The Director role is fundamental to the board, team and clients - giving us ultimate upthrust towards our strategic goals. Forming part of the Leadership Team, the Director helps to build, maintain, inspire and nurture a very strong team of creative thinkers and brilliant do-ers, and proactively leads on a range of opportunities that contribute to the ongoing vision and growth of the agency overall. Alongside supercharged strategising, the day to day will largely consist of overseeing the output from the Project Directors and wider business unit, ensuring first-class planning, delivery, execution, as well as ensuring strong commerciality across every project. The Director will be continuously identifying revenue growth opportunities across the project lifecycle and clients organically. This role requires a strong and seasoned visionary leader with a background in leading on complex experiential projects, who wants to take their love for growth, strategic direction and leadership excellence to the next level. ABOUT US We are a culturally connected, experience agency with Heaps of creative energy and Stacks of strategic thinking and production expertise. We’re not afraid to be bold. We fuse big ideas, cultural insight, and a playful approach to design experiences that mould what's next. We do not believe in “one size fits all.” Instead, we come at every brief with a fresh perspective, underpinned by a deep understanding of trends and consumer behaviour. This ensures our solutions are authentic and land ROI, legacy, and fame. We don’t just create—we collaborate. Our house-style is grounded in long-term partnerships, where we co-create with our clients, taking on their challenges and delivering seamless experiences that resonate. We work with commercial brands to produce moments which crescendo their marketing calendars. We love what we do, and that passion shows right through the design process and into all physical touchpoints. We join the dots between an array of talented people to create immersive experiences—whether that’s a brand trip, a VIP party, or an all-singing, all-dancing store launch! Our clients include big names such as Nike, Estée Lauder, Longchamp, and Selfridges. Heaps Stacks is an equal opportunity employer, committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment, where all applicants will receive equal consideration regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, or disabilities. At the core of our agency are our guiding values: Imagination - We think beyond the ordinary, inspiring each other to dream big and challenge the status quo. Joy - We understand that play and wonder are powerful tools for creating authentic emotional connections with today’s audiences. Energy - Shooting for the moon - we thrive in the moment where big ideas are realised. We push the boundaries in search of innovation. Care - We are thoughtful stewards of the brands we partner with, fostering kindness within our team and taking a mindful approach to every project we undertake. WHO YOU’LL BE WORKING WITH: Internal: Director – collaborating on schemes and supporting on each other daily Your team - you will lead on day to day management of your direct reports, being accountable for the performance and optimisation of your whole team Creative Director – across key points in projects Studio Manager – on any operational aspects and recruitment needs External: Various client teams, including senior level clients and some external freelancers Line Manager: Managing Director to feedback on day to day successes, developments as well as any challenges along the way WHAT'S EXPECTED: Your duties will include but not be limited to the below: NEXT LEVEL LEADERSHIP Bring high level energy and confidence to your team all year round, even in challenging times. Foster a culture of innovation where we see change as exciting over threatening and where we see possibilities over limitations. Building trust and camaraderie making cross functional communication and collaboration central to how we work at Heaps Stacks. Cultivating resilience within the team culture. Being able to create or take plans and turn them into living breathing things within the business. Lead, by example, a culture of continuous improvement, and review, implement and share effective methods of working. TEAM Encourage and foster a dynamic, engaged and energised team. Expert training and coaching of the team where needed across; project management, deck writing, budgeting, jargon, best ways of working with any tips and tricks as you go. Be responsible for creating a clear progression for everybody in your team. Know your team’s aspirations and consider best ways to ensure they achieve these so the team feels consistently rewarded and motivated. Consider succession planning on key top clients and make sure client knowledge (and their trust) is across a number of people in each team. Use the performance management meetings to make sure your team members are the best they can be and have the right training sessions lined up. Owning personal career development by knowing your areas for development and making sure to attend relevant training sessions/workshops/talks to gain appropriate experience. Ensuring the SMT and wider team have the skills to implement all parts of the process and they can deliver to deadline, and achieve top class creative work that’s enjoyable for the duration of the project as well as on the live day. Ensure the SMT has the necessary skills to hold motivating and constructive dev plans for their direct reports as needed making sure leaders have chipped into collective messages and making sure they are shared Seek and accept peer to peer coaching from other directors and also from MD to help you to improve Routinely delegate appropriate areas of responsibility to the wider team so they can support and learn at the same time. Directors to make sure to share WOW and top tips between each other and to share tips and tricks and to consider the agency as one ‘big team’ and to share workload across the biz before using external resources. Ensuring the process is stuck to, making workflows simplified and easy to follow. Lead by example in caring about being actively involved in office running and organisation. Making sure time is logged very promptly and correctly. CLIENTS Ensure *fabulous* happy client relationships, which create a feeling of trust and respect, and which also reflect the persona of Heaps Stacks, ensuring it is built and maintained. Make sure relationship-building events and meet ups are organised for each key client. Set a high standard with the team by talking clearly and confidently on calls and face to face - but in a way that always feels warm and feels on brand for the agency! Present