Client Director - Innovation

This is a senior role in Innovation, accountable for leading a large strategic client account alongside a portfolio of other clients (managed by account directors) within the division. You are responsible for client delight, retention and growth across the clients, and these outcomes are reflected in your KPIs. You are a specialist in helping clients develop their innovation pipeline end‑to‑end: from opportunity identification through proposition development, screening, validation, forecasting, launch and post‑launch execution. You deliver beyond data bringing insight, strategy and execution together. As a crucial member of the divisional leadership team, you combine commercial credibility with world‑class people leadership, building trust and unlocking potential in your teams to drive brilliant performance for clients and the business. You contribute beyond your team, shaping divisional strategy and priorities alongside other Innovation senior leaders.

Day to day:

• Driving profitable growth across your portfolio.
• Leading your team to commercial success by managing financials, shaping account growth strategies that drive revenue through repeat and expanded business, and prioritising relationship investment with decision‑makers to maximise ROI.
• Supporting client directors with commercial strategy across accounts.
• Winning new work.
• Overseeing major proposals to ensure they are well‑designed, competitively priced and pitched for high win rates, leading key pitches personally alongside the team and Ipsos experts.
• Delivering excellence for clients.
• Taking personal responsibility for your accounts, while leading client directors to the same high standard across theirs.
• Acting as the most senior Innovation expert in client engagements, and partnering with delivery and operations to scale work efficiently and profitably.
• Building a high‑performing Innovation team.
• Role‑modeling the Ipsos Leading People skills and driving a culture of excellence, entrepreneurship and accountability.
• Inspiring team members at all levels, managing performance, and keeping the team focused on growing revenues and identifying opportunities.
• Delivering the Innovation proposition.
• Working with Innovation and global leadership teams to keep our Innovation offer competitive, AI‑and tech‑enabled, and aligned to client needs differentiated from competitors.
• Raising our profile and building our reputation.
• Externally contributing to client events and thought leadership and supporting team members to build their own market presence.
• Internally establishing Innovation as a go‑to centre of excellence across UK and global networks, known for expertise, quality and entrepreneurial spirit.

Essential criteria:

• Senior leadership presence – sets a clear vision, creates energy and purpose, and leads through ambiguity and change.
• Proven ownership of senior client relationships, with demonstrable success retaining and expanding strategic accounts through consultative selling, negotiation and competitive pitching.
• Strong commercial acumen: a track record of sustainable growth, with understanding of financial levers (revenue, margin, pricing) and pipeline discipline.
• Experience across the full innovation lifecycle with the ability to shape client portfolios and translate insight into strategy and execution.
• Fluency in innovation methods, and the ability to integrate them to answer business questions and evidence impact.
• Proven ability to build and lead high‑performing teams: develops leaders, fosters psychological safety and inclusion, and addresses underperformance fairly.
• Excellent written and verbal communication. Synthesises complexity into compelling proposals, debriefs and outcomes.
• Strategic, growth‑oriented and resilient, with high integrity, sound judgement and a commitment to action.

Desired criteria:

• Experience embedding technology, GenAI and automation to improve speed, quality and consistency of delivery.
• Creativity and comfort with data visualisation.
• Strong appreciation of research quality, data privacy and compliance requirements, with experience partnering with delivery and operational teams to scale work efficiently.
• Active contribution to thought leadership, client events and external profile‑building.
• Demonstrable strength across Leading Self, Leading Clients and Leading People dimensions of the Ipsos leadership framework.

Behaviours:

• Proactive and takes initiative
• Collaborative and client‑focused
• Resilient, flexible and agile
• Analytical and creative thinker
• Curious and committed to lifelong learning
• Empathetic with strong active listening
• Self‑aware and motivated
• Leads with influence and develops talent
• Service‑oriented

Benefits:

We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support you as an individual. Our standard benefits include 25 days annual leave, pension contribution, income protection and life assurance. In addition, there are a range of health & wellbeing, financial benefits and professional development opportunities. We realise you may have commitments outside of work and will consider flexible working applications – please highlight what you are looking for when you make your application. We have a hybrid approach to work and ask people to be in the office or with clients for 3 days per week. We are committed to equality, treating people fairly, promoting a positive and inclusive working environment and ensuring we have diversity of people and views. We recognise that this is important for our business success – a more diverse workforce will enable us to better reflect and understand the world we research and ultimately deliver better research and insight to our clients. We are proud to be a member of the Disability Confident scheme, certified as a Level 2 Disability Confident Employer. We provide an inclusive and accessible recruitment process. Your application will be reviewed by someone from our Talent Team who will be in touch either way to let you know the outcome.