Account Director

Location: Los Angeles. Must be willing to work from 180, Omnicom offices 2 days/ week, and occasionally travel for cross-office collaboration, productions and other professional obligations. 180 LA’s offices are based in Playa del Rey.

Salary & Benefits: Annual salary of $170k. Benefits for this role include health/vision/dental insurance, 401(k), stock purchase, vacation, sick, and personal days. Approximately 30 days after you commence employment, you will be eligible to participate in all disability, life, travel insurance plans and programs, and retirement plans subject to the terms and conditions of such benefit plans.

About 180

180 has been creating some of the most famous marketing communications in the world since its creation in Amsterdam in 1999. 180 is where the world’s most creatively ambitious people, organizations and brands gather together to create The World As It Could Be. The World As It Could Be is built on three beliefs: the power of fresh perspectives, radical collaboration and making a positive impact on our clients businesses and society. Combined, these beliefs create ideas that get our clients to a better future, faster. 180 has around 300 employees worldwide, specialized in brand strategy, advertising, content creation, data & analysis, social media, design, and production. For more information, please visit www.180global.com

About the role

180 US is in its reinvention era, with new(ish) leadership and a consolidated operating model that brings the LA and NYC teams into a single structure. Last year, we welcomed our founding client, adidas, back to the agency, helped launch a new global brand idea (You Got This) and campaign, and are now getting ready to help adidas get its mojo back.

We’re looking for a seasoned Account Director to lead the day-to-day relationships and operations for large adidas assignments, holding accountability for the quality of the work, excellence of the client experience and growth of revenue potential. The ideal person for this role is focused and high energy, unafraid to take the lead on high profile programs and partner influentially with agency leadership and clients at senior levels. We need a self-starter with deep agency experience who can field diverse briefs and drive the work, relationships and teams forward. They are comfortable leading the development of smart, strategic presentations and know how to design and direct the process and work required to get a range of end deliverables. This person is highly organized and articulate and understands expected standards across processes, finished work products all the way to the most junior of tasks and deliverables. This individual has nuanced commercial skill and can partner confidently and additively with the GBL, MD, and CFO on the commercial aspects of their work.

The person:

• What drives us: Creative excellence and innovation. We’re looking for someone who’s passionate about creativity and telling brand stories in new spaces, who has experience at developing impactful integrated ideas aligned with business targets. We strive for creative excellence that is recognized in culture, by our peers and through commercial success.
• How we behave: radical collaboration, fresh perspectives, ‘Be nice or leave’. We expect our leaders to embody these 180 values in everything they do, and each interaction they have with our teams or our clients. Our leaders are expected to be radical collaborators in partnering with clients, production companies, talent, and other partners within the TBWA and Omnicom ecosystems.
• What we believe: we win when we connect our clients’ brands to their customers in unique ways. Modern brand building happens through these meaningful connections. Our process is audience-first and culturally-relevant. We look for smart, curious people who worry less about ‘the way things have always worked’ and are willing to experiment and adapt to the needs of our audiences and clients.

Key areas of responsibility:

Direct adidas global brand assignments: Autonomously lead large workstreams with the global brand team, building trusted relationships with clients and consistently providing quality experience and on time, on brief deliverables.

• Develop and continually nurture authentic, long-term relationships with director and mid-level leaders within the client organization
• Contribute knowledge of brand building and advise clients credibly; command understanding of their business, key issues, competitive situation, industry trends, and the projects assigned to the agency as well as other communication partners
• Manage meeting success, possess superior scope/budget stewardship, time management, organization, and prioritization skills
• Reinforce consistency of process, product and excellence
• Effectively balance the dual expectations of client business goals and agency business goals; challenge clients to accept our best ideas and then sell them well
• Skillfully navigate relationships with strategy and creative leaders, support the creation of quality products and influence successful outcomes as a team
• On large scale workstreams (such as big idea development and campaign production), assist the GBL and leadership team in managing internal and external processes and coordinating all tasks and activities across multiple disciplines and client teams, and autonomously lead distinct parts or chapters of a global campaign
• On smaller scale workstreams (such as toolkit production), effectively manage the Account Supervisor, ensuring all tasks and activities are orchestrated across multiple disciplines and clients to ensure we deliver a quality creative product on time and on budget.

Develop broader adidas relationship and partnership: Develop relationships inside the adidas ecosystem in order to help the agency identify additional project opportunities

• Demonstrate initiative and imagination in maximizing the current and future potential business with respective clients, identifying and building an ongoing pipeline of opportunities that convert organic growth
• Anticipate and address potential client relationship or revenue issues, advising the ELT in time for the agency to act proactively
• Regularly provide insights and consultation to the GBL and MD on talent utilization and resourcing, task prioritization and other areas of commercial productivity.

Manage junior Account Management team members in partnership with the 180 US MD: Partner with the MD to mentor and evaluate talent across the department and share best practice

• Manage and coach the Account Managers and PMs and provide input to the GBL on team shape, talent mix on assigned client business
• Mentor team’s growth and commercial prowess. Help retain the best account talent at 180 US. Provide regular, consistent feedback
• Reinforce a culture of strategic selling and ‘scope creation’ inside the account team at 180 US, and serve as an example to the whole agency on how to think in that way
• Support implementation and reinforce adoption of Account Management processes and tools such as monthly and/or quarterly scope and business reporting, briefing templates, workflow best practices etc.
• Serve as an example of how Account Management partners with other disciplines such as Finance, Ops, Creative and Strategy
• Provide ‘client hat’ feedback on key initiatives, presentations, and work output
• Serve as an escalation point for junior team members, handle sensitive topics and provide issue management support
• Resolve conflicts through creative problem solving and acute decision-making skills that keep project teams motivated to ensure best possible results
• Be a clear communicator on the team and capable of teaching the internal agency team to be more persuasive writers and presenters

Serve as a supportive participant in business development initiatives: In partnership with the GBL and MD, periodically input on new business efforts and pitch processes.

• Critically digest and evaluate briefs and RFPs
• Contribute to scope approach and pricing
• Wear ‘client hat’ to pressure test overall strategy, quality, team solution and pricing model of responses
• Present creds, strategy, creative and scope approaches engagingly

Must-have qualifications

• 7 years of experience in account management, operations or marketing, at least partly inside a creative agency. Existing experience as Director managing senior clients at large organizations, and leading workstreams autonomously
• Good taste in creative and confident in strategy. Able to enforce standards and lift the quality of an agency proposal
• Professional and/ or personal knowledge of the sports category, esp US sports (basketball, US football, European football)
• Highly organized, strong attention to detail
• Ability to stay calm under pressure, and lead teams in a generously collaborative, inclusive culture
• Willing to be flexible in their working hours given the spread of time zones in the client and agency group across PST, EST and CET

Nice-to-have qualifications

• Experience orchestrating global campaigns and initiatives and coordinating with multiple markets and agency partners
• Combined experience with large above-the-line campaign development as well as agile social-first creative development processes. Contemporary sensitivity ie. Understands GenZ and the media landscape that goes with it (social, digital first)