AXON - Associate Director (Communications & Advocacy)

AXON – Associate Director (Communications & Advocacy)

London, England, United Kingdom

Associate Director (Communications & Advocacy)

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 AXON. They serve on their Senior Management Team and are also responsible for co-leading a section of the 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 for AXON as needed.

The Associate Director is expected to familiarize themself 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 the AVENIR Global 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: 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 business 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 behavior to inspire teamwide advocacy of the agency’s culture and goals.
• Collaborates with agency leadership colleagues to support new and ongoing growth activities.

Business Development

The Associate Director is responsible for taking an active role in developing the business:

• Proactively visit clients and attend networking opportunities
• Identify opportunities, respond to and lead the development of business proposals and

pitches

• Present AXON\’s credentials at formal meetings and lead new business pitches
• Maintain and grow accounts by recognising and capitalising on emerging opportunities
• Help shape the business strategy of the practice group, contribute to the company\’s

overall business strategy and deliver in line with it

• Support the development of new service offerings

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 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 AXON’s strategic and operational best practices.
• Lends their extensive knowledge and experience of the pharmaceutical landscape to the strategic and tactical implementation of AXON’s 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 AXON and sister brands within the AVENIR Global Network in support of expanding AXON’s 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 AXON’s 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.

• Demonstrates ability to lead an account that may have multiple workstreams/projects from a strategic role.
• Drafts timely, accurate workload projections with the ability to propose solutions to anticipated triggers/challenges.
• Utilizes skills, capabilities, or knowledge to assist team members in problem solving on behalf of clients, teams, or general management.
• Demonstrates ability to keep creativity and innovation at the forefront of projects in a time- and cost-efficient and strategic manner.
• Drives detection and resolution of cross-functional team conflicts through proactive communication, consistently identifying solutions and working with the team to propose and implement an action plan.
• Accurately completes timesheets and time approvals on a weekly basis and helps team members to do likewise.

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.

• Works with team leads and line managers to recognize strengths and weaknesses of individual team members and match those with development opportunities.
• Leverages their network of relationships with internal stakeholders to deliver on the priorities for their Practice.
• Creates a positive and inspiring work environment.
• Garners respect among colleagues and others in the organization by displaying strong collaborative skills and building effective partnerships.
• Demonstrates ability to diplomatically defend the Practice’s needs.

As well as the basic salary, great social events and a culture of continual learning, our competitive benefits package* includes:

• 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
• Private medical insurance (for you and your family)
• Income protection insurance
• Life Assurance service insurance at 4x your salary
• Travel insurance (for you and your family)
• An annual ‘wellness’ benefit of £150 after 3 months of service
• Paid sabbaticals (at 50% basic salary) after 5 years’ service

*Benefits are contingent on successful completion three months of service. These benefits are for UK based candidates.

AXON

AXON is a global healthcare communications agency that ignites change in healthcare. Through the power of life-changing communications, we contribute to medical advances that improve lives. At the core of every scientific innovation and advancement, there is a simple and compelling story to be told. We know how to tell that story, how to use the right tools to reach the right audiences at the right time, to provoke meaningful change.

We specialize in advising clients on medical affairs, clinical studies, real-world evidence, marketing, advocacy, and communications, all underpinned by insights and creative strategy. AXON has an international reach, with offices in Copenhagen, London, New York, and Toronto, and a worldwide affiliate network. Established in 2002, we have a deep heritage and expertise in healthcare strategy and communication, and we continue to learn and grow in the fast-changing healthcare sphere. AXON is proudly an AVENIR GLOBAL company.

AXON is a diverse organization, committed to a policy of equal opportunities. At all times, we aim to recruit, develop, and promote the very best people, basing judgment solely on suitability for the job.

Privacy Policy

We are committed to transparency about how we collect and use your data, including ensuring we comply with legal obligations relating to data protection. You can view our data privacy policyhere and EU Recruitment Privacy Policy .

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