Senior Planning Account Manager

We're looking for a Senior Planning Account Manager to join Bountiful Cow's Planning & Client Team, taking day-to-day ownership of a varied portfolio of clients across several different categories.

This is an established level within the agency, sitting between Account Manager and Account Director. It's aimed at someone who's already an experienced Account Manager and ready for significantly more client and planning ownership, without needing to make the jump straight into an AD role.

You'll lead clients, briefs and planning projects with a high degree of autonomy, while still having an Account Director and Head of Planning around you for support when needed.

You'll also play an important role in developing the team beneath you, working with and supporting Executives and Apprentices and taking responsibility for the quality of work across your accounts.

There's a genuine progression route from here into Account Director. For someone performing strongly and demonstrating the right aptitude.

The clients

You'll work across a diverse patch of clients, likely to include a number of the following:

• Workplace pensions & financial services One of the UK's largest workplace pension providers, with millions of members. The work spans both employer audiences and consumer engagement, with a real opportunity to make a traditionally low-interest category feel more relevant through creative media and content.
• Consumer payments & retail A major consumer payments brand with a big year ahead, including significant new partnerships. The work spans OOH, video, social and digital alongside performance activity, merchant partnerships and major retail moments.
• FMCG & food A well-known fresh Italian food brand, where the challenge is building fame, appetite and mental availability in a competitive FMCG category. Expect a mix of AV/video, social, OOH and retail/shopper activity.

It's a varied mix, so you'll need to enjoy switching between categories and commercial challenges, understanding what drives each business rather than applying the same planning playbook everywhere.

About Bountiful Cow

Bountiful Cow is a growing independent challenger media agency, with a team of around 35 based in Covent Garden and approximately £60m in billings.

The agency offers media, creative and strategic services designed to fuel business growth through Relative Advantage™ – challenging conventional category thinking and finding opportunities for clients to outsmart rather than simply outspend their competition.

Bountiful Cow operates fully transparently, making money only from its clients, giving its teams the freedom to plan and buy in their clients' interests.

It's also part of the7stars Group, combining the autonomy and agility of a smaller agency with access to specialist expertise across Partnerships, Production, Trading, Adtech, Data Analysis and an IPA effectiveness-accredited team.

Its values are:

• No Sacred Cows – The question you shouldn't ask is probably the one you should.
• Don't Follow The Herd – Do things differently rather than defaulting to convention.
• No Bullsh** – Always tell the truth, no matter how uncomfortable.

What you'll be doing

• Acting as a trusted day-to-day contact for clients, building strong relationships and maintaining oversight of activity across your accounts.
• Getting under the skin of your clients' businesses, markets and competitors to strengthen recommendations and identify opportunities.
• Taking ownership of briefs and working across the agency to develop rigorous, distinctive and commercially grounded responses.
• Leading client meetings and presenting media recommendations and plans confidently.
• Coordinating channel plans and maintaining oversight of campaign setup, delivery and performance.
• Anticipating client questions and challenges and making sure the wider team is prepared.
• Supporting your Account Director in identifying opportunities to strengthen and grow client relationships.
• Supporting regular account stand-ups and maintaining visibility of priorities, deadlines, risks and deliverables.
• Delegating to and developing Executives and Apprentices, reviewing their work and helping them take greater ownership.
• Taking responsibility for the accuracy and quality of work within your remit before it reaches the Account Director or client.
• Building strong relationships with media owners, partners and specialist teams.
• Managing account processes including finance trackers, forecasts, scopes of work and key account records.
• Using planning tools such as Telmar and TGI to support recommendations with robust reach and frequency analysis.
• Using campaign results, competitive intelligence, market insight and effectiveness principles to improve the work.
• Using AI, data and insight tools to accelerate analysis and identify opportunities.
• Translating campaign performance into meaningful client reporting, insight and clear recommendations.
• Working closely with Activation teams to coordinate the delivery of media plans.
• Briefing and coordinating with Talon on Out of Home planning.
• Overseeing competitive reporting and campaign analysis, supporting junior team members through the process.
• Staying ahead of industry developments and proactively bringing relevant thinking and opportunities to clients.

What we're looking for

You’ll need experience in a client-facing media planning role, most likely as an experienced Account Manager who’s ready to take on greater ownership.

The key is the combination of strong planning ability, client confidence and attention to detail. You should be comfortable independently managing briefs, projects and day-to-day client requirements, while having the judgement to know when to involve your Account Director or other specialists.

You’ll ideally bring:

• Strong media planning and buying knowledge across channels.
• Experience independently managing client briefs, projects and day-to-day requirements.
• The ability to understand a client's commercial challenge and translate it into a clear media approach.
• Confidence building presentations and presenting recommendations to clients.
• Strong client, media owner and internal relationships.
• Experience supporting or developing more junior team members.
• Strong organisational skills and attention to detail.
• Confidence using planning, audience and effectiveness tools.
• Strong PowerPoint and Excel skills.
• Genuine curiosity about clients, categories and media.
• The judgement to know when to take ownership and when to seek senior input.

Perks, benefits & ways of working

Hybrid: 3 days per week in the office

Benefits include:

• 27 days' holiday, increasing by one day with each year of service up to 30 days
• Discretionary summer profit-share bonus and Christmas bonus
• Private Medical Insurance through Vitality
• Life Assurance and Critical Illness cover
• Choice of five gyms
• Employee assistance programme and wellbeing support
• Season ticket loan
• Enhanced family-friendly leave and pay, including extended leave, a Gousto box following the arrival of a baby and access to coaching
• Royal London pension, including an 8% employer contribution up to £35k
• Formal annual pay-review process

It's a role for someone who wants more ownership than a traditional Account Manager position, a varied client portfolio and a genuine route towards Account Director – with the autonomy of an independent agency and the specialist resources, buying clout, training and career development opportunities of a much larger group behind them.