Freelance Senior Account Director
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Key skills for this role
About the Role
M+C Saatchi Middle East is looking for a Freelance Senior Account Director to build client partnerships, lead teams, and drive strategic and commercial success. The role involves client leadership, team management, strategic planning, and commercial oversight.
Key Skills for This Role
Responsibilities
- Build deep, trusted relationships with clients beyond the day to day
- Be a regular presence within client offices to strengthen relationships and identify new opportunities
- Serve as the primary point of contact for operational issues and client concerns
- Identify opportunities to introduce additional agency capabilities
- Ensure every team member understands expectations and the importance of delivering an outstanding client experience
- Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and collaboration
- Lead cross agency briefs and projects with a focus on achieving the best outcomes for clients
- Partner with Planning to develop clear, innovative campaign strategies
- Drive profitable ways of working across client accounts
- Manage client communications around project burn, timelines, and resource allocation
Requirements
- Proven experience managing and growing senior client relationships with confidence and credibility
- Ability to become a trusted strategic advisor
- Strong leadership skills with experience motivating, coaching, and developing high performing teams
- Experience leading cross functional or cross agency teams to deliver integrated solutions
- Commercial acumen, including budget management, forecasting, profitability, and account growth
- Excellent communication and presentation skills
- Strategic mindset with confidence to challenge briefs and drive innovation
- Strong organisational skills with ability to manage multiple priorities
- Arabic speaker preferable
Full Job Posting
About The Role
- As our Senior Account Director, you'll be responsible for building trusted client partnerships, leading high performing teams, and driving strategic and commercial success across the agency.
Client Leadership & Relationships
- Build deep, trusted relationships with clients beyond the day to day, understanding their personal aspirations, business priorities, and long term goals.
- Be a regular presence within client offices to strengthen relationships and identify new opportunities.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for operational issues and client concerns.
- Earn the trust of clients by consistently delivering exceptional work.
- Identify opportunities to introduce additional agency capabilities that add value to clients' businesses.
Team Leadership
- Ensure every team member understands expectations and the importance of delivering an outstanding client experience.
- Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and collaboration.
- Create an environment that reflects and champions our agency vision and behaviours.
- Understand what success looks like for each team member and support their development through regular check ins and performance feedback.
- Plan team capacity and resource requirements in line with business forecasts.
- Help build a connected culture by supporting an engaging social calendar for both the team and clients.
Strategic Leadership
- Lead cross agency briefs and projects with a relentless focus on achieving the best outcomes for clients.
- Partner with Planning to develop clear, innovative campaign strategies.
- Ensure the appropriate level of strategic planning is applied to every brief.
- Build effectiveness measurement and evaluation into campaigns from the outset.
- Take a long term view of clients' brands, helping shape future direction beyond immediate campaigns.
- Challenge briefs to ensure they deliver the strongest possible creative and commercial outcomes.
- Develop compelling presentations and client experiences that inspire confidence and bring bold ideas to life.
Commercial Leadership
- Drive profitable ways of working across client accounts.
- Manage client communications around project burn, timelines, and resource allocation.
- Ensure project scopes and quotes are accurate, commercially sound, and profitable.
- Set clear expectations around budgets and investment decisions.
- Support clients with long term budget planning and investment strategies.
- Define account growth objectives and align the wider team behind them.
About You
- Proven experience managing and growing senior client relationships with confidence and credibility.
- The ability to become a trusted strategic advisor, with clients actively seeking your opinion on brand direction and business strategy.
- Strong leadership skills with experience motivating, coaching, and developing high performing teams.
- Experience leading cross functional or cross agency teams to deliver integrated solutions.
- Commercial acumen, including budget management, forecasting, profitability, and account growth.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders and sell ambitious creative ideas.
- A strategic mindset with the confidence to challenge briefs, identify opportunities, and drive innovation.
- Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple priorities while maintaining exceptional client service.
- Arabic speaker preferable
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