Senior Account Director in London

Senior Account Director

We’re looking for an experienced Senior Account Director to join AVANTGARDE and lead a portfolio of high-profile Brand Experience accounts.

This role will support a varied portfolio of major client work, from PML’s festival activity, retail pop-ups and Legal Age Meeting Point activations, to Chery Motor Group product launches and partnership activations across sport, arts, festivals and culture. It’s a senior Client Services role for someone who can build trusted client relationships, shape opportunities, protect commercial health and lead complex experiential work with clarity, confidence and care.

You’ll act as a senior client leader and strategic partner across your accounts, helping turn client ambition into creatively strong, commercially sound and operationally well-set-up Brand Experience work.

Working closely with Strategy, Creative, Digital, Live, Finance and Business Development teams, you’ll help ensure client relationships are retained, strengthened and grown over time.

Salary: To be discussed at interview

Basis: Permanent Full-time

Location: Hybrid (AVANTGARDE London Bridge Office + 1 day WFH)

You’ll lead key client relationships across PML, Chery Motor Group brands and potentially other major accounts. You will:

- Build trusted senior client relationships, becoming a strategic partner and extension of the client team.

- Understand each client’s business, brand, stakeholders, internal pressures, objectives and commercial context.

- Establish a clear rhythm for client communication, feedback, reviews and relationship check-ins.

- Handle senior client conversations with confidence, empathy and sound judgement, bringing clarity to complex or sensitive situations.

You’ll help strengthen and grow client relationships through strategic thinking, sector understanding and clear follow-through. You will:

- Identify and shape opportunities for additional projects, expanded scopes, new workstreams and wider AVANTGARDE services.

- Use knowledge of client businesses, audience needs, cultural shifts and competitor activity to spot where AVANTGARDE can create value.

- Lead or play a significant role in proposals, pitch responses and client development conversations.

- Keep growth activity moving by agreeing clear next steps, resolving blockers and ensuring actions are followed through.

You’ll lead the commercial management of assigned clients and accounts. You will:

- Support revenue targets, profitability, forecasting, billing and account growth.

- Lead or support the development of SOWs, retainers, rate cards, budget templates and commercial documentation.

- Work with internal teams to scope accurately, ensuring deliverables, resources, timings, assumptions and responsibilities are clear.

- Escalate commercial risks early and avoid committing the agency to unrealistic timings, budgets, scopes or deliverables.

You’ll help turn client ambition, briefs and business challenges into clear activation strategies. You will:

- Interpret, shape and challenge client briefs to create integrated Brand Experience solutions.

- Work closely with Strategy, Creative, Digital and Live teams to shape the right response.

- Lead or oversee project kick-offs, ensuring expectations, responsibilities, timings and handovers are clear before delivery begins.

- Balance creative ambition with practical delivery needs, helping work move forward without losing sight of client objectives, audience experience or commercial reality.

You’ll bring clarity, pace and positive energy to the accounts you lead. You will:

- Build strong working relationships across internal teams.

- Set clear expectations for strong Client Services, helping others understand what great looks like in client leadership, commercial management and internal collaboration.

- Support team members through clear direction, useful feedback, coaching and shared learning.

- Delegate effectively, helping the team balance priorities, deliver strong work and develop confidence.

You are a confident, commercially aware Senior Account Director who understands how to lead complex experiential work across busy, high-profile accounts.

You are:

- Experienced in leading senior client relationships and managing multiple stakeholders.

- Strong in experiential delivery, particularly event activations, brand experiences, launches, pop-ups, festivals or partnership activations.

- Comfortable working across both B2B and B2C client needs.

- Commercially sharp, with strong judgement around scopes, budgets, retainers, forecasting and profitability.

- Clear and calm in your communication, especially when projects are complex, fast-moving or sensitive.

- Confident challenging briefs, timings, budgets, scopes or expectations constructively.

- Collaborative and able to bring momentum across creative, strategic, digital, live and production teams.

- Comfortable working within regulated or sensitive client categories.

- Experience in a Senior Account Director, Account Director or similar senior Client Services role within an experiential, brand experience, events or integrated agency environment.

- Strong event and activation experience is essential.

- Experience working with tobacco, nicotine or other regulated categories would be preferred, but is not essential.

- Willingness and confidence to work on tobacco / nicotine-related brand experience activity.

- Strong understanding of the wider marketing mix and the role experiential plays within it.

- Experience across B2B and B2C client work would be advantageous.

- Good understanding of how strategy, creative, digital, live and production elements come together to deliver Brand Experience work.

- Strong commercial awareness across scopes of work, budgets, retainers, forecasting, billing and project profitability.

- Experience supporting proposals, pitches, account development or organic growth opportunities.

- Strong written, verbal and presentation skills.

AVANTGARDE is an award-winning Brand Experience agency. We exist to create powerful brand experiences that shape brand relevance. Our mission is crafting stories, shaping spaces, creating fans.

When we established AVANTGARDE 40 years ago, starting out in the fashion industry, we had no idea that we would grow to become the successful, global agency we are now, but what remains true to this day, is at the core of our work is our creativity, consumer insight and pursuit of emerging trends and technologies.

Our world has changed and the powerful experiences we create now exist in person and online, we connect the consumer to the brand across multiple channels and touchpoints. We are proud to do this for a host of brands including Audi, Bulgari, Porsche, eBay, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Bridgestone, Heineken, to name only a few.

Our name carries both promise and responsibility.
It drives us to challenge convention, forge new paths, and imagine beyond.
To create bold, transformative moments that open minds and shift perspectives.
This is what defines us.
We are AVANTGARDE.

We are an equal opportunities employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating a culture of inclusivity across the Group. All employment decisions are made based on qualifications, relevant experience, merit, and business need. If you need assistance or an accommodation made due to a disability, please let your recruiter know, or contact our HR Director at lydiaj@avantgarde-uk.com