Digital Business Director in London

Agency: Havas Media Group

Reporting to: Head of Digital Strategy & Planning

Location: Havas Village London, 3 Pancras Square, London N1C 4AG (Travel to client offices across the UK as needed.)

Our Ambition

At Havas Media Network we create Meaningful Media that drives growth for the world's most ambitious brands. Guided by our values—Human at Heart, Head for Rigour, and Mind for Flair—we embed genuine human insight, data‐driven discipline and creative daring into everything we do. This role sits at the heart of that promise.

Overview

This role will take overall responsibility for digital media strategy, planning and data‐led innovation into our strategic planning processes across some of our most innovative clients. You will be accountable for the strategic direction within digital, as well as ensuring activation excellence is delivered. To do this, you will be working closely with various stakeholders including key digital clients, media partners and internal planning and digital investment teams to ensure delivery of cutting‐edge digital strategy, planning and buying. Alongside this, it is expected that with the help of key media partners, the digital business director ensures seamless execution of test and learn agendas to deliver value to the clients in the form of measurable business impact.

As a key leader, you would also work closely with the Group Managing Partners on digital and wider team priorities and initiatives, including presenting during annual brand meetings, driving digital transformation and more. Confidence presenting to both internal and senior client stakeholders' skills is a must. This role suits an innovator and someone who is not happy just delivering upon the status quo.

Responsibilities

• Embed Data-Driven Thinking Across Accounts
  • Collaborate with account, planning and strategy leads to inject data‐led ideas into campaign planning, trading decisions and client comms.
  • Work with specialist teams to identify, package and pitch relevant case studies to client needs—showcasing real‐world impact.
  • Champion the use of data as a creative and strategic lever, not just a reporting function.
• Client Audits & Maturity Assessments
  • Lead assessments of existing client setups across planning, analytics, insight and mar-tech.
  • Identify gaps and opportunities where we can support—whether through new measurement frameworks, tech integrations or capability development.
  • Co‐develop bespoke data maturity roadmaps with clients.
• Measurement Strategy & Governance
  • Work with efficiency and measurement teams to build holistic measurement strategies, geo tests, incrementality, and digital attribution.
  • Help clients navigate first‐party data strategies.
  • Align methodologies with real business KPIs and commercial outcomes.
• Planning Excellence
  • Translate insights into media‐agnostic strategies that optimise short‐term performance and long‐term brand equity.
  • Set planning guardrails, learning agendas and clear optimisation triggers at both annual and campaign level.
  • Build tools and templates that elevate day‐to‐day planning rigour across all accounts.
  • Creating playbooks across digital to maximise efficiency and impact taking into account verticals and learnings.
• Test & Learn Leadership
  • Govern experimentation sprints across creative, targeting, bidding and measurement.
  • Evaluate emerging partners, from clean rooms to generative AI, and pilot those with the greatest ROI potential.
  • Codify and socialise learnings across the agency to create repeatable best practices.
  • Create innovation roadmaps relative to the brand journey.
• Cross‐Team Collaboration
  • Be the connective tissue between Planning, Strategy, Data, Biddable, AV & measurement partners.
  • Translate specialist expertise into actionable, relevant solutions for account teams and clients.
  • Contribute to internal training, product development and thought leadership.
  • Represent the agency in new business pitches, at industry events and panels.
• Client leadership
  • Drive short‐ and long‐term growth for our clients through a combination of strategic leadership and ensuring activation excellence in delivery.
  • Flawless client servicing, measured by third party surveys and direct feedback.
  • Ensure we have clear roadmaps in place for clients to deliver best in class digital activation.
  • Collaborate closely with other leads across the account to deliver on key projects and presentations.

Ideal Experience & Skill Set

• Proven leadership in digital including planning, activation and measurement.
• Strong understanding of ad tech and martech ecosystems (GMP, GA4/BigQuery, Meta CAPI, server‐side GTM etc, Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google Ads, DV360).
• At the forefront of culture and trends.
• Fluent in using data to tell compelling stories and influence both internal teams and C‐suite clients.
• Strong leadership and communication skills, ability to engage with multiple client contacts & internal team members.
• Ability to build relationships with 3rd parties and work collaboratively with all stakeholders.
• A critical thinker in your day‐to‐day and able to operate independently to solve challenges and navigate novel situations.
• Be solution driven, innovative and proactive with how you manage planning & operational processes.
• Be strategic and commercially minded in planning goals for your teams, as well as being able to shape and develop paid media strategy with client's business goals in mind.
• Strong presentation writing and presenting skills are a must.

Contract Type: Permanent

Here at Havas across the group we pride ourselves on being committed to offering equal opportunities to all potential employees and have zero tolerance for discrimination. We are an equal opportunity employer and welcome applicants irrespective of age, sex, race, ethnicity, disability and other factors that have no bearing on an individual's ability to perform their job.