Business Director - Social in London

VCCP is the global challenger network for challenger brands. With more than 1,500 people across 13 offices in North America, EMEA and APAC, we challenge convention to create value for the world’s most ambitious organisations. Our founding belief is It Only Works If It All Works. That’s why we bring specialists from every discipline - strategy, AI, data, media, digital, experience, branding, creativity, production, PR, CX, CRM, employee engagement and beyond - into one fully integrated challenger network. We were founded on the principles of simplicity, collaboration and un-preciousness, and we’ve grown by staying true to them. Today, our clients include some of the world’s most recognisable and progressive brands, such as Virgin Media O2, Barclays, Cadbury, Compare the Market, Domino’s, White Claw, easyJet, Primark and Co-op. VCCP has topped the AAR’s annual new business ranking in 13 of the last 14 years and holds multiple Agency of the Year titles. Across every company and every capability, we share the same ambition: to challenge ourselves, challenge our clients and challenge the industry for the better.

You will be joining the social and content marketing arm of the VCCP Group: VCCP Social Club. The team are specialists in making social-first content that is grounded in community and native social behaviour. As VCCP Social Club, we believe that Social is the Sun. The world revolves around social media, and we want to make it (and our content) better. Just as the sun's warmth creates the perfect atmosphere for people to connect IRL, VCCP Social Club helps brands find their heat online so they too can bring people closer, enhance community and supercharge their cultural relevance. Together, we can make brands shine brighter in social. The team live and breathe social media and have an in-depth knowledge of all existing and emerging social platforms, formats and influencers. We work on a range of clients, helping them to define social and influencer strategies that have cut through with their audiences. Our team has social first creators responsible for developing, shooting, and editing content. We have an in-house creator studio — The Clubhouse - that allows for agility when it comes to production. Our influencer team works closely alongside the social team, working collaboratively to identify talent and inform creative development. The team does everything from creative content ideas and production through to live reportage, community management guidelines, moderation, and influencer marketing.

