Role: Senior Client Director (called internally Senior Engagement Director)

Community: Engagement

Reporting to: Head of Engagement

Type: Full-time, permanent (open to short-term FTC to perm)

Location: London

Set up: Hybrid working, in the studio 3 days per week, 2 days remote per week

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Your role:

Our Senior Engagement Directors play a key role in leading and growing our business by being the ultimate accountable member of the Engagement community on our largest client relationships and new business pursuits. 

Working across multiple pieces of business, we expect you to create and lead successful long-term partnerships with prospective, new and existing clients to deliver transformative work.  Always with one eye beyond the immediate project, you are ambitious for our clients, looking for how we can extend and build the relationship to push them to go further. You will balance client objectives and our own to identify the fastest path to value for both.  

Our Senior Engagement Directors guide the client/team by being a trusted partner to C-level clients and an inspiring leader to our business. As an expert practitioner, they command gravitas in every room, empower teams to think beyond the brief and push people to do the best work of their lives while strongly contributing to our healthy growth.

Always with one eye beyond the immediate project, you are ambitious for our clients, looking for how we can extend and build the relationship to push them to go further. You will balance client objectives and our own to identify the fastest path to value for both.

Working with Engagement Directors and Senior Engagement Managers, you will play an active role in ensuring the Engagement community moves beyond delivering work to brief, time and budget to becoming strong partners for our clients. 

We expect you to direct the project/team by cutting through complexity, identifying opportunities for growth and helping others seize them. You understand what good looks like and push the work to uphold and improve our standards. You play a pivotal role in advocating for our clients, our business, our teams and our people.

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You are responsible for:

Client relationship growth

• Focusing on CMO / C-Suite
• Accountable for long term relationship development of clients and growth into other areas within a business
• Making decisions on how to prioritise farming investments for the business 
• Providing mentorship within a client organisation in order to build new relationships
• Leading and directing other Engagement members in farming planning on other client accounts
• Managing and growing the relationship across WO’s offer (cross and up-selling)
• Driving opportunities and starting to forge relationships with other areas of the business

Programme planning and direction

• Accountable for the relationship and output to the client and the business
• Accountable to the internal team and how they feel about the work and their role
• Having a strong point of view on the direction of the thinking
• Main escalation point and confidant to the client when needed
• Long term planning partner to clients
• Leading strategic business conversations with the client
• Leading and facilitating key workshops with senior stakeholders, confidently presenting all of the content at a c-suite level
• Driving ideas that help to challenge and push the work forward 
• Managing client expectations throughout the relationship through to delivery 
• Exploring new ways of approaching things, being flexible with the client and teams
• Inviting feedback from the team and client, looking to continuously review and better the work and relationship 
• Building confidence in having strategic business conversations with the client

New business development

• Continuous support for pitching and the new business development process
• Accountable for the overall pitch process and output, ensuring it meets the 3 C’s criteria of our work
• Actively seeking out new business opportunities to foster, reaching out to old contacts and supporting in proactive targeting 

Commercial Management 

• Accountable to the business for the financial health and growth of clients  
• Providing insight on how to solve issues in advance to teams, clients and other members of the community 
• Empowering L1’s & L2’s in keeping on top of and understanding the financial health of the client
• Reporting client health as part of Principals & Project Leads
• Adept in using all key financial software when needed
• Leading contract reviews/negotiations with the support of legal council when needed
• Being an escalation point for difficult financial conversations with client around scope or payment terms 

Team coordination

• Leading large scale transformations supported by other Engagement members
• Less involved in the day-to-day delivery but focus on longer term growth for the business 
• Empowering and training more junior members of the team to deliver the best work and grow individually 
• Anticipating and making people-led resourcing decisions, balancing them with overall business priorities
• Actively report back to the team on how they are performing and how they could push themselves 
• Maintaining best practice ensuring the rest of the team goes through the right protocol before sending anything out

Engagement community building

• Leading the overall standard of the community, sharing knowledge and best practice
• Setting the agenda for important community initiatives 

WO business responsibility and advocate 

• Being a strong external advocate and networker within the industry
• Attending and participating in key marketing events and activities 
• Shaping the commercial offer and developing ideas for how to innovate what we do and deliver
• Providing thought leadership on a specific area within the business as well as a voice externally 

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Our focus on people and the world:

Wolff Olins believes in creating an environment where people can bring their whole selves to work. We are interested in our people having diverse points of view and different perspectives on the world. We set out to equip our people with the knowledge, confidence and tools to do the best work of their lives. Our purpose is to help our people create transformative brands that push businesses, people and the world forward.

Requirements

You should: 

• have experience leading global brand transformations 
• fostered long term relationships with clients
• have a strong and vocal point of view on the role of brand within the industry
• have had some responsibility for line management and development of more junior members 
• confident in leading and facilitating meetings and pitches 
• business understanding and acumen

Benefits

• Hybrid working setup (min in the studio 3 days a week)
• Flexibility on when you want to work - aiming to work 7.5 hours a day
• Laptop for the duration of your role (Mac or Windows)
• Company phone (Apple or Samsung)
• Annual expense allowance on tech equipment and home office set up
• Breakfast, snacks and fruit served daily in the studio + lunches served every Tuesday and Thursday
• Access to company tech i.e. 3D printer, hi-spec cameras
• & much more...!