TITLE: Group Account Director
REPORTING: Managing Partner
DEPARTMENT: PR & Influence
DISCIPLINE: PR&I
AGENCY: Ogilvy Africa, Kenya
LOCATION: Nairobi
SCOPE: In- Market
OGILVY AFRICA – COMPANY OVERVIEW
Ogilvy Africa is the largest network agency on the continent catering to more than 40 countries with a team of 900 people across Central, East and West Africa. Our regional office is based in Nairobi – Kenya, where we house a portfolio of over 100 brands for clients such as AB InBev, Airtel, Bajaj, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Equity Bank, European Union, KFC, Mastercard, NCBA, Nestle, Philips, PWC, Total Energies, UNICEF, Unilever and WWF amongst others.
Our distinctive positioning and proposition are key for times, when clients desire a partner to help them realize their growth ambitions or to get back to growth. No one knows Africa like we do, with a footprint to deliver in countries that matter to our clients.
This proposition is anchored on true shared value, what our world needs now, creating human (societal) value, employee value and commercial value. This proposition cuts across our key mega-businesses ABC (Advertising, Branding and Content), Experience (including CRM and e-commerce), PR & Influence and Media (focussed on performance marketing).
In addition, we’ve created proprietary marketing products in areas such as real-time marketing, social intelligence, performance marketing, e-commerce enablement and content hubs. Our unique operating model, One Ogilvy, allows clients and brands to cut the complexity of agency structures and create seamless omni-channel experiences for their consumers, across touchpoints. Fuelled by the holy trinity of content, data, and technology; Ogilvy Africa strives to be the best-practice agency model, for Developing & Emerging markets.
In our 20+ years in Africa, we have won the highest number of regional and global awards for the region including Cannes Lions, Clio awards, Dubai Lynx Festival, SABRE Awards (Global and Africa), Loeries and WARC, to name a few.
Ogilvy is a leading global network of WPP. Launched by David Ogilvy over 75 years ago, it is referred-to as the Agency of Giants, by several industry experts. 2023 WARC rankings named Ogilvy, the #1 creative network in the world.
JOB PURPOSE – SUMMARY
The role of Group Account Director is expected to play a key part in our integrated work. As such, a successful candidate will demonstrate cross channel intrgrated understanding, leadership, strategic direction, accountability and business acumen.
The successful candidate will have both deep and broad expertise, with a proven track record of delivering innovative answers whatever the challenge and channel set before them. They wil galvanise multi-disciplinary teams around them to deliver powerful creative answers for our clients.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES & ACCOUNTABILITIES
Knowledge areas
• Strategic Client Management: Building, maintaining and growing strong relationships with clients. Understanding their needs and doing more than acting as a primary point of contact, positioning themselves as the route to bring all of Ogilvy Africa’s skills to bear.
• Strategic Planning: Working with strategist and senior leadership to develop and successfully execute plans for client client growth by achieving their iobjectives. Going beyond competent execution to active development through planning, thought leaership and more.
• Team Leadership and Management: Leading and managing multi-disciplinary teams. Guiding and mentoring account teams, but also ensuring that the disciplines needed for success understand their role and execute successfully according to scope, timeline and budget.
• Budgeting and Financial Management: Managing account budgets, client budgets, forecasting and growing revenue, tracking expenses, and ensuring profitability for both the agency and clients.
• Project Management: Driving the execution of campaigns and projects, ensuring they are delivered on time, within budget, and meet quality standards.
• Communication Skills: Excellent verbal, written skills, taking responsibility for excellent presentations and delivering the right quality for the client every time rather than waiting for others to pick up the slack.
• Negotiation and Conflict Resolution: Ability to negotiate contracts, resolve conflicts, and manage expectations among clients and internal teams.
• Market Research and Analysis: Understanding how to scope market research and work with others to ensure that it delivers for clients. Woriking with strategists to analyse dataidentify the insights that inform strategic decisions.
• Industry Knowledge: Taking a lead in industry thought leadership, ensuring Ogilvy Africa has a voice in emerging technologies and best practices in integrated
• Regulatory Compliance: Understanding of relevant regulations and compliance requirements, such as data privacy laws, advertising standards, and industry guidelines.
• Risk Management: Identifying potential risks to client relationships or project delivery and implementing strategies to mitigate them.
• Cultural Sensitivity and Diversity Awareness: Understanding diverse client needs and cultural nuances to ensure campaigns are inclusive and resonate with target audiences.
Task Areas:
• Strategic Planning and Development
• Leading matrixed, multi-discipline teams
• Financial Management
• Business Development
• Risk Management and Compliance
• Reporting and Communication
• Client Relationship Development
• Project Management and Delivery
• Client Advocacy and Retention
• Financial Management and Growth
• Performance Analysis and Reporting
• Budgeting and Financial Planning
• Cost Control and Profitability
• Contract Negotiation and Management
• Resource Allocation and Utilization
• Risk Management and Compliance
PROFESSION, TECHNICAL SKILL AND PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
• Minimum of 5 years experience in integrated communication marketing.
• Demonstrable leadership skills, capable of motivating agency teams and building trust with clients.
• Advanced proficiency in the major software tools used for client planning and management, strategic and creative development; scoping, execution and measurement
• Advanced, proven project management, time management and efficiency skills
• Excellent interpersonal communication and negotiation.
• A proven track record of proactively identifying business opportunities, problem-solving, and creative thinking.
• Brilliant networking skills, confident in developing new relationships.
OGILVY BELIEFS
• People need regular OS upgrades: Even the best OS will be obsolete tomorrow unless its constantly upgraded. Same is true for people.
• We need more cows than milk men: We are a culture of practitioners, not managers. We contribute before we comment.
• Creative about creativity: Creativity is, and will always be, our differentiator. Creativity now includes holy trinity of Data -Content -Tech.
• Diversity is a competitive advantage: New profiles, new skills, new styles of leadership make us a stronger company.
• Collaborative advantage > Competitive advantage: Find partners who are on top of their game at the skillset we need. It’s the only way to scale at the speed without pretending to have all the answers.
• Team > Individual: You get a lot more done when everyone stops worrying about who gets credit at the end. Teams Succeed, individuals fail.
• Fail often, fail fast: We see entrepreneurs in all our people and encourage a culture of pilots. Test, succeed and scale; or fail-fast learn, learn from the failure, and start something new.
HOW TO APPLY
If your career aspirations match this exciting opportunity, please apply as follows.
• Complete this application form and submit
• Share your resume separately in PDF format (strictly) via our recruitment email address: [email protected]. Ensure that your resume bears your first and last names.
• In the email subject, strictly quote the job title and location (Job Title – Location). Do not add anything else in the email subject
Please note that completing the application form is mandatory for consideration alongside your email application where you share your resume in PDF (strictly). Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Ogilvy Africa is an equal-opportunity employer that believes in diversity as a competitive advantage
We are committed to a fair and inclusive hiring process. To minimize unconscious biases from our hiring
process, we’ve taken on an initiative to #RightTheCV (find out more by clicking here)
Closing Date: 20 December 2024