Account Director

Description:

The AD will lead the output of a D2D account team, compromising of an SAM and SAE, whilst managing upwards (SAD/BD, Managing Partner). They are responsible for resourcing projects within the team, managing team capacity and working with specialist department teams (Strategy, Creative, Studio, Production, Measurement, Talent & Influencer etc.) to ensure the appropriate resources have been committed to workstreams.

Key Responsibilities

The AD, should be confident in all of the areas laid out below:

Account Management

Working across multiple clients and projects simultaneously, whilst maintaining a high quality standard without projects falling behind. 
Working within a inter-agency team, alongside Creative Agency (Havas London), Media Agency (Arena Media, part of Havas Media), Production Agency (Prose on Pixels), the AD is a crucial part of ensuring best-in-class cross-functional delivery, driving high standards and best-practice processes with their counterparts within aforementioned Havas agency teams. 
Be a natural at mobilsing large cross-functional teams, being able to spin multiple plates at once with different stakeholder groups, with the ability to proactively drive projects forward by bringing in wider agency expertise & personnel into the process; ensuring all steps & stakeholders are factored into project timelines. 
Create project plans and timelines that are effective; manage these throughout a project lifecycle mitigating any delays to delivery. 
Ensure the right team is in place, with the right capacity and skillset. The AD should manage the capacity of the account team, keeping work to scope and having a handle on any over or under delivery. 
Possess the ability to stay calm and display a positive, solutions-focused attitude whilst under pressure. 

Strategic Skills And Responding To Client Briefs And RFPs

The AD should have a strong point of view on how to interrogate and answer a brief creatively, and how to position and articulate ideas to the client. 
They should be confident in the brief process from interrogating the brief, to insight, strategy and creative briefing, delegating to the team and drawing on other business team leads where necessary. 
They should demonstrate clear strategic thinking in their day-to-day work across their accounts and how this is framing the client’s campaign against their business objectives. 
The AD should have a good understanding of how to structure a brief response, creative presentations, and post-campaign analysis reports. 

Campaign Planning & Execution

The AD will oversee all campaign planning and activation delivery, including content creation and delivery, activation and live experience, influencer engagement across partnership-led projects, owned IP-led projects, alongside social media focused workstreams. 
Understand time to execute projects. Write scopes and negotiate these with client, where necessary (with support of SAD/BD/MP). 
Make sure the team is aligned on the objectives for the client and as an agency team. 
Maintain motivation of the team – ensuring no one is overwhelmed with workload or falling behind on deliverables. 
Oversee the SAM/SAE’s administrative processes on your accounts (status reports, campaign reporting, budget trackers) and ensure they are being updated and delivered to the client on time. 

Content Management

Lead the development of content and asset production from the initial stages of creative ideation and concepting. 
Create briefs for the Creative & Studio team and manage ongoing development of work. 
Be proficient in managing a high volume of content & assets, autonomously leading the development these (alongside Creative & Studio teams), and tracking via content/asset trackers to manage timely and efficient delivery. 
Drive forward the creative feedback process from client to internal Creative / Studio teams internally. 

Writing And Presentation Skills

Have strong creative and corporate writing skills, to be used across external documents such as client proposals and reports, as well as internal documents such as toolkits and case studies. 
Ability to adapt your communications based on the needs of your clients & your team. 
Effectively communicate both verbally and in writing to be clear & concise in clientfacing comms as well as when briefing suppliers and the internal team. 
Have great attention to detail and ensure all written work is delivered to a high standard of quality. 
Demonstrate confidence in competently talking clients though a document or pitching an idea, outlining the process you’ve taken to answer the brief. 
Instill confidence by showcasing your understanding of the client’s brand/business when “selling” the idea to them. 
Reviewing and reinforcing a high standard of comms and presentation amongst the teams going out to clients and businesses. 

Approach, Initiative & Problem Solving

Be positive, proactive and solutions-driven – always think one step ahead. 
Aspire to be fully accountable for day-to-day operations at the same time as empowering the team to feel in control and accountable themselves. 
Stay close enough to the day to day work coming and out of the accounts, anticipating potential problems and issues ahead of them arising, and escalating when necessary. 
Always think ahead – leaving enough time for planning, scope and budgets to be created ahead of work beginning. 

Relationships

Have a strong working relationship with your client and be seen as the trusted point of counsel. Be an active listener to really understand your clients world. 
Feel comfortable and confident challenging & pressing the agency view, always with a solution-based mindest. 
Be approachable and accessible to every member of your team. 
Work fluidly with different departments such as strategy, insights and creative, and following the processes of these teams. 
Manage line reports staying cloise to their development, ambitions and objectives. 
Sets the standard for your team to learn & develop from. 

Client Services & Industry Knowledge

Show genuine interest in your client’s business & sector. 
Flag anything that may be of interest to your clients – competitor activity, news relating to brand ambassadors, media insights etc. 
Stay abreast of new innovations within the industry to be able to contribute effectively in brainstorms and take new opportunities/ideas to your team. 

Growth – Organic & New Business

The AD should look to identify ways to grow their clients organically – capitalising on these moments and taking initiative, with the aim to drive 10% YOY organic growth on client account(s). 
They should be instrumental in helping deliver agency RFPs and pitches outside of their D2D client account, understanding briefs, galvanising teams and delivering on time. 
The AD should have contacts within the industry, making sure they nurture and grow these relationships in order to bring in new opportunites to the business. 

People Management

Management of day-to-day running of the team including keeping all members of the team up-to-date with account work and ensure that regular internal status meetings and/or check-ins are arranged. 
Continuous assessment of teams and distribution of work. 

Time Management 

The AD encompasses good logical planning, strong communication and the ability to manage expectations both internally and externally. 
Efficient time management is essential. They will ensure that they and the team are delivering work on time and are conscientious with deadlines. Being able to anticipate pinch points on their accounts, which may effect capacity and workloads of the team. 

Process Management

They will lead and champion internal agency processes, being adept at using Monday.com to track and manage scopes, workflow and revenue. 
They will be responsible for creating scopes, loading them into Monday.com, updating them when needed, tracking and reporting utilisation based on scoped hours. 
They will track and report on time, creating reconciliation reports to share with Management and Clients. 
They will quickly understand agency Creative & Studio resourcing processes, ensuring teams are adhering to these.