VP (Associate Director) - Consumer PR in London

We are looking to appoint an experienced Vice President to join the leadership team within our Consumer practice. This is a fantastic opportunity to join a successful team and take the next step up in your career at an award-winning global agency.

To be successful in this role you will be highly organized and an excellent communicator. You will have a natural motivation to deliver award-winning creative work that is original, thought-provoking and conversation-starting. Alongside this, your strong leadership skills will help to develop talent within the team, delivering quality work that sets industry benchmarks. In this role, you must be able to demonstrate how you create exciting, groundbreaking consumer PR and social ideas to deliver outstanding results.

As a Vice President, you will have a proven track record of overall responsibility for managing a large team and budget, the ability to be one step ahead, to plan and anticipate, as well as having a great eye for detail. A key requirement for this role will be your ability to build strong client relationships and drive new business. You will be responsible for working closely with clients and account teams to lead strategic planning and oversee innovative communication campaigns.

• Serve as key integrated team member on client and inter-agency teams.
• Counsel and interact effectively with senior management at client organizations.
• Craft and tell compelling stories.
• Lead story-mining sessions with subject-matter experts and client executives to develop news-making story angles that drive coverage results.
• Build and maintain excellent relationships with national and regional technology reporters.
• Counsel junior members of the team to effectively work with the media.
• Allocate agency resources in accordance with the client’s budget.
• Bring a client-focused attitude that results in work being performed to the highest quality standards.

• Mentor, coach and develop direct reports to deliver high performance while supporting personal and professional development goals.
• Actively participate in the hiring and onboarding of talent; support and develop processes to enhance inclusive hiring practices for the team.
• Establish interpersonal relationships within and outside of the department, with focus on building an inclusive culture and mentoring colleagues outside of personal relationships.
• Promote the development and advancement of under-represented groups in the team through professional development trainings.
• Participate in trainings to build own cultural competency and ability to lead, coach and develop diverse teams.
• Actively participate in office or agency DEI initiatives to attract and retain diverse talent.

• Identify new areas of growth with existing clients and introduce specialists to expand assignments; actively participate in new business pitches.

• Responsible for executional leadership of multiple client programs and budgets.
• Manage ongoing team resourcing/staffing to ensure successful delivery of work product.
• Collaborate with project management to support development of staff plans and new scopes of work and updates on scope management.
• Develop and advance industry/sector leadership.
• Work with legal on development of client contracts.
• Consistently partner with the finance team on all client business matters (contracts, SOW, out-of-scope, overservice, client profitability, etc.).

To be considered for this role, you must have an established track record of working at an equivalent level on consumer campaigns in an agency environment.

• Extensive Consumer PR experience to at least SAD/Associate Director level, gained within an agency.
• Strong senior client counsel/internal stakeholder counsel experience, strategic communications and business development experience.
• Proven writing experience that is adaptable across channels.
• Strategic, multichannel experience – ability to understand audiences and plan campaigns.
• International experience is highly desirable.
• Ability to manage a team – strong leadership and management skills are essential.
• Crisis communications/issues management experience.
• Passionate about storytelling and developing original and compelling content for clients.
• Strong interest and POV on the changing landscape of PR and how people learn about and engage with brands.

Join us and help make an impact. Together, we’ll set the bar, cheer each other on and multiply your potential. At Weber Shandwick we are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all staff and applications from individuals are encouraged regardless of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and marriage and civil partnerships.

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