community when the last time they had a satisfying strategic chat and over 46% stated it had ’been a while’. That broke my heart, but equally it validated why so many people are raising their hand to be involved. I’m really excited for the next event, which we hope will be a Sydney based one," Witts said.

Neighbourhood Strategy is an independent collective of experienced strategists specialising in brand strategy, research and marketing team support.