Who We Are
We Are Futures is unique agency with a powerful proposition: to build advocacy for brands amongst young people, through social impact.
Twenty years ago, we saw the potential for brands to connect deeply with young people, teachers, families, and communities.
We pioneered the idea that brands could positively shape young people’s futures.
In return, we championed the role that young people could play to help brands thrive, growing together in a positive relationship.
Since 2004, we've positively impacted over 40 million young people and 150 businesses.
Today, we're the go-to agency for building brand advocacy amongst young people.
The Role
We seek a dynamic, strategic and ambitious Account Director experienced in creating trusted client relationships and developing growth opportunities, whilst providing a critical role in ensuring we deliver brilliant work for our clients.
As the ideal candidate you will have a growth mindset, entrepreneurial spirit, curious nature and collaborative working style - always striving to understand client needs and how to best support their ambitions. You will be passionate about working on projects that make a genuine impact to young people whilst also delivering a commercial benefit. You will be driven by a love of delivering the best possible client experience taking pride in your work and the impact it makes. Reporting into one of our Client Partner’s, you will work across multiple accounts and will have overall accountability for the client relationship, growth and project delivery.
From a growth perspective you will work closely with your Client Partner to deliver against our ambitious Client Growth Plans. You’ll play a pivotal role in driving incremental growth and retention enabling Client Partners to focus on transformation opportunities and longer-term growth. Through brilliant listening skills combined with a deep understanding of our agency proposition and services, you’ll be instrumental in translating client needs into opportunities. You’ll be excited about expanding the remit of our work and bringing clients on a journey.
As someone with a passion for client service, you’ll know how to help your clients shine. You’ll be natural people person with a knack for getting under the skin of your clients’ business, building close relationships and becoming a trusted advisor. You will be a strong communicator with the ability to inspire clients as well as lead and mobilise internal teams, translating client needs into clear and actionable briefs. You will use your client understanding to guide and direct internal teams across Strategy, Marketing and Comms, Content and Creative ensuring everyone is working towards a shared goal and are set up for success.
You will have a strong delivery track record and a natural attention to detail, whilst also being able to keep the bigger picture front of mind, always thinking of what’s next for clients. You will play an active role in maximising the success of our programmes helping to drive projects forward. You’ll be supported by an assigned team made up of a mixture of Account Managers, Account Execs or Project Managers/Directors dependant on the size of the account and growth potential.
Key Skill Sets and Responsibilities
Your role will be instrumental in developing and growing clients. You will be experienced and confident in the below skills in order to drive success:
* Client relationship building – building strong and trusted client partnerships at senior levels, using trusted advisor status to turn clients into active advocates / champions of We Are Futures and helping to build our agency reputation with clients.
* Client development – strategically growing portfolio of clients, harnessing the skills within the business to drive success. Working closely with Client partners to identify and convert short-term growth opportunities whilst laying the foundations for longer term growth ambitions.
* Pitch creation – confident in building compelling decks and sales stories that build opportunities for client and new business growth.
* Delivery leadership – leading internal teams across all aspects of delivery, providing clear direction, bringing both the client and internal teams on a journey and fostering a culture of quality.
* Marketing and content expertise – using your experience of what makes good work to positively impact every project you work on and drive quality.
* Commercial management and business acumen – demonstrating clear grasp on all aspects of commercial management from forecasting and resourcing to campaign profitability, working closely with Commercial Director where needed.
* Problem solving / risk management – identifying and managing any programme risks taking a proactive, agile and solution focused approach & mobilising teams.
* Internal relationship building – establishing positive, productive and collaborative working partnerships with internal teams to ensure optimal ways of working.
* Team management – inspiring, empowering and motivating more junior members of the Client Service Team. Living the agency values and ethos, and inspiring the same in your team.
Responsibilities
Below gives a more detailed example of the types of responsibilities you would have:
* Managing a high-profile portfolio of clients, developing the relationships and providing the senior day to day point of contact within the agency
* Efficiently overseeing all projects, sometimes alongside or with support from a Project Director, from start to finish, to high levels of client satisfaction and internal profitability
* Proactively developing and leading Client Growth plans across the client portfolio
* Leading the development of diverse, complex and integrated campaigns with the support of accounts and projects team, to ensure successful delivery and exceed client expectations
* Leading internal teams to deliver brilliantly against our client briefs working closely with other agency Departments to input into the direction ensuring client needs kept front of mind throughout development process.
* Leading multi-disciplined teams to prepare creative responses and client proposals
* Independently creating, developing and managing budgets ranging between £750k - £1m with an understanding of our internal processes and practical impacts
* Developing and delivering agreed client revenue targets and manage profitability
* Identifying and securing business development opportunities
* Leading a team of Project Managers/ Project Directors / Account Managers and Executives, providing mentorship and support
* Independently managing relationships (internally and externally) with stakeholders, creative teams and production suppliers, including freelance staff and negotiating costs where appropriate
* Negotiation of fees with clients
Requirements
* Around 6 years of experience within an agency environment, in Client Services roles
* Credible leadership skills, capable of motivating teams and promoting the trust of our client
* Highly motivated and passionate about brand and social impact
* Excellent account leadership skills with financial and commercial acumen, growth mindset, creative judgement and the ability to think strategically
* Client or stakeholder management experience within a client service organisation such as a full service creative, marketing, experiential or PR agency
* Experience and skills in youth marketing and youth engagement would be an advantage
Our values
Ambitious
* Always thinking of ways to take the ordinary to the extraordinary;
* Pushing ourselves and clients to go for brilliant;
* Always looking at ways to build our agency and business;
* Being ambitious for our colleagues;
* Pushing boundaries in our work;
* Never being satisfied with ‘ok’ so we produce exceptional quality work
Creative
* It is normal practice to think of different and exciting ways to do things;
* Being encouraged to take risks and be brave with big ideas;
* Pushing ourselves to wow clients and colleagues;
* Being creative in actions, thoughts and words to produce exceptional quality work.
Supportive
* Being committed to looking out for each other and helping in whatever way we can;
* Supporting each other’s development; enjoying the rewards of being part of a great team;
* Treating everyone fairly and with respect;
* Championing fairness and belonging