PR Senior Account Manager

At Ogilvy PR we are the impact agency, we inspire brands and people to impact the world. We are looking for a candidate who is going to embrace modern PR principles and understands the power of earned first ideas. Someone who challenges the norm and embodies our philosophy of divine discontent (Never stop chasing brilliance attitude).

We are looking for an ambitious, proactive and motivated individual with solid PR and communications agency experience, and is able to lead day-to-day management of accounts.

The Senior Account Manager role requires a candidate with excellent project management and media handling skills, able to provide informed counsel to clients when developing stories or handling complex issues, liaising with journalists directly on developing stories, and coaching junior team members.

A Senior Account Manager has demonstrated high-level professional knowledge and skills. She/he should be able to manage a piece of a large account or a few smaller ones, with top cover from her/his account director, business director, director or and/or managing director. She/he should have project management, budgeting, counselling, programme, people management and emerging business development skills. He/she takes responsibility for the projects he/she manages, providing excellent client service, applying the offices best resources, effectively managing people involved in projects and managing for profitable growth. As senior account manager demonstrates the ability and wherewithal to deliver on our vision, performance requirements and growth projections. An senior account manager has strong client relationships.

Ability to manage and work with cross functional teams and workload is vital, as well as the ability to project manage campaigns, develop junior team members, and oversee the quality of work produced.

The candidate should have a clear understanding of the overall company strategy, client strategies and ensuring that they work with the appropriate leaders in the business to deliver both client and company objectives.

Responsibilities include:

• Serving as the daily client contact and as client lead when appropriate, earning the trust of clients to deliver day to day work as well as providing proactive counsel on new approaches or ideas.
• Media relations including story and message development, creating and driving outreach plans, speaking to journalists regularly to secure coverage/briefings, briefing spokespeople, and ongoing development of own media contacts.
• Playing a key role in the research, planning and development of campaigns/communication plans and strategies, and driving these forward.
• Overseeing quality and operational performance of accounts, ensuring work quality and deadline adherence for junior members of teams, providing close coaching and development.
• Producing content; writing/editing press releases, social media content, articles, PR proposals may be required.
• Producing high quality, informed content briefs for the Newsroom content creation team, making sure the work produced is aligned to client strategy.
• Providing support on new business pitches research, slide development, driving forward process including work back plans and managing junior teams input.
• Overseeing PR campaigns from creative brief to implementation and delivery
• Analysing PR outcomes, interpreting data and reporting.
• Presenting findings to the board, clients and key stakeholders.
• Delegating to and managing a PR team
• Updating the Newsroom tracker daily for your clients based on what comes our of morning newsroom meetings.
• Hosting Newsroom for a week according the newsroom roster. This will entail going through the morning news outlets and sharing articles with the team that are relevant to our agency clients, and where applicable finding ways for our clients to integrate into the news cycle.

Key requirements:

• The candidate should have project management, budgeting, people management, and business development skills.
• Desire to work as part of a large team in a busy, fast paced and highly motivated working environment.
• A deliver-driven manager and creative problem solver that can confidently take responsibility of tasks and accounts.
• Ability to service multiple clients and manage workload whilst managing/coaching junior team members
• Team player that can manage both up and down and take overall responsibility of day to day account activity
• Experience of integrating and collaborating with different practices/teams on cross-business work.
• Excellent verbal and written skills, ability to articulate with confidence and gravitas, and understanding of how to incorporate earned, owned and paid media in holistic communications plans.
• Interest in current affairs, news, and international business, and consumes media in all forms.
• Entrepreneurial spirit - willingness to get stuck in and make the most of opportunities, and desire to share expertise and experience to enhance work of the team.
• Continually seeks new ways to learn, improve and contribute.
• Exhibits a sense of curiosity about client work and seeks more information and knowledge in response.
• Ability to multitask and meet deadlines.
• Contribute to a positive and productive work culture, by being considerate and helpful to all colleagues.

Financial/administrative

• Develops accurate project budgets and monitors them effectively.
• Oversees timely development and distribution of bills and activity reports.
• Completes timesheets daily and otherwise acts in accordance with company policies and procedures, and ensures that team does the same.