Senior Account Director

VML

SENIOR ACCOUNT DIRECTOR - 12 month fixed-term contract

Department: Account Management

Reporting to: Group Account Director (GAD)

Location: Freshwater Place, Melbourne

At VML, we are a beacon of innovation and growth in an ever-evolving world. Our heritage is built upon a century of combined expertise, where creativity meets technology, and diverse perspectives ignite inspiration. With the merger of VMLY&R and Wunderman Thompson, we have forged a new path as a growth partner that is part creative agency, part consultancy, and part technology powerhouse.

JOB DESCRIPTION

As Senior Account Director (SAD), you will be responsible for the running of key client accounts and accountable for creating a team and relationships where best in class work can flourish. This role is responsible for the financial management and profitability of your business, ongoing client satisfaction, organic growth, and integrated output.

This role is a 12-month fixed- term contract.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

The Senior Account Director is responsible for creating an environment where your teams are empowered to produce great work.

Key to this will be:

• Excellent leadership and management skills
• The ability to inspire, motivate and develop those around you
• The ability to carve out and realise strategic and creative opportunities
• Contribute to and champion agency integration
• Ability to see the bigger picture
• The ability to define culture
• Specific Responsibilities Knowledge
• You will need to demonstrate excellent knowledge and experience of the industry, around marketing and communication strategies and their execution.

You will possess an excellent understanding of what makes for good strategic, creative and media work and actively contribute to and progress the agency agenda in this field.

You will also need to develop a deep knowledge of your client’s business assuming the role of partner to key senior clients, working collaboratively with clients to achieve their business and communications objectives.

Processes

The Senior Account Director is responsible for defining the client practices and processes that facilitate and enable great strategic, creative and media work to flourish.

This includes:

Setting Account Plans: working with senior management you will be required to set out a plan for your account, covering strategic, creative, relationship, team, and financial objectives for the business, that you will be responsible for delivering.

Finance: working with the Finance Director you will be responsible for leading, setting and monitoring performance against forecast

Setting the long-term strategic direction: you will be responsible for leading the long-term strategic direction of the business working closely with senior planners and clients to ensure alignment around a common plan.

Setting the integrated agency standard: working with all departments will be responsible for setting and achieving a strong creative standard on your accounts. This will include inspiring and empowering those around you in contributing to this.

Oversee the team in development and execution of work: you will support the team in the development and production of creative work, contributing to the processes and acting as problem solver as required.

Growth & Development

The Senior Account Director is responsible for developing and growing your accounts both financially but also strategically and creatively. This will involve:

Becoming a partner to your client, working hand in glove with them to develop the business going forward.

Growing the business. You will be constantly seeking ways of growing your client’s business.

In addition, you will also be required to grow and develop the agency teams around you through culture. As a Leader in the agency, you will be required to contribute to the development and growth the of agency culture, both internally among staff but externally as well, where you will be the ambassador for the agency.

Relationships:

You will be expected to develop strong and enduring relationships with senior clients, and senior agency personnel.

Key to this will be developing strong relationships with:

Clients: you will be expected to have strong relationships with senior clients and throughout client teams. This relationship should be founded on honesty, openness, and trust. You should be perceived as a long-term partner to your clients with shared goals and objectives.

Internal Stakeholders: you will be required to have strong relationships throughout the agency, but most importantly at a senior level with key operational personnel to ensure smooth running of the agency, management and creative. You will work collaboratively with your Planning Director, ECD and Media Director to define and achieve strategic and creative excellence.

External stakeholders: you will be required to develop strong relationships at a senior level with key external stakeholders related to your business, but also within WPP.

REQUIRED EXPERIENCE/SKILLS/CAPABILITIES

• 6+ years’ experience
• Solid understanding of all aspects of advertising processes
• Dynamic leadership, management and team building skills.
• Strong relationship building skills and consultative approach.
• Demonstrated influence management skills.
• Ability to delegate effectively and obtain leverage where appropriate.
• Ability to translate broad marketing goals into technical/analytical applications; and synthesise analytic results into relevant and strategic marketing recommendations.
• Superior project management and implementation skills

MEASUREMENTS OF SUCCESS

Creativity

Creation and delivery of market-leading creative work for clients judged internally, by category and by the industry.

Commercial

Achieve/exceed profit targets across your business.

Client Relationship

Client satisfaction appraisal scores

Seen as leading the client to produce outstanding work leading to results.

Positive 360° feedback

Productive and efficient integration

Internal Relationship

Positive 360° feedback in annual assessment

Direct report performance and career progression

Team, Growth & Development

Annual formal and 6 monthly informal reviews with all team members

Timely addressing of any performance issues, documented

Guiding, coaching, and training of team

Agency Contribution

Perceived by the broader agency as an influencer of the culture through 360° feedback and being involved in and helping to drive culture, training, best practices.

VML AUNZ HIGHLIGHTS

There are many things that make VML an awesome place to work, but we think these are worth a special mention:

· Summer Days – 5 paid afternoons off each year during daylight savings time

· Birthday Leave – a paid day off to celebrate your Birthday each year.

· Loyalty Leave – a paid day off each year to celebrate your work anniversary.

· Employee Assistance Program access and 24/7 support.

· LinkedIn Learning access for all employees

· Foundation Day – the anniversary of our establishment where every employee

works together to give back to the community.

· PerkSPACE – a dedicated platform for employee benefits that helps you save,

grow, and generously makes your life easier

. Mental Health Support

. Parental Leave Policies

VML an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, colour, religion, sex, gender, identity, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Some of our roles are open to part time negotiable discussions