Healthcare PR Senior Account Director (12-month fixed-term contract)

If you want to start or advance your career by working with some of the best PR, Digital, Creative, and Reputation specialists in the industry, and deliver exciting campaigns for the world’s biggest brands and brightest start‑ups, you’re on the right page.

About PHA

PHA is an earned‑first integrated communications agency with offices in London, Manchester, Leeds, New York, and Boston (US). We believe communication can make the world a better place. It matters. But with constant disruption, fragmentation and growing complexity, earning attention and inspiring action is harder than ever. PHA is built to solve for this. We nurture, grow and protect brands & reputations for a portfolio of consumer, corporate, technology, B2B, and health clients in the UK and internationally. We bring clarity to a fast, chaotic, complex world, challenging convention and delivering fresh thinking. Our agile multidisciplined teams create dynamic campaigns across earned, social, digital and paid media – engaging audiences wherever they are, always. We lead with strategy and deliver a full suite of creative services and production capabilities, generating impact at every step of the audience journey from awareness through to conversion. Working as one to solve any client challenge, we bring the best of PHA to drive impact that multiplies. When unboxed minds meet unboxed ambition communications don’t blend in – they break out. We’re built to make it matter.

Introduction to the role

We are looking for an established (Senior) PR Account Director with experience building and leading integrated campaigns across the health, wellness, and pharma sectors to join us for a 12‑month fixed‑term contract. Due to the nature of the contract, the core focus of the role is to settle in quickly, support continuity, and drive short to medium‑term impact in our high‑performing Healthcare practice.

Core Responsibilities

• Nurture relationships with decision makers within your clients’ organisation, and work to develop and maintain positive relationships with client teams as the senior account lead, resulting in commercial growth opportunities.
• Exceptional client management with detailed, clear communication, counsel, and regular strategic recommendations.
• Successfully lead a portfolio of client accounts, including:
• Strong delivery on activity and exceeding KPIs.
• Ownership of ongoing strategy and campaign development.
• Ideation to keep client activity fresh and engaging.
• Start to, then confidently manage budgets and costing for agency delivery, invoicing, etc.
• Take the lead on evaluating and demonstrating impact, reporting on meaningful metrics for the client and showcasing value to achieve high client retention.
• Find ways to ‘surprise and delight’ clients to provide added value outside of the day‑to‑day activity, and maintain long‑term client partnerships.

Stay Curious

• Use existing contact book of senior journalists, influencers, and other key figures relevant to your sector to leverage on behalf of clients, the team, and the wider agency.
• Build and maintain a good knowledge of industry trends and best practice, including devising campaign strategies for clients you oversee.
• Build your strategic thinking skills and expertise in relevant sectors, sharing knowledge within the agency.
• Attend role‑specific training and participate in agencywide activities and initiatives to build relationships with colleagues.
• Use AI tools responsibly to support creativity, efficiency, insight, and high‑quality output, applying professional judgment to ensure all work remains accurate, ethical, and aligned with client and company standards.

Stay Human

• Lead account teams to ensure successful delivery across clients within your areas of ownership in the practice/specialism/agency.
• Demonstrate consistent upward management at a senior level, providing feedback, recommendations, flagging and escalating performance issues, and providing solutions.
• Work with your SVP/EVP to help hire junior talent, and take responsibility for nurturing and guiding to support their career development.
• Work with your SVP/EVP to come up with ideas around relevant training sessions for your practice/specialism, and help to plan and deliver them.

Stay Ahead

• Work to agreed fee income targets for your client portfolio as set by your SVP/EVP, with an agreed percentage responsibility of the practice/specialism fee income under your management.
• Work with your SVP/EVP and the Sales & Marketing function to support with business development campaigns by, where possible, identifying areas for expansion to increase commercial results month‑to‑month and using integrated working to manage inbound new business leads.
• Demonstrate a strong knowledge of our integrated service offering, and be a champion for this within your practice/specialism and the wider business.
• Start to understand the department’s conversion rate for new business, and what improvements can be made based on proposal feedback.
• Start to understand the department’s retention rate for client accounts to help identify trends and how it can begin to influence other opportunities with clients.

Benefits

• Hybrid working policy, enabling you to work flexibly from home and one of our offices – minimum requirement of 12 office days per month.
• Flexible start and finish times; 8am-5pm / 8:30am-5:30pm / 9am-6pm, as well as an early finish on Fridays between 3:30pm and 4:30pm.
• Healthcare cashback scheme worth up to £2,000 annually for dental, optical, physio, chiro, osteo, and GP charges.
• £30 monthly phone allowance.
• Weekly Wellness Hour, annual Wellness Day, and accompanying Wellness voucher.
• Annual Development Day for volunteering/charity work, and Birthday leave.
• 25 days’ annual leave.
• Monthly companywide awards with a chance to win £50 or £100 for outstanding work.
• Employee Assistance Programme with access to six virtual or face‑to‑face counselling sessions as well as ad hoc mental health, financial, and legal support.
• Dedicated Culture Committee responsible for arranging a number of activities and initiatives across sport, social, wellness, sustainability, charity, and EDI, as well as a monthly Culture Club.
• Dedicated training team responsible for developing employees at all levels across the business through an extensive programme of external trainers, internal specialists, and industry experts, complimented by the PHA Aspire Mentoring Programme.

Please enquire or send your CV to rubyk@thephagroup.com or apply via LinkedIn or our website. As an equal opportunities employer, we actively encourage applications from candidates belonging to groups that are underrepresented in the communications, marketing, and creative industries, including those from ethnically diverse backgrounds, belonging to the LGBTQ+ community, living with a physical/hidden disability or neurodivergent condition, and/or were not privately/university educated. We are committed to ensuring that all candidates can participate fully and comfortably in the application and recruitment process while showcasing their suitability for a role to the best of their ability. Please let the Talent team know via the email address above if you require adjustments to the application or recruitment process.