Group Account Director

Publicis is the lead agency of the Publicis Groupe – the 4th largest communications group in the world. The Publicis network spans 83 countries and 256 offices.

Publicis employs 2,400 people through our network in 55 cities across Asia (including eight Indian cities and 39 Chinese cities), managed out of its regional headquarters in Singapore. Our key clients from the region include HP, Nestle, L’Oreal, Cadbury, Pernod-Ricard, UBS, Fidelity, Renault, and Sanofi.

At Publicis, we specialize in holistic communication that we call La Holistic Difference. It is a consumer-centric process and can use considerable ‘alternative media’ and consumer activations programs to achieve the goals.

Everything we do base on consumer knowledge, and we always work closely with the sales and distribution managers of our clients' companies to achieve our collective aims.

The Group Account Director (GAD) is the primary point of contact between the agency and the assigned client accounts. The GAD oversees all strategic planning, consultancy, and business development within the existing client base.

Responsibilities:

• Capable of translating and understanding client business concerns and developing strategic experiential (& integrated, when relevant) plans to solve or improve business performance, as proven by clearly defined and measurable results
• Ensure that the Account Team and other agency touchpoints provide great client service.
• Ensure that budgets are adequate at the outset of each client engagement and that Account team members keep within proper profit ranges while always delivering the highest quality service and product.
• Responsible for the overall development and progress of all members of the allocated Account Team, including but not limited to performance reviews, goal setting, professional education, motivation, and engagement.
• Ensure that the Account Team provides customers with a consistent flow of significant learnings and recommendations that improve their business and lead to deeper collaborations with the agency.
• Build and maintain excellent customer connections with allocated client(s).
• Identify potential new business leads among the existing client base
• Actively support the Business Development team on new program developments, such as leading the pitch process, with the goal of eventually taking over and managing the program and client.
• Present and market agency work/proposals to client roster in an effective manner.
• Assist in the development of project-specific budgets
• Attend customer meetings during the development phase of the engagement.
• Maintain a continuing engagement with clients after the initial "sell-in" phase
• Create and carry out program contracts with clients
• Identify "breakthrough" concepts and ideas that contribute to the client's strategy and business needs.
• Account team coaching and mentoring; identify ways to incorporate and build best practices into account team members' skill sets.
• Establish KPIs for client programs/activities, determine measurement technique, and ensure proactive measurement.
• Lead quarterly agency/client reviews to highlight performance and give category or industry insights that will lead to revenue-generating dialogues.

• Bachelor's Degree in Business, Marketing or a related field
• Master’s in business administration a plus
• More than 10 years of relevant experience, agency experience highly recommended
• Knowledge of experiential marketing industry
• Highly proficient in Microsoft Office Suite, specifically in Excel and PowerPoint
• Excellent writing, copy editing, and general communication skills
• High level of detail-orientation and ability to multi-task in a fast-paced environment