Senior Director Agency Management and Investment

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The Senior Director, Agency Management & Investment reports to the SVP Media & Creator Marketing and will lead a team of direct reports that supports the CMO organization to manage agency relations (for the enterprise) and the CMO production investment. Detailed responsibilities are below, but this role requires you to be an agency expert that knows the inside and out of the agency industry who has knowledge of the major holding companies and agencies, how agencies are compensated and how they operate. Candidates must demonstrate strategic excellence, project management, and experience being a motivating and inspiring people leader to an established team. This is a player-coach role where you need to inspire your team, build cross-functional relationships with peers and those above/below you across the company, build relationships with key agency partners and be able to roll up your sleeves and write an executive deck or budget overview.

This is a strategic role that sits within marketing and is not a sourcing related position, although strong collaboration with sourcing and legal is required to be successful in the role. Previous client-side agency relations and/or agency-side account management experience is a plus.

Agency Responsibilities

Advertising agency management includes strategic ecosystem, swim lanes, managing the CMO agency budget, conducting agency performance reviews, designing leading edge agency compensation programs and ensuring top agency talent on our account.

• Lead overall agency model, agency swim lanes, and AOR / scope assignments

• Develop and implement compensation models including performance-based incentives

• Identifying new strategies, processes and agency ways of working

• Driving agency accountability via annual performance agreements

• Lead semi-annual agency performance reviews and PIPs, when necessary

• Ensure Agency leadership focuses on our priorities and driving business results

• Manage CMO agency fee budget and allocation to marketing

• Partner with Finance to manage and update agency fee budget for financial updates and forecasting

• Identify new, innovative agencies to solve our marketing challenges

• Lead agency searches in partnership w/sourcing

• Agency talent management and assessment

• Collaborate with marketing leadership, Sourcing, and Legal teams to process and execute annual and incremental LOAs (scopes of work)

• Ensure our agencies are aware and utilizing Verizon brand identity, processes, and best practices training

• Ensure our Verizon compliance and policies are enforced

• Monitor the industry for marketing trends, financial compensation structures, and new/emerging agencies that can improve our roster and overall agency output

• Develop and implement strategic transformation opportunities that drive better output from our agency partners and efficiencies, both in hard savings and cost avoidance.

• Manage Agency and Production Investment team

Production Responsibilities

• Centralized production budget management mirrors the agency management structure allowing consolidation of production budgets and streamlined reporting to drive efficiencies. The team works in very close partnership w/CMO creative, experiential and in-house agency teams. In addition to centralized production budget management, the team oversees production governance

• Manage production budget for all advertising executions and ensure billing and accrual accuracy with internal finance team and advertising agencies.

• Manage the end-to-end production scorecard including: production bid compliance, overages tagging/tracking, deliverable and post production rate card adherence

• Drive stakeholder alignment, governance and compliance among cross functional teams covering: consumer, business and brand creative, social, experiential, marketing operations, Sourcing and Finance.

• Create, maintain and deliver the active production calendar for monthly alignments and Sr. Leadership reviews to continuously maintain forward planning and strategic alignment of production costs in-line with strategic media and brand investment allocations

• Develop partnerships with the CMO team and business units to ensure project timelines and deliverables are completed and evaluated.

• Work directly with Verizon Sourcing to secure legal approval on all marketing operations needs and communicate any feedback to advertising agencies and internal teams.

• 7+ years total experience in client-side agency relations and/or previous agency account management experience working on agency financials

• 5+ years managing multiple direct reports with proven success elevating their performance and output.

• Bachelor's Degree.

• In-depth knowledge of holding companies and agencies from creative to media to CX to CRM and everything in between.

• Ability to resolve complex problems positively, professionally and in a way that motivates and inspires teams.

• Understanding of agency financial models, from traditional large agencies in a holding company model, to more bespoke independent agencies.

• Ability to establish plans, monitor and report on program/project status

• Strong skills in financial management and reporting

• Self-starter who knows how to balance working independently and keeping leadership informed and involved.

• Must be able to clearly and professionally communicate status, issues, and risks to internal and external stakeholders

• Excellent meeting coordination and logistics skills.

• Solid ability to identify, develop and quantify any required corrective action plans

• Exercises considerable judgment in developing methods, techniques & evaluation criteria for obtaining results.

• Excellent written/verbal communications, storytelling skills and Google Slides expertise.

• Strong analytical skills and attention to detail.

• Comfort in working up and across the organization - working with executives within and across the organization.

• Experience appropriately handling extremely confidential information.

• Proficiency with MS Office suite.

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