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Group Director, Client Advice & Management
Initiative
New York, NY, United States
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Position Summary
The Group Director, Client Advice and Management is a senior leadership role, managing across an integrated team (Client Advice and Management, Strategy, Communications Design and Partnerships). As a member of management, you exemplify our behaviors, drive quality work and motivate your full integrated team by creating a positive and collaborative environment. You work in partnership and collaboration with the discipline leads and across the SBUs, to ensure comprehensive, business-appropriate solutions for clients.
You are the day-to-day leader and driver for the client and the internal team. Your daily insights will keep your Managing Director – and your full Initiative team - ahead of the game, with your category expertise, status updates and proactive guidance. You are the authority on the client business to the agency and an authority on Initiative and the SBUs to the clients. You translate the clients’ challenges and opportunities, both internally and externally, and lead the development of solutions that achieve the goals. The Group Director manages the profitability of your group of accounts and has strong commercial acumen skills.
Essential Functions
• Client
◦ Day to day client leader and advisor
◦ Actively lead the team to deliver brilliant work and flawless execution, ensuring positive client satisfaction scores
◦ Leadership and authoring of all client proposals, recommendations and points of view
◦ Ensure all client reporting, budget management, authorization and billing needs are met in a timely an accurate fashion
◦ Responsible for ensuring a positive relationship between clients and Strategy, Design, Partnerships and SBU leads on your group of accounts
◦ Astute listener and learning to drive the right solutions
◦ Agitator / driver to push clients to innovate rather than stagnate
◦ Ready to professionally push back where necessary to effectively manage client expectations, agency resources and deadlines
◦ Deepen relationships and craft collaborative partnership with clients’ partners agencies
◦ Contribute to client QBR meetings
• Internal
◦ Participate in all client briefings, clearly articulate client needs and objectives to the integrated Strategy, Communications Design and Partnership leads
◦ Apply a client lens to all areas of Initiative product, ensuring solutions developed are business-appropriate and meet agreed-upon KPIs
◦ Regularly educate your team, your Group Director and Initiative leadership on your clients’ business, culture and industry
◦ Involve leadership and Group Director in key client engagements
◦ Partner with discipline leaders to stay informed and aware of new developments internally and externally
◦ Promote an open working environment where opinions, views and ideas can be shared
◦ Develop your client advice and management team through performance management and giving consistent feedback
◦ Partner with the discipline leaders (e.g., Strategy, Communications Design, Partnerships, Analytics) and your Group Director, to provide team members with well-rounded performance goals, evaluations and career paths
• Commercial
◦ Ensure over delivery of all agreed-upon performance KPI’s
◦ Actively track and manage team staffing and resource allocation
◦ Regularly update your Group Director on utilization, profitability, fees, and scope of work compliance
◦ Seek out opportunities to grow existing business and drive organic growth across group of accounts, through Initiative’s services as well as those of Mediabrands’ and IPG partner agencies
◦ Ensure all annual financial goals / targets are met across Initiative and Mediabands SBU’s
• New Business
◦ Participate in new business when required – either on prospective clients or organically from your own group of clients
Qualifications
Education:
• Bachelor degree in related field or equivalent work experience
Work Experience:
• 10+ years in integrated planning role in media, publisher / vendor, or communications discipline (digital, content)
• 6+ years’ experience in leading, managing and developing a multi-dimensional staff
Skills:
• Proven ability to develop and maintain strong professional relationships with clients, colleagues and vendors
• Ability to drive projects from conception to completion; project management experience
• Background in consulting, marketing, advertising or integrated communications
• Strong leader, presenter and packager of opportunities
• Strong commercial acumen
About Us
Initiative is different to other media agencies. We are not trapped by a legacy structure primarily centered on paid advertising. Instead, we are liberated by a new world structure designed to deliver highly differentiated and highly effective communications strategies for our clients. We’re not the biggest agency in town. So rather than outsize our competitors we must outsmart them. That’s why we’ve built the strongest strategic capability of any agency in the market. Core to this strategic capability is an obsession with culture and how brands can pivot from brand advertising (which is forgettable) to cultural branding (which is highly memorable). Our new world model is comprised of four central “craft centers” – Client Advice and Management, Strategy, Communications Design and Partnerships.