The role
The Associate Director (equivalent to Senior / Group Account Director) will be an integral strategic partner for your clients, and will lead and orchestrate accounts whose remits range from brand purpose to corporate communications; from sustainability strategies to brand activism campaigns.
You’ll partner with a Strategy AD / Director (and sometimes a Creative AD / Director) to drive the leadership of key accounts. You’ll be an expert in our work, representing it with clients, as well as being the client’s representative in the agency, responsible for account development and nurturing relationships, as well as overall delivery. You’ll also actively seek out and drive new business, preparing 1-2 new business pitches or proposals per quarter.
You’ll report into the Director of the Client Team who will support you with career development and opportunities, and you’ll have three line reports (a Client Lead and two Client Managers).
You will lead one of our biggest accounts, IKEA, with a focus on campaign delivery. You’ll also oversee 1-2 sizable “Star” accounts (£150k - £500k) and a selection of smaller projects, to deliver outcomes that genuinely have real-world positive impact with amazing brands.
Day-to-day responsibilities
To give you a greater understanding of what you would be a part of, these are some of the day to day aspects of this role:
Leading accounts by developing strong, strategic and commercially successful client relationships
Acting as a true Partner to your clients, understanding your client’s business and their challenges in order to support and challenge them to develop effective, impactful work together
Leading business development across your key accounts, identifying opportunities, preparing proposals, managing a pipeline and converting income
Being fully accountable for account level finances – overseeing forecasting, profitability and invoicing, setting and meeting account level targets
Delivering Purpose work to the highest standard
Leading accounts internally, working closely with your Strategy and Creative partners, whilst keeping your account Exec sponsor in the loop
Planning purpose programmes, proposing the activities, workstreams and tasks needed to meet objectives
Representing the work as a Given expert, both in presentations, / meetings / workshops and as a trusted confidante
Ensuring quality of the account and project deliverables, working alongside other senior members of the team, and delegating effectively to Client Managers / Production where required to support with delivery
Drive new business pitches and proposals
Attending initial new business meetings, representing Given and presenting creds
Leading new business meetings and pitches, driving a pitch team forwards
Authoring proposals (both full proposals and sections) and presenting with confidence
Commercial negotiations
Support in the growth and development of an effective Client Team
Line manage 3 line reports at Client Manager and Lead level, supporting them in both day to day tasks and longer term development.
Delegation of key project tasks, managing your team with clear briefings, check ins and expectation setting
Regular check ins (121s) and management of holiday / sickness and pay reviews
Onboarding for new starters
Development of personal development plans, gathering and delivering feedback, drafting objectives and supporting your line reports in meeting them. Performance management, if required.
Supporting your line reports with their Personal Purpose journey
Support the Client Team Director in the leadership of the client team
Identifying recruitment needs and managing recruitment process with Office Manager
Contribute to hiring decision making process and onboarding
Continually look to optimize and codify our processes, through cross team collaboration, process design and rollout / implementation in team
Ensure maintenance of team / process documentation and tools
Support with the week-to-week functioning of the client team
Contribute to overall team resource, flagging if more / less resource required, and helping cast projects
Support Client Director to manage team freelancers and freelance budget
Deputize for Client Team Director in leading team meeting, finance meeting and resource conversations
Contribute to team strategy and culture
Team planning
Leading key parts of quarterly away days
Monitor and support wellbeing and contribute to team culture
Be a trusted leader in the team, that other members can come to with requests / support
About you
We’re looking for someone who would describe themselves as a confident, entrepreneurial, approachable, solutions-focused and a natural leader. You will be happy working with different disciplines (ideally including brand purpose strategy, sustainability, planning, conceptual creative and design), primarily as the account lead, but you should feel comfortable with being ‘hands-on’ when required. You feel motivated to help deliver a real positive impact through the work that we do, and you have passion for management and nurturing growth in others.
We would like you to have a few years of working in an agency environment in a client services / programme management role, with a solid understanding of project management. It would be excellent if you had experience as a Senior or Group Account Director but we are open to candidates at an Account Director level looking for their next step up.
A key focus of the role is account development, so you will have an entrepreneurial outlook and a track record of proactively identifying and converting new opportunities. You will also have experience building client partnerships and managing programmes of work, and of line management.
Recruitment process
Our first step will be a 30 minute phone call to understand a bit more about you and why you’ve applied. Next, we’ll invite candidates to a first round interview to get into more detail about you and the role, as well as taking a look at your experience together. The final stage will involve answering a short brief that will take no longer than a day of your time to prep. We’ll ask you to come into our office (if you’re comfortable doing that) to present your thinking.
About us
Given is the agency for purpose-driven brands. Everything that we do is about making brands a force for good, helping create positive change for people, communities and the world. Working with ambitious clients on the creation and execution of purpose, sustainable business strategies, innovation and creative campaigning and storytelling we are seeing the demand for the support that we can offer grow exponentially.
We offer great benefits, a collaborative and creative environment, impactful and meaningful work, brilliant career opportunities, and the chance to work with some of the biggest and best brands in the world. Our work has helped national and international brands like IKEA, John Lewis & Partners, Nespresso and Bupa, define and execute on their brand purpose. We fundamentally believe it takes both insightful strategy and imaginative creativity to change things for good, so we have both under the same East London roof.
