Account Director (Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX)

Account Director (Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX)

Summary
The Account Director manages senior and mid-level client relationships as well as develops strategic and proactive thought leadership to clients and internal team. The Account Director is responsible for the overall business including financials, team structure, workload, work product, quality, service and delivery of client SOW needs. Provides supervision, perspective and leadership in the development of the highest-quality product possible and a healthy team dynamic. In addition, they will lead key client and new business presentations to potential/current clients as well as involvement in the supervision and development of subordinate team members. Key expectations include:

• Know more about the client’s business than any other department and use that to navigate the client
• Develop and grow relationships that add value to client and agency
• Keep the business healthy and growing
• Collaborate to create great work, sold in, well executed

Core Accountabilities

Great Work: Creates an environment, standard and vision for the development, sell-in and delivery of exceptional work.

• Responsible for developing and overseeing the execution of strategic initiatives, including but not limited to: Brand Advertising Campaigns, Omnichannel Media & Campaigns, Shopper and Consumer Promotions, Social Media (owned and paid), Digital Commerce and eCommerce.
• Ensures delivery against the “right” brief. Motivates and leads team to deliver TPN approach and high-quality, excellent ideas and output.
• Sells incremental work and current ideas via smart sell-in strategies and strong presentations. Engages and leads team through collaborative process.
• Partners with clients to set priorities and provide value.
• Sets and manages expectations with the client and agency partners and champions the TPN POV.
• Works with direct reports to develop, optimize and execute all major presentations/projects.

Drives Client Business and Builds Relationships

• Establishes TPN as a key participant and partner in client’s business
  • Maintains a thorough and current understanding of assigned client’s business and industry
  • Establishes personal and agency credibility and respect while developing strong business relationships
• Responsible for client business planning management, providing relevant key insights, strategic thinking and leadership related to all aspects of the business.
• Identifies landscape inputs necessary to initiate a planning process, understands the planning process, engages appropriate experts within the team and formulates a plan of action against a client opportunity.
• Deeply understands and applies business, client and brand/omnichannel/shopper marketing expertise and emerging trends to create marketing solutions and proactive thought leadership.
• Analyzes a client’s business needs/gaps in order to proactively identify relevant scope of work and white space projects/thinking. Is able to articulate a compelling POV around the need/gap areas.
• Navigates client process, stakeholders, and culture for the purpose of growth, sell-in and effective delivery of our marketing solutions.
• Creates relationship strategies by assessing role, style and needs of key clients. Anticipates client barriers, objectors and influencers, and sets strategies to overcome.

People: Develops people and internal relationships for the future.

• Managing, coaching and developing direct reports
  • Monitors growth and performance, conducts reviews, develops growth plans with challenging growth assignments, recommends raises and corrective performance measures.
• Ensures strong internal team health, including strong team trust and collaboration.
• Fosters a team environment with an entrepreneurial spirit where we roll up our sleeves, encouraging sharing, contribution and building of ideas that span cross-functional remits and may blur lines across different team members’ swim lanes.
• Contributes to the agency through training, case studies, connecting cross-team/client, thinking beyond your team assignment.
• Shares client business information so that the entire cross-functional team has the appropriate understanding of client information/knowledge.

Financial and Business Stewardship: Leads a healthy and growing business through financial and business management.

• Responsible for development and management of overall Account Strategy and day-to-day work to ensure exceptional client satisfaction, health of the business and growth.
• Provides financial stewardship and manages scope and resources in order to deliver financial health and meet financial goals. Drives organic growth on the business and supports agency new business efforts.
• Establishes strong cross-functional relationships and leads the business collaboratively with department peers.
• Addresses and solves both external and internal conflict, and practices and models effective communication externally and internally.
• Represents and sells our services, capabilities, proprietary thinking.
• Constantly assesses and keeps the team’s eye on the prize – right resources on right work.

Core Skills

• People management
• Ability to establish clear performance expectations
• Provide clear and balanced performance feedback
• Able to develop and coach team
• Recognizes talent
• Promotes excellence throughout the organization
• Builds internal/external relationships
• Relates to others in an open and accepting manner
• Develops relationships with others as a key priority
• Treats others with respect
• Shows consistency with principles, values and behaviors
• Follows through on commitments
• Develops a give and take attitude
• Strives for win-win solutions
• Overarching understanding of strategic initiatives, development and execution process for Brand, Omnichannel, Shopper, Promotional Marketing and Retail Media, including but not limited to:
• Working knowledge of omnichannel and shopper activations, including digital and social marketing platforms and effective ways to connect with a target audience across varying touchpoints such as TV/OLV, Paid Social, Owned Social, Influencers, Digital, eCommerce, Website, Retail Media, In-store Experiences, POS/Signage Merchandising Tools, and Packaging.
• Stays abreast of digital, social, shopper, and retailer trends and best practices and communicates those to the internal team and clients.
• Understands the nuances, Customer priorities, and key strategies/levers for a brand to activate marketing efforts across major retailers in the mass and grocery channels.
• Strategic assessment
• Able to ask the right questions
• Assimilate the synthesized information
• Make the necessary intuitive connections to evaluate opportunities and draw conclusions
• Sees the big picture
• Connects client needs and TPN resources and capabilities
• Proactively listens for opportunities and assess client needs
• Leverages functional understanding of TPN roles, resources, and tools to engage the right departments and team members at the right time
• Leadership
• Provides vision, direction
• Makes decisions towards achieving future goals
• Demonstrates emotional courage
• Ability to state opinions
• Strong role model through behavior and skill
• Inspires others to perform at their highest capabilities
• Presentation skills
• Shows confidence in front of an audience
• Able to deliver the message clearly and concisely
• Understands their audience and delivers message appropriately
• Financial management
• Understands and respects the budget
• Has an understanding of the financials and how it relates to client profitability
• Sound business and professional ethics

Requirements

• Years Experience: 8-10 years of Brand, Shopper and Consumer Promotions experience, ideally in an agency environment.
• Experience in CPG preferred
• Education: Four-Year Degree
• Job Type: Permanent, Full-Time

Job Status
OPEN

*TPN is an equal opportunity employer.