Executive Director, Pricing & Planning

The Revenue & Yield Management teams develop and guide the revenue strategy for multiple brands across the Disney Portfolio. The team models, measures, sets, and executes these strategies across various marketplaces and deal types across all digital Disney advertising inventory. The Addressable Pricing & Planning team within Revenue & Yield Management focuses on optimizing digital ad inventory to maximize revenue by adjusting pricing based on supply and demand and by deploying inventory packaging strategies that drive demand and optimal mix. The Addressable Pricing & Planning team collaborates closely with Sales as well as various other functional teams across the Ad Sales organization to ultimately generate ad sales campaign plans that will turn into orders. Pricing & Planning team members are often client facing and have a key impact and responsibility for the advertiser and advertising agency customer experience.

Job Summary:

Disney Ad Sales’ Revenue & Yield Management division is seeking an Executive Director to join our dynamic Addressable Pricing & Planning team. This role will lead the pricing & planning function across Disney’s collection of brands, with ownership of the Agency and Brand lines of business. In addition, this role will also have accountability for leading Execution and Development across the Addressable Planning team. As Exec Director, Pricing & Planning, you will play a vital role in developing and executing monetization strategies that optimize the interface between supply & demand; this includes short-term & long-term pricing tactics, Upfront & Scatter partnerships, and inventory maximization strategies across the Agency and Brand advertising business. This role will also direct strategies around and have responsibility for Planner onboarding, training, Planning system enhancement readiness, and ad sales order quality assurance.

Reporting into the Vice President of Pricing & Planning, you will lead, manage, and scale a multi-regional team of Directors, Managers, Sales Planners, and Specialists with accountability for stewarding overall team performance towards departmental as well as agency or brand specific revenue targets and overall execution and development of the entire Addressable Planning team. This is a highly cross-functional role, which partners with senior leaders across Sales, Inventory Analytics, Account Management, Ad Platform, and Sales Enablement to both drive revenue through pricing and packaging strategies and provide exceptional customer service via automating workflows, creating operational efficiencies, and improving speed-to-market. In addition, the role will oversee strategies deployed to insure the Planning organization is sufficiently trained to operate successfully, prepared for planning system changes, and supported with plan and order quality assurance leveraging an offsite partner. In parallel, you will maintain strong business relationships with senior Sales and Operations leaders to expand partnerships with key clients, agencies, and industry categories.The right person for this role must be very detail-oriented, a strong communicator, a problem-solver, and is adept at building & maintaining relationships across business divisions. If you are someone who thrives in a results-driven, fun, and fast-paced Sales environment, then this is an excellent role for you.

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

• Lead a multi-regional team of Directors, Managers, Sales Planners, and Planning Specialist supporting the Agency & Category sales vertical and Addressable Planning Execution and Development with responsibility for staffing and developing the team (hiring, mentorship, performance, etc.).
• Develop strategy and go to market approach for pricing and packaging for the Agency & Brand lines of business; partnering with Sales Leaders to negotiate and track all Agency/Brand Upfronts and serving as escalation point for annual business terms negotiations.
• Ownership of the creation and management of all guaranteed Scatter rate cards applicable to all sales verticals.
• Design new processes and architect strategies that optimize for efficiency, speed, and quality within the pre-sales business process with accountability for the service quality across all Agency/Brand Planning teams.
• Direct Planner onboarding, training, and development strategies across the Planning organization identifying areas of deficiency and improving the Planning team’s knowledge and skill set.
• Lead multiple agency planning teams that execute against unique negotiated terms and rate cards for each agency hold co as they work to fulfill client commitments, balancing the short-term needs of the business with longer-term strategic initiatives related to automation, client variety, and yield growth.
• Accountable for Sales Planning team readiness. Advising on product enhancement strategies and overseeing roll out and ensure readiness for all Planning system migrations, new features, and enhancements.

Required Education, Experience/Skills/Training:

• 12+ years working in a digital advertising capacity, with a focus on yield, reporting and analytics preferred
• At least 7 years digital management experience, leading, managing and developing high-performance teams
• Deep expertise working within a national ad sales organization
• Significant media-math/financial acumen, with the ability to be very hands-on in developing tools and processes
• A strong knowledge of online ad products, ad serving capabilities, philosophies, and drawbacks
• Proven ability to work across teams & navigate complex multi-stakeholder environments
• Ability to present complicated concepts and ideas in an easy-to-understand format
• Experience working with Salesforce & Operative1 is a plus
• Experience working at an Agency or within an advertising business focused on advertising agencies is a plus
• Experienced Excel & PowerPoint user
• Proactive and engaging, with a positive approach towards collaboration and problem-solving
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, as well as interpersonal and organizational skills
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, unstructured, and dynamic environment

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