Job description
Leading B2B agency is looking for an Account Director who has excellent B2B experience. You must have 8+ years of work experience, with a minimum of 5 years agency-specific experience in account (or project management in a client-facing capacity) to be considered for this position.Location: Onsite Tuesday through Friday and remote Mondays (onsite 5 days/wk through the 1st 90 days)
Overview:
As a senior member of the Account Service team, you are one-part B2B marketing expert and one-part relationship pioneer. As an Account Director, you are the engine that drives your client relationships/programs/engagements and you serve as the senior point-of-contact promoting organic growth for the 2 - 5 accounts assigned to you. You champion client strategy (independently and in collaboration with our strategy & media department) confidently influencing senior client decision-makers. You leverage your knowledge of business, industry, marketing, and client dynamics to drive progress and performance. You succeed by framing and shepherding meaningful strategies to solve client challenges –which helps us produce great work, and secures and expands the Agency’s position and reputation with your accounts. You have a growth mindset: You take an active role in individual and client growth by developing a portfolio account approach – understanding how multiple clients, opportunities, senior contacts, and case studies/experience influence success.
People & Relationship Skills: Demonstrate experience and understanding of client drivers, motivators and interpersonal dynamics that lead to long-standing relationships and trust. Demonstrate ability to engage senior client & agency contacts.
Money Sense: Own account-level finance. Understand financial negotiation and give-and-take with clients as projects and scope evolve.
Presence & “It Factor”: Demonstrate comfort in independently leading or overseeing client conversations, client communications and authority in negotiating (or pushing back) with clients for the benefit of the project/relationship, including situations involving conflict or misalignment.
Critical Thinking Skills: Demonstrate understanding of business challenges and marketing realities, and how/where to confidently engage others to overcome or elevate/escalate to drive work forward.
Connecting Dots: Probe into business dynamics, question assumptions and align stakeholders when input/processes/stakeholders are ambiguous. Understand which dots are most important and discern how to quiet the noise to find clarity. Marketing Discipline: Demonstrate experience with a wide mix of marketing channels and tactics. Demonstrate comfort representing the agency’s capabilities, experience and best practices across the mix.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Client Relationship – Serve as the lead or oversight client-to-agency liaison across multiple and key accounts, with greater independence than junior account team members. Initiate/frame inputs for regular relationship check-ins at appropriate intervals (monthly, quarterly, annually). Lead or oversee project kick-offs, SME discovery interviews, regular status update meetings, creative work presentations, and ongoing client communications. Field client requests and input, pushing back and clarifying as needed, and enable execution with our internal resources.
Project Management – Facilitate and oversee creation and updates for client project management methods including status reports & recaps, project timeline updates in conjunction with the studio team, and new client/project opening and onboarding. This includes driving (and aiding) clients in staying on schedule and keeping projects on track. Address habitual schedule offenders and help them change their ways.
Framing Challenges/Creative Briefs – Thoughtfully draft (or oversee) creative brief development and kick-off sessions with the agency Creative, Strategy and/or Media team to clarify client business needs and deliverable objectives. Cast vision to our team for broader view of the client relationship, hierarchy and connecting dots to other related projects.
Financial Documentation & Tracking – Manage and review agency financial forecasting, budget tracking and client billing/invoicing. Negotiate and represent agency in discussions of client change/addition orders of scope as appropriate. As necessary discuss past due invoices with direct client contacts.
Collaboration & Delegation – Work with and oversee (where applicable) AMs, AEs, AAEs or Interns on work for key projects/clients. Work closely with agency studio team to get ahead of, forecast and optimize work throughput, as well as anticipate risks or systemic issues related to the client.