Healthcare PR Senior Account Director (12-month FTC) in Stoke-on-Trent

About PHA

PHA is an earned-first integrated communications agency with offices in London, New York, Manchester, Leeds and Boston. 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.

To express your interest, please send your CV to .