to senior clients and teammates with confidence, and conviction. Ensure delivery of the project feels easy to follow, smooth, and has a lot of forward motion. Promote strategic and creative culture – pushing for excellent creativity that is going to delight the client. Be familiar with what other fashion, beauty & lifestyle brands (and their agencies) are doing in their activations. Encourage your team to follow this too and to share ideas/trends with clients’ so we can stay one step ahead and help them to achieve their goals. Ensure clients feel that you have a strong understanding and connections within the industry. Understand and ensure that our creative projects support our client’s wider marketing/sales. Promote a results focused way of working that we can use to drive future sales and help us quantify what we do with results. Ensure any client dissatisfaction is acted on very swiftly and make sure any adjusted WOW are put into action. Ensure and check that account management procedures are followed to a tee. Occasional onsite leadership level event management (UK and sometimes abroad) when required making sure running to plan and client/s well looked after and team are solving any issue as they arise. Review event performance and reach results to evaluate success as a metric, identify best practices and learnings to apply going forward with client POV in mind. GROWTH Grow existing client accounts, both through your own efforts, and those of your team. Using the CRM to track and log account actions and next steps to maintain growth. Managing the value scheme each year for top spenders. Track old clients when they leave and where they go to next. Drive some new leads towards the company. Ensure your team is motivated (and has the tools/skills) if they would like to identify any appropriate new business opportunities. Play a leading role in new biz pitches to ensure we are presenting exceptional experiences only, facilitating new and creative ways to push the boundaries of live events and thinking client first for all elements. Manage the cost of pitching (FL, travel or gifts etc). Push concepts which are sustainable and recyclable and minimise waste. Cross sell and develop different products and services across current clients so we can help them and build out the ease of use for each product with leads in your team. RECRUITMENT Manage the recruitment of new teammates so that the right people are hired at the right time. Making sure the onboarding systems and processes for all in your team is smooth and as turnkey as possible. Building a good database of competent and capable freelancers and FT candidate pipeline (with the support of the Studio Manager), understanding their strengths and weaknesses and suitability for different types of projects. Working with the Studio Manager on recruitment for new starters in your team. FINANCE Be responsible for the accurate planning of your teams annual income and resource plan to go with it Ensure it meets the needs of the team but of course also the overall agency needs. Accountable for resource planning for the team. Ensure client budgets are sufficient to cover proposed projects, and are agreed in writing by the client before work starts. Play a key part in the annual budget review, pricing and roll out. Make sure the budget is easy to follow and adjust the budget to minimise push back. Ensure Project Directors are gathering in budget recons in a timely fashion and that they are reviewed in detail. Encourage your team to have good supplier relations to ensure we get the best value for money and quality of service from suppliers (with the right supplier on the right job). Create a budget tool that estimates what time is needed on projects and make sure this is communicated with a wider team. Use data/learnings to inform future budgets / client decisions (ie do we take on X kind of work with X client). Ensure teams know what time they have allocated for each project. Support your Project Director to ensure your clients pay in a timely manner for work done! Managing cashflow on all projects. MARKETING Seek ways to promote the biz, and create networking opportunities. Make sure case studies are written up to sell what we do in a timely fashion. Push for web and creds updates when new projects are complete so we can maximise buzz Any public events are shared ahead of time with new biz team so they can invite any warm leads along and also so they can be shared with any blogs/publications Promote our proposition/talents within the industry and amongst your clients FINANCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES Oversee the budgeting of projects at a leadership level agreeing on profit level to meet business objectives. Signing off major spend on projects or suggesting alternatives to reduce costs Ensuring we have the right POs and contracts signed for each job. Training and distributing financial responsibilities to the SMT team. Making sure financial processes are logged and updated and shared with the wider team regularly and any onboarding docs are changed to reflect any amends. Ensuring the finance team are making the day to day processing of information easy to use and feeding back with any suggestions for improvement to the Managing Director. Monitor team project margins and identify where they can be improved and how this can be actioned. Lead on weekly and monthly financial reporting/updates (inc P&L updates) to give us a clear picture of where we are to inform business decisions. Track monthly team targets and where we line up against them and how we can level up if lagging in any areas. Managing timely invoice sending and chasing payments on a client level. Manage onboarding conversations with new clients. Reconcile personal expenses and commercial card expenses at the end of each month. Identify and solve any problems that may affect profit and liaise with the rest of the Leadership team to resolve issues promptly. Managing the master event budget, with annual updates. Cost control by making sure we are working with best price (and quality) suppliers across the board. SALARY & TIME COMMITMENT This role is predominantly office based (we imagine at least 2/3rds of your time would be in the office) and this is a full time role. Please note we review salary regularly to make sure the team move in line with the business as well as their individual efforts! WORKING WITH US: To enjoy your role and to succeed here, you need to be able to work at a fast pace and love a busy, ever-changing environment. The industry is non-stop and our goals as a company are big – which we love! Change is a certainty – you’ll need to be comfortable and happy to adapt and be agile. We want you to challenge the status quo, innovate and be