Associate Director

Team – Creative Marketing

Location – UK London Hybrid, (3 days in the London Office 2 days WFH)

Summary

An Associate Director holds an important leadership role internally and externally and is an active member of the Senior Leadership Team within their Practice and company. They serve on their Senior Management Team and are also responsible for co-leading a business within their Practice as appropriate. The Associate Director provides strategic consultancy to key external stakeholders on accounts within their business stream. The Associate Director is a seasoned professional with client-facing responsibilities, as well as significant learning and development duties. They will also take on operational duties as needed. The Associate Director is expected to familiarize themselves with our values and adhere to these in their day-to-day. These values guide our decisions, actions, and interactions with colleagues, clients, and others in our network. By embodying our values, the Associate Director contributes to our collective success and helps to create a positive and inclusive workplace where diverse ideas are encouraged.

Key Responsibilities

Accountability

The Associate Director is responsible for directing internal and external programs and initiatives that deliver tangible business outcomes for their client partners and contribute to setting the excellence bar for all staff in their Practice. They regularly provide strategic leadership across one or more of the following aspects: new business opportunities, a group of consultants, meetings excellence, or an area of knowledge, or one or more large client account and training program for upskilling of staff at all levels. The Associate Director is also responsible for delivery elements of the Practice plan for which they have direct responsibility.

• Reviews project briefs, providing guidance on how to align with client strategy and scope of work, proactively collaborates with account leads to identify ways to mitigate risk of overages, drives efficiencies in project delivery and sets up their accounts for sustainable organic growth.
• Effectively manages client requests/needs by identifying solutions that minimize impact on scope and/or alignment with strategy.
• Proficient in driving teams to think critically about how to develop focused, inspired, strategic, and efficient content, largely through an advisory role.
• Drives teamwide adherence to operational processes by communicating and collaborating effectively across departments and across all projects.
• Models exemplary behaviour to inspire teamwide advocacy of the agency’s culture and goals.
• Collaborates with agency leadership colleagues to support new and ongoing growth activities.

Client Services

The Associate Director acts as a trusted adviser to their client partners across multiple accounts. They provide professional/technical leadership across multiple and diverse mandates, building trusted long-term client relationships and establishing strong account teams.

• Demonstrates leadership to deliver the highest possible standards in scientific and/or client service excellence throughout the entire project process.
• Defines and clearly communicate objectives, strategies, and scope consistent with client expectations; supports account leads in work planning, scoping, and budget development in line with strategy and deliverables; assembles team. Manages client needs in a way that demonstrates our strategic and operational best practices.
• Lends their extensive knowledge and experience of the pharmaceutical landscape to the strategic and tactical implementation of our service offerings, demonstrates good knowledge of compliance and processes related to stakeholder engagement and events best practice (face-to-face, virtual, and hybrid), and is able to upskill mid to senior level team members.
• Leverages precedent to anticipate client requests/needs and mitigates these risks by identifying creative solutions that minimize impact on scope and/or alignment with strategy.
• Provides timely and relevant strategic advice to client partners, informed by broad intelligence-gathering on client, sector, and competitor environment and expertly manages their expectations.
• Fearlessly drives collaboration with other Practices within our company and sister brands within our network in support of expanding our service offering portfolio.
• Responsible for strengthening and diversifying client relationships through regular partnership discussions with client leads.
• Serves as Client Expansion Lead for one or more accounts within their business stream.

Project Management

The Associate Director is responsible for ensuring that everyone on their team(s) adheres to best practices for efficient delivery of all client deliverables. When needed, they will undertake training of team members to ensure compliance with our SOPs. They will provide internal briefings, perform quality assurance reviews, and provide timely feedback to the team to ensure that work is delivered to exceed client expectations.

People Management

The Associate Director is responsible for driving team morale and spirit by sharing wins and successes with members of their Practice and acknowledging contributions across account teams. They also foster cohesion within their Practice and routinely demonstrate an ability to inspire others to act through direct, clear, and specific communication of priorities.

Benefits

As well as the basic salary, great social events, and a culture of continual learning, our competitive benefits package includes but is not limited to:

• 5% employer pension contribution
• Private medical insurance (for you and your family)
• Critical Illness cover
• Income Protection cover
• Travel insurance (for you and your family)
• An annual “wellness” benefit after 3 month service
• Hybrid working options, 3 days in the office, 2 days WFH
• 25 days’ holiday (with the ability for it to rise to a maximum of 30 days alongside length of service) – in addition to bank holidays
• Life assurance service insurance at 4 x your salary
• Paid sabbaticals after 5 years’ service