Account Director

THE BIG PICTURE

VCCP is the Challenger Agency for Challenger Brands. An independent, 1,650-person strong creative company, that exists to transform its clients fortunes by disrupting the categories they operate in.

VCCP is fully integrated, with deep capabilities in data and analytics, brand strategy, communications, customer experience, media, production and distribution. The company was founded in 2002 in London, with offices in New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Shanghai, Sydney, Madrid and Prague.

Our London office has been shortlisted for Campaign magazine’s Agency of the Year almost every year for the past decade, topping the new business table 9 years out of the last 10.

OUR CULTURE

The VCCP has a unique culture, and we are looking for people who will make a positive contribution to this, therefore the candidate must have the following attributes:

• A collaborative nature
• An entrepreneurial spirit
• Take pride in their work
• An honest approach
• Be un-precious and able to recognise that a good idea can come from anywhere
• Take responsibility

OUR PURPOSE

So what do we actually do? Put simply we exist to transform the fortunes of our clients by challenging and disrupting the categories they operate in. It’s why we describe ourselves as ‘the challenger agency for challenger brands’.

ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT AT VCCP:

OUR VISION

To be the best account management department in London where we challenge harder to make the BEST POSSIBLE WORK that populates culture.

WHAT DO WE MEAN BY THIS?

We want people who…

• ARE BRILLIANT AT THE BASICS: We challenge ourselves to be brilliant at the basics and create the right conditions for the best possible work
• HAVE A POINT OF VIEW AND OPINION: We challenge others with our thinking on strategy and creative. We come to meetings ready to contribute, debate, build, and challenge to make the best possible work.
• MAKE BRAVE CHOICES: We challenge ourselves, our team and our clients to make brave choices to ensure we have done all we can to make the best possible work.

WHAT MAKES A BRILLIANT VCCP ACCOUNT DIRECTOR:

COMMERCIAL AND FINANCIAL

• VCCP ADs are the lead strategic adviser to their client(s) and the ‘go-to’ person for helping them with their business issues. You will report directly to the Business Director/Managing Partner, but share the responsibility for managing the account.
• You will lead your account team to develop proactive and responsive strategic proposals which drive demonstrable value for your clients.
• You will identify and develop relationships with key budget-holding clients across their business at levels, seeking opportunities and developing plans for business growth within your accounts.
• You will develop and nurture relationships with people in partner agencies.
• You will be accountable for client revenue targets on your account – in terms of forecasts, the buck stops with you – you need to take responsibility for them, anticipating and reacting rapidly to changes in your client\’s businesses which impact revenue.
• You will take the lead in client negotiations with procurement and marketing contacts to agree agency fees and retainers.

ACCOUNT AND PROJECT ORGANISATION AND MANAGEMENT

• VCCP ADs are encouraged to work with their account team as they would their own mini agency and should be comfortable with the entrepreneurial atmosphere this creates – we take the INITIATIVE, we encourage ENTREPRENEURS.
• With the above in mind, VCCP ADs lead and motivate the account teams to deliver first-class account management; ensuring projects delivered are of a high standard, on time and on budget.
• You will ensure compliance with VCCP company reporting and legal procedures as well as the management of the client account to the terms of any contractual agreements.
• You will ensure your team(s) are adhering to account billing processes, maintaining a sense of urgency in timely and accurate invoicing in line with, or ahead of, your forecast sessions with your Business Director and MD.

DELIVERING ‘CHALLENGER AGENCY’ PRODUCT

• You will proactively develop, implement and share new ways to improve the quality of work within the agency – living up to the agency’s founding principles and challenger philosophy.
• You will head up and take responsibility for the agency’s strategic and creative response to briefs, helping to evaluate in terms of quality and budget and benchmarking against objectives/KPIs set.
• You will work with your team to develop brilliant and inspiring briefs which help to deliver the very best strategic and creative work.
• You will oversee the formal evaluation of completed campaigns and sharing of results – it is important that you make sure learnings are shared across the agency as well as within your team.
• You will take leadership in reviewing creative work in an objective and constructive manner, working closely with the creative teams to deliver the best product possible in the pursuit of work that populates culture.

TALENT MANAGEMENT

• You will work with your Team and The People Team to recruit, develop and retain the best staff across the department.
• You will lead, motivate, develop and appraise staff – working to motivate and inspire your team to love what they do. Involve and educate them to help them excel individually and as a team. Appraise them in a timely manner, ensuring best practice career development.

INTEGRATION:

• Written large across the walls of the agency is VCCP’s founding mantra ‘IT ONLY WORKS IF IT ALL WORKS’. ADs at VCCP should have a broad range of skills to ensure ideas are conceived and delivered with this in mind. They are responsible for challenging siloed thinking by ensuring an idea is media agnostic and that it is a simple enough thought that can work across every consumer touch points.

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.