The Role

Business Directors are responsible for managing a multiple group of clients, championing client growth. They lead their direct reports and wider agency resources in pursuit of creating highly effective work that meets the challenger agency philosophy and embodies modern social best practice. They are ultimately responsible for ensuring client satisfaction and long-term profitable relationships. They have a transformative impact both internally and on their clients' business. As part of VCCP Social Club, the Business Director oversees multi-disciplinary account teams, including Social Strategy, Creative, Creator Studio (The Clubhouse), Influencer Management, Community Management, and Production. They lead always-on content strategies, reactive 'newsroom' content models, and longer development cycles for planned cultural moments across core platforms including Threads, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Client Management and Development: Maintain a comprehensive understanding of clients' business, key KPIs, competitors, societal and technological trends, and apply this to build a consultative relationship with senior clients. Ensure the client is fully aware of the agency and VCCP Partnership offering and the optimum brief is achieved for the agency. Uphold best practice client servicing skills throughout the team to drive high levels of client satisfaction, whilst also building a fun internal culture. Take an inclusive approach to developing client relationships, involving senior management and other disciplines, as appropriate. Create client satisfaction and trust that means we can fully maximise the potential of individual clients and their organisation. Foresight to introduce or adapt agency processes/team models (e.g., agile reactive newsroom models vs. planned cultural calendar cycles) to service the clients needs to the best possible standards. Conduct regular health checks with the client to ensure we maintain client satisfaction. Share regular and relevant thought-leadership (including contributions to the VCCP Social Club Substack and social channels) to demonstrate we're always thinking about their business and brand.
• Partnership Integration, Strategic Prowess and Creating Work that Populates Culture: Show a passion for developing social-first creative work that populates culture and is of the highest possible quality. Challenge the client to ensure we receive the best possible brief(s), and we're in a position to add commercial value to their business. Ensure the account team creates the most effective briefing documents and personally oversees the most important briefs. Apply social, creator, and platform knowledge to inform and evaluate marketing strategy and creative output, working with key agency resources as required. Work closely with the data and social listening teams (utilising platforms like Meltwater, Sprinklr, Sprout, and CreatorIQ) to ensure engagement strategies are underpinned with appropriate data, insights, and platform mechanics. Contribute to insightful, inspiring briefs and communicate compelling strategic arguments alongside, or in the absence of, strategic counterparts. Maintain a comprehensive understanding of target audiences (including Gen Z language, irony, humour, and cultural trends) and key market insights. Act as a Customer Engagement (CE) and Social champion, working with BDs from the wider VCCP department to maximise CE and social opportunities across all partnership clients. Professionalism, presence, and an outstanding presenter/ communicator both internally and externally. Confidently oversee continual optimisation of output and ensure results and native platform analytics are acted upon.
• Team Management and Development: Provide inspiring leadership and foster a strong team culture/atmosphere across retained Business Directors, Producers, Creative Directors, Creators, Influencer Managers, and Social Strategists. Create an effective team structure with the right skill sets, capabilities and behaviours to service the client's business, balance the workload, and handle reactive same-day turnarounds alongside longer production series. Proactive and 'best-in-class' people management covering recruitment, performance management, talent development, training and succession planning. Empower the team around them so they have the capacity to focus efforts on client growth as well as management. Ensure the account and the way their team works together is fun. Acknowledge the team's hard work and celebrate it.
• Commercial Management and Reporting: Maintain complete awareness of the commercial impact of their recommendations and understand both the agency's and clients' financial situation, business model, retainers, and results. Instil and uphold rigorous budgeting, scoping, agency fees, resource recoverability, and revenue forecasting, demonstrating full awareness of commercial impact. Proactively manage resource requirements to optimise and maintain a healthy account recoverability and balance team burn rates. Apply and uphold strong negotiating skills to ensure the appropriate budgets, scope boundaries, and timescales are secured. Undertake annual and quarterly client budgeting and forecasting, working closely with the commercial team, head of department, and Managing Director. Make informed forecasts of future revenues on the basis of clients' business performance, priorities, and current relationships. Optimise team resources to client activity and revenue and be considerate to team career development and succession planning. Collaborate with other account teams to help manage peaks and troughs of client activity across VCCP. Create and manage the approval of business cases for recruitment, liaising with the head of department, MD, and commercial team. Apply and foster within the team strong commercial rigour to ensure commercial targets and goals are met for clients account across all agency disciplines. Support new business opportunities, ranging from case study development and RFI submissions, tailoring and presentation of credentials through to leading pitches.

Role Specific Skills Required:

• Typically 8+ years of experience within a social media, community management, or customer engagement leadership role, either client or agency side.
• Proven track record in senior client management, consultative selling, and expanding revenue across large-scale accounts.
• Fully versed in the strategic use of Threads, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and emerging channels for both organic and paid social strategies.
• Experience or deep familiarity with enterprise tools such as Sprinklr, Sprout Social, Meltwater (social listening), CreatorIQ (influencer management), and AI tools (Adobe Firefly, Gemini).
• In-depth understanding of how social media metrics and ROI are analysed and reported upon to determine strategic success.
• Confident presenter, autonomous worker, and skilled commercial negotiator.
• Thorough understanding of creator economies, community management, influencer contracting/management, and navigating legal/policy guidelines for online engagement.

Attitude & About You:

• A passion for all things social, creative, and advertising.
• Resilience to keep going in a fast-paced, high-energy environment where no two days are the same.
• Proactive with a can-do attitude, eager to get sleeves rolled up and drive action.
• Strives for excellence, proud of work, with meticulous attention to detail.
• Friendly, approachable, personable, and able to quickly build rapport and establish excellent working relationships.
• A strong team player who lives and breathes the agency's core values.

VCCP DE&I STATEMENT

We believe that DE&I is about creating a strong culture of inclusion within our agency, where everyone can thrive and be their authentic self. VCCP is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, age, disability, religion, belief, sexual orientation, marital status, or ethnicity. If you require any adjustments during the application or interview process, please let us know via joinus@vccp.com.

CRIMINAL RECORDS INFORMATION

As part of our onboarding process, you will be required to complete a Criminal Records Declaration regarding any unspent convictions. For roles in finance, HR, Legal, IT or senior management, we may be required to verify your declaration with a basic DBS check, as well as an Adverse Finance and ID check.