open to trying new things. We’re always pushing boundaries. We empower our people, giving them freedom and autonomy to learn and grow in their roles. We’re a passionate, agile and creative team. MORE ABOUT YOU: Excellent leadership and interpersonal skills as well as the ability to inspire the whole team to give their best even in challenging times. A self-starting attitude, an open outlook and relentlessly optimistic. A broad understanding of specialist suppliers such as lighting, AV, set build etc so we can suggest the right and unique suppliers at pitch stage. Solid understanding of potential risks, licensing requirements, RAMs and contractual obligations. Bountiful creative ideas and an understanding of how the client’s vision (and ours) might be brought to life – and how we can overcome any time/budget restrictions. Solid awareness of current trends in culture and design. Resilient under pressure and against deadlines and flexible to frequent changes and curveballs. Decent understanding of how all functions (sales, marketing, client, finance, ops etc) can fit together. Always learning – hungry for you and your team to be in a state of constant improvement and levelling up. High level organisational skills for managing projects and resources. Focused on empowering and motivating the team through brilliant leadership skills to make the team run like clockwork. Awareness to pre-empt issues and dedicated to coming up with results focused solutions. Guiding the team towards the vision, ambition, and expectations of the business, empowering the team to create their very best work. Have an interest in sustainability, materiality and look at experience production with a future focused and environmental lens. WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE DONE BEFORE: To be considered for this position we are looking for candidates with 10-15 years min experience working within an event or experiential agency. We are looking for extensive experience in delivering and managing high level creative events, knowledge of the whole event production process inside-out. Previously you would have neutered and grown client accounts, built, led, recruited for a team and now you are looking to build on this in a super-fast pace creative environment. WHY JOIN US? Collaboration – As pretty much all of our projects include site visits, handling of physical items, deliveries and face to face brainstorms, we recommend 2-3 days in the office per week for collaboration, to get the best results. Tuesdays are days we ask people to come in, and we've realised that 2-3 days per week in the office is the average that people come in and that works well. Flexi Working Times– The team can work their 7.5 hours with a start and finish that suits them. This is completely up to the teammate to decide on their own accord, but of course altered working hours must not disrupt the wider team or the paying client. Meeting Free Fridays – This is to give the team time to wrap up their work as well as a good amount of time, uninterrupted, to get stuck into deep work. Training – We are proud to offer training to all teammates including group training days with varying themes and topics, as well as offering teammates further training to upskill for the maximum value of £500 per year. Duvet Days – Our team have 2 duvet days per year. A duvet day can be taken whenever a teammate needs a day off at random and they haven’t already requested annual leave. Maybe they have just woken up and feel like they need to be alone or they are super tired and just want to curl up on the sofa. These days are for the team member. Volunteering Day – We offer teammates up to 2 days per year of volunteering on company time - which is up to the teammate to use how they wish. Holiday – We offer 28 days annual leave per year. With 3 days of this holiday entitlement to cover the period of the Company shutdown between Christmas and New Year. After a teammate has completed two years working at Heaps Stacks, they are entitled to 1 day extra holiday per year for each additional year of service, capped at a maximum of 33 days holiday per year (excluding Bank Holiday and National Holidays). After three years of service with Heaps Stacks, team members are entitled to a one off, £1000 bonus. After five years of service with Heaps Stacks, we offer team members the opportunity to take a one month fully paid sabbatical. Mobile Phone Allowance – Each month we will pay £20 towards the team members mobile phone bill. There's nothing that they need to do; this will be added into their pay each month. Maternity / Paternity - We will pay enhanced maternity/paternity/adoption pay if the team member meets the relevant criteria. Expensed Gallery Trips – We offer each team member £25.00 to expense for a visit to a gallery or exhibition every month. Good Egg – At the end of the month the team votes who has gone above and beyond that month, and whoever receives the most votes is rewarded with a Selfridges voucher. Work Abroad – Up to one week per year to work aboard, as long as it doesn't cause stress to the team! (Full T&Cs to be confirmed if successful). You Move, We move – We want our team to feel settled. So, if they are moving house, they can book one van per year on us! (Full T&Cs to be confirmed if successful). Quarterly Celebration – Every quarter, we will be celebrating our successes together as a team. This might be a team trip to the pub, or an arty or active activity! We have an in-house social committee that is dedicated to ensuring something fun and magical is planned for us all! Bonus & Profit Share – We also offer a range of bonuses to employees including introduction, business performance and new business bonus. Full T&Cs will be given to all successful candidates. H S Library – Buy a book on the gold card (this can be audio or hard copy) for the value of up to £20. If it’s a hard copy, please bring it into the office once finished. We suggest buying 2nd hand (to save the world!). If it’s audio, don’t sign up for a subscription! Cycle to Work – The cycle-to-work scheme allows teammates to obtain commuter bikes and cycling accessories through Heaps Stacks, spreading the cost over 12 months and making savings through a tax break. Health Care – Once the teammate has completed 1 year with us, they can access the healthcare policy provided by Bupa! Eye Test – Get a free annual eye test (up to £25)! Visit any optician and claim the cost back on expenses—glasses not included. RECOMMEND A FRIEND… If this role isn’t quite right for you and you know someone who might be a good fit, all successful introductions that end in employment will benefit from an introduction bonus of £1000 for initial successful placement and £500 when they pass their probation.