Managing Consultant, Account Director (Senior Level)

Account Directors at ERM Shelton are a hybrid – part business management consultant, part communications director – advising clients in real time about how to leverage sustainability as a business strategy and directing creative and digital team members to craft compelling stories.

The Managing Consultant, Account Director takes the lead in determining the problems clients need to solve and the opportunities they can leverage, and partners with internal resources in creating and proposing solutions. This requires maintaining deep, consultative relationships with senior-level client and agency contacts; maintaining a deep understanding of the client’s business, market situation, products and competitive set as well as an understanding of our latest market insights and the marketing industry; and becoming both a trusted advisor to clients and to the broader project and account teams. It also requires an ability to ask insightful questions, connect disparate dots, apply research insights and marketing industry knowledge, and think on your feet. This role is about creating a vision for clients AND the hands-on creation of solutions for clients – and about driving revenue for the firm in the process. Additionally, this role oversees client projects, ensuring deliverables are completed in an efficient manner – on time and on budget. And this role involves leading one or more large accounts and/or several small-to-large accounts.

Accountabilities:

Create and manage strategy for assigned accounts, generate results that meet client expectations/achieve stated goals, grow AGI of client base year-over-year.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Client Experience

• Leads senior-level relationships with clients and key ERM Shelton players. Establishes trusted advisor relationships in which clients and colleagues seek out advice and counsel and in which you identify and offer up opportunities and ideas.
• Is a strategic partner to assigned clients by demonstrating a deep understanding of their market and business sectors and their specific challenges and opportunities.
• Provides thought leadership, insights, and perspectives that support client initiatives and align services and solutions with client needs.
• Is a true marketing and business consultant, able to recommend strategic ideas that connect to a client’s business strategy and position the client for market success; able to write and articulate marketing communications plans that allow a client to fully leverage their sustainability commitments and actions to build their brand and/or sell products.
• Maintains existing business relationship with assigned clients by staying closely connected to internal project teams, monitoring progress of ongoing client projects, as needed, and helping to address and resolve promptly, accurately, effectively, and to the client’s satisfaction, any issues or problems that may arise.
• Presents ideas and recommendations effectively, in an engaging, confidence-building manner – both in prepared presentations and extemporaneously in client meetings.
• Identifies new challenges and opportunities for clients and helps to sell those through.

Operational Excellence

• Defining the ambiguous for clients and internal teams and helping to resolve any conflicts both internally and externally.
• Regularly analyzes the profitability and growth of assigned client accounts through KPIs and other metrics; utilizes data in decision-making to maintain or improve account portfolio performance.
• Creates strong and effective internal partnerships with Research and Insights, Creative, Digital, and Client Management teams; collaborates across the business to ensure client needs are met and projects stay within scope, budget, timeline, quality, and other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Participates in Quarterly Sr. Director agency meetings as a senior leader within the agency.

Approach

• Maintains and utilizes a long-term, holistic view of the business.
• Takes ownership of personal actions and outcomes and encourages and empowers others to do the same.
• Focuses own and the team’s efforts on achieving SMART objectives aligned to the Company’s Strategic Imperatives; acknowledges employees’ efforts and rewards results.
• Thinks strategically as well as tactically and takes a “big picture" perspective of the company.
• Sets high and clearly defined standards for direct reports; provides current, objective, and complete positive and constructive feedback and addresses performance concerns directly, fairly, and in a timely manner.
• Serves as a coach and mentor; provides coaching and feedback on specific skill development and encourages employees to pursue upward and lateral growth opportunities to enhance expertise and drive career development.
• Provides specific, objective feedback to direct reports through written performance reviews as part of the Performance Management program.
• Creates strong and effective internal partnerships and collaborates across the Company; listens and values the opinions of others.
• Is an effective team member; supports the team by pitching in at any level and effectively working across the organization to meet the needs of the business.

Growth

• Proactively seeks to increase revenue by translating assigned client's challenges into opportunities to sell additional products and services across the ERM Shelton portfolio and drive revenue growth.
• Develops and executes targeted “white space” opportunities for greater penetration of the client’s marketing spend through selling adjacent services or expanding into new client product lines.
• Leads the development and delivery of innovative proposals.
• Ensures client retention is maximized by facilitating the delivery of custom-tailored solutions to meet clients’ objectives and expectations.
• All other duties assigned by supervisor or otherwise directed by the Company.

Knowledge and Skill:

• Requires a 4-year degree (e.g., Bachelor of Arts) or equivalent degree within appropriate discipline such as Business, Marketing, or Communications. Or equivalent experience. 
• 4+ years (6+ years preferred) of experience managing clients.
• Previous experience supervising others.
• Proven experience successfully managing and advising clients in a Creative, Public Relations, or Consulting firm.
• Proven experience meeting or exceeding sales targets with new and existing clients.
• Proven experience leading relationships and helping clients develop and deploy marketing communications within one or more industries.

Strong strategic, big-picture thinking:

• See patterns indicating issues to solve and future scenarios/opportunities and be able to articulate them and plan to solve or leverage them.

Excellent attention to detail:

• Be able to immediately see the path for implementing bigger picture ideas
• See problems coming, think ahead, ask questions, put action plans in place quickly.
• Display a high degree of personal accountability for accuracy and timeliness.
• Maintain excellent computer skills; quickly master any new software.

Self-assurance without arrogance or defensiveness:

Who We Are: 

As the largest global pure play sustainability consultancy, we partner with the world’s leading organizations, creating innovative solutions to sustainability challenges and unlocking commercial opportunities that meet the needs of today while preserving opportunity for future generations. 

At ERM we know that creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive work environment is an essential part of making our company a great place to build a career. We also see our diversity as a strength that helps us create better solutions for our clients. Our diverse team of world-class experts supports clients across the breadth of their organizations to operationalize sustainability, underpinned by our deep technical expertise in addressing their environmental, health, safety, risk and social issues. We call this capability our “boots to boardroom” approach for its comprehensive service model that allows ERM to develop strategic and technical solutions that advance objectives on the ground or at the executive level. 

Please submit your resume and brief cover letter.  

ERM does not accept recruiting agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias, ERM employees or any other company location. ERM is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes. 

ERM is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  

Thank you for your interest in ERM! 

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