Group Account Director

Department: Client Success

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Minneapolis, MN

Description

The Social Lights is a band of creative and energetic problem solvers who love nothing more than helping brands and individuals powerfully connect to their consumers, utilizing the power of social media. In other words, our superpower is decoding culture and creating social fandoms.

We are on a mission to elevate the power of social media to drive meaningful brand and marketing results. With a focus on innovation and connection, we have become the go-to partner for some of the most recognizable and up-and-coming brands. We're an award-winning agency, recognized as a strategic, creative and social powerhouse.

The Group Account Director is a client-whisperer, a big-picture thinker, a champion of big ideas and an inspiring agency leader with a tenacious desire to solve real business problems. The Group Account Director equally pursues the future and optimizes the present opportunity. This role requires a strategic leader with a deep understanding of social media marketing, client management, and team leadership.

The Group Account Director is a senior agency leader who inspires and optimizes the performance, opportunity and results of a client portfolio. The GAD is tasked with driving Agency growth, inspiring award-winning and results-driving work, and deepening/strengthening our client relationships. The Group Account Director supervises a team of Account Directors and Account Strategists and reports to the Sr. Director of Client Success.

Key Responsibilities

Client Leadership

• Deepen Strategic Client Partnerships: Serve as a trusted and invested partner, advising our clients on business needs, and identifying opportunities for The Social Lights.
• Cultivate Senior Client Relationships: Forge relationships with the most influential clients, fueling confidence in The Social Lights' capabilities, work, people and value.
• Proactively Drive Client Satisfaction: Solicit feedback on TSL's efforts to pursue the delivery of a best-in-class experience and best-in-class work.
• Lean In On Tough Conversations: When needed, actively address and resolve issues quickly and productively.

Fuel Exceptional Solutions

• Set the Vision: On new accounts, pivotal new projects and annual resets, set the vision and assumptions for the work ahead. Align with executive Agency leadership to shape the vision and cross-functional teams to inform the approach and deliver on our goals.
• Inspire Excellence: Identify, nurture and celebrate BIG thinking (strategy) and BIG ideas. Continuously raise the bar of excellence for yourself and the team.
• Connect and Clarify: Provide transparency and clarity, keeping cross-functional teams informed and grounded in the bigger picture and priorities.
• Rally the Right Team: Advocate for multi-disciplinary and cross-agency partner collaboration to strengthen strategic and creative solutions.

Influence and Engage Clients

• Architect the Narrative: Lead the team in defining the strategy and presentation approach in big brand meetings to ensure our ideas and solutions are compellingly communicated and embraced.
• Engage and Persuade: Present solutions with authority and insight, addressing our clients most important needs, anticipating objections, and building confidence in The Social Lights' abilities.
• Influence Beyond: Apply pre and/or post-meeting strategies to keep clients engaged and aligned on ideas, recommendations and decisions.

Team Leadership & Development:

• Build Trusted 1-on-1 Relationships: Lead/mentor a team of Account Directors and Account Strategists, leveraging their unique strengths, value and potential.
• Manage Performance: From real-time feedback to annual performance reviews, proactively provide insights and coaching to fuel growth and performance.
• Champion Career Growth: Define a path to career growth, partnering to define clear career goals and an action plan, staying connected throughout the year.
• Peer-to-Peer Training: Create and present internal training content that leverages your knowledge and advances team skills and development.
• Hiring & Onboarding: Partner with Talent/HR in hiring and the integration/onboarding process for new team members..

Agency Leadership

• Support Agency Operations: Help us connect the dots between scopes, workloads, resources and deadlines, elevating issues and opportunities to Operations.
• Champion our Brand: Promote our reputation, internally and externally, as the premier and sought-after provider of innovative social media solutions.
• Fuel our Culture: Embody our values and instill an agency-wide culture of curiosity, productivity and proactivity
• New Business Leadership: Go-to partner in unearthing and leading new business opportunities and pitches.

Account Health

• Manage a Financially-Sound Business: Oversee profitability, utilization and to-date billing in order to help TSL manage our financial opportunity. Elevate issues as needed own the overall responsibility for the business health of the portfolio. .•
• Drive Organic Growth: Spearhead efforts to look at current clients as a source of growth and new business opportunities.
• Architect SOW: Collaborate with the Director of Client Success and Director of Finance to define/shape our scope of work, budgets and opportunity.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Proven track record of leading high-impact marketing campaigns that have exceeded client KPI's
• 15+ years of account management experience with 4+ specifically dedicated in a social media role and 4+ years of experience in a client-leading role
• Demonstrated ability to own a room and thrive in high-pressure pitch environments
• Trust-and-relationship builder - positive relationship reputation with clients, teammates and direct reports
• Brilliant verbal, written and presentation skills - can command a room
• Demonstrated ability to coach, initiate change, and collaborate across groups
• Exceptional time management and organizational skills
• Able to maintain confidentiality with business relations, personnel matters and proprietary matters
• Bachelor's Degree in Advertising, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing or relevant field of study
• Proficiency in Google Suite: Docs, Slides, Sheets, Presentation Programs: Keynote and Powerpoint, Adobe Suite and ideally, Hubspot, Meltwater, Sprout, Sprinklr and other social first tools

Benefits

• Health Insurance (70% Employer Contribution)
• Dental Insurance (50% Employer Contribution)
• Vision (Voluntary)
• ST/LT/Life Insurance (100% Employer Coverage)
• HSA Contribution $100/mo
• 401(k) Plan (Up to 4% Employer Match)
• Generous PTO policy
• Technology Enablement (Laptop)
• Cell Phone Stipend
• Parking Pass
• Summer Hours + Flex Work Options
• Pet-Friendly Office