Role Overview
The Account Director is a senior client leader responsible for building strong client relationships, leading integrated agency teams, driving strategic and creative excellence, and ensuring the commercial health and growth of assigned accounts.
This role requires someone who can operate confidently with senior client stakeholders while also leading the internal team to deliver high-quality work. The Account Director should be able to anticipate client needs, identify business opportunities, navigate complex challenges, and ensure that projects are delivered effectively, profitably, and in line with agreed scope.
The ideal candidate combines strong client leadership with commercial judgment, strategic thinking, operational discipline, and people leadership.
Key Responsibilities
Client Leadership
Own and develop senior-level relationships across assigned client accounts.
Act as a trusted advisor to clients, understanding their business, category, customers, challenges, and priorities.
Lead key client meetings, presentations, strategic discussions, and difficult conversations.
Anticipate client needs and potential issues rather than simply responding to requests.
Provide clear recommendations and constructive counsel, including challenging clients appropriately when needed.
Maintain strong client satisfaction while protecting the agency's strategic, creative, operational, and commercial interests.
Strategic Leadership
Develop a strong understanding of the client's business objectives and translate them into clear agency priorities and briefs.
Partner with strategy, creative, media, production, digital, and other disciplines to develop effective solutions.
Ensure the work remains connected to the client's broader business and marketing objectives.
Identify opportunities to strengthen client strategies, programs, campaigns, and customer experiences.
Bring perspective, ideas, and proactive recommendations to clients rather than relying solely on client-generated briefs.
Account & Project Leadership
Provide overall leadership across multiple projects, workstreams, and campaigns.
Ensure teams have clear priorities, responsibilities, timelines, and deliverables.
Work closely with project management and discipline leads to identify risks, dependencies, resourcing needs, and potential delivery issues.
Maintain visibility across the account without unnecessarily managing every task.
Ensure issues are escalated early and addressed before they affect client relationships or project outcomes.
Commercial & Financial Management
Take ownership of the commercial health of assigned accounts.
Understand scopes of work, estimates, budgets, resource allocations, retainers, and project profitability.
Monitor scope, burn, downstream costs, and financial performance in partnership with finance, operations, and project management.
Identify and address scope creep early.
Lead commercial conversations with clients when requirements, timelines, or deliverables change.
Support annual planning, forecasting, account planning, and revenue management.
Identify organic growth opportunities within existing client relationships.
Growth & Business Development
Identify opportunities to expand the agency's relationship with existing clients.
Understand emerging client needs and connect them with relevant agency capabilities.
Contribute to proposals, pitches, presentations, and new-business opportunities where appropriate.
Build a strong understanding of the client's broader organization and identify potential new stakeholders or areas of opportunity.
Team Leadership
Lead and develop account team members, including Account Managers, Senior Account Executives, and junior client-service team members.
Set clear expectations around ownership, communication, quality, and client service.
Delegate effectively while maintaining appropriate oversight.
Coach team members to strengthen their client management, commercial judgment, strategic thinking, and problem-solving capabilities.
Provide regular, specific, and constructive feedback.
Create an environment where team members feel accountable for outcomes rather than simply completing tasks.
Collaborate effectively with senior leaders across strategy, creative, production, operations, finance, and other disciplines.
What Success Looks Like
Within the first 6-12 months, the Account Director should:
Establish credibility and trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders.
Develop a strong understanding of client businesses, priorities, and organizational dynamics.
Take clear ownership of assigned accounts and reduce the need for senior leadership intervention.
Improve proactive communication, planning, and anticipation of client needs.
Ensure account scopes, budgets, and profitability are actively managed.
Strengthen coordination and accountability across internal teams.
Identify opportunities to improve or expand the agency's relationship with clients.
Develop and elevate the capabilities of the account team.
Demonstrate sound judgment when balancing client needs with agency priorities.
Required Experience & Capabilities
Significant experience in account management, client services, marketing, advertising, communications, or a related agency environment.
Experience independently managing complex client relationships and multiple simultaneous workstreams.
Demonstrated experience working with senior client stakeholders.
Strong understanding of integrated marketing and the creative development process.
Strong strategic and business judgment.
Demonstrated financial and commercial awareness, including experience managing scopes, budgets, estimates, and profitability.
Ability to identify scope creep and lead constructive commercial conversations.
Strong presentation, facilitation, and written communication skills.
Strong project and organizational judgment, with the ability to prioritize effectively in a fast-moving environment.
Demonstrated ability to lead and develop account teams.
Ability to influence cross-functional teams without relying solely on formal authority.
Strong problem-solving skills and comfort navigating ambiguity, conflict, and changing priorities.
Preferred Experience
Experience in one or more of the following would be valuable:
Integrated advertising or marketing agencies.
Complex or highly regulated client categories.
Financial services.
Food and beverage.
Alcohol or beverage alcohol.
Consumer services.
Multi-market or national client accounts.
Brand strategy, campaign development, digital, social, experiential, CRM, or integrated communications.
Growing existing client relationships and identifying organic revenue opportunities.
Core Competencies
• Client leadership
• Strategic thinking
• Commercial judgment
• Account growth
• Project and operational leadership
• Communication and presentation
• Problem solving and decision-making
• Scope and financial management
• Cross-functional leadership
• People leadership and development
• Proactivity and anticipation
• Executive presence and stakeholder management
Leadership Style
We are looking for someone who can provide calm, clear, and accountable leadership.
The successful Account Director should be comfortable operating independently, making informed decisions, escalating appropriately, and taking responsibility for both client and agency outcomes.
They should be able to move between strategic conversations with senior clients and detailed operational discussions with internal teams while maintaining perspective on the overall health and direction of the business.
Use of artificial intelligence
AV Communications does not use artificial intelligence to screen, assess or select applicants for this position.
Application follow-up
We will let all candidates who are interviewed for this position know the outcome of their application within 45 days of their final interview.
