Senior Account Manager
Are you looking to join a creative agency that understands the global B2B landscape in ways that other agencies don’t—one that’s driven by a passion to create powerful work that engages audiences and creates enduring value for its clients?
If so, read on.
McMillan’s philosophy of client service begins with us, as a team, being advocates for the quality of work that the agency produces—and advocates for the requirements for great work (e.g., clear objectives, appropriate resources, adequate time, proven processes). It’s that great work that gives our clients the greatest value.
At McMillan, no one is more in tune with our clients than a senior account manager. (A client can sneeze in San Diego and, way over here in Ottawa, the senior account manager will whisper a concerned “Gesundheit.” That’s how it works. Intuition makes the senior account manager a master of cozy client relationships and successful project execution.)
When not reading minds or decoding the complex language of digital marketing and business requirements, your focus will be on providing strategic recommendations and managing agency resources to ensure that client marketing needs are met.
You’ll work closely with strategists and creative teams to ensure that work produced by the agency is of the highest quality. As a champion and mediator, you’ll effortlessly take the points of view of clients and our internal teams and effectively communicate those perspectives. Your goal is to promote a collaborative approach to problem-solving that can lead to award-winning results.
In your role, you’ll report (and ride sidecar) to an account director within our client services team. You’ll also work alongside others in your department and with individuals in our senior management, strategy, creative, production, finance, and studio management teams, as you help manage creative and digital project workflows from kickoff to final billing.
Your responsibilities
The work you’ll do reflects a blend of functional and interpersonal responsibilities. More specifically, you will be expected to:
- Nurture and maintain relationships with key client stakeholders
- Collaborate with clients to provide business solutions and smart, strategic thinking
- Set project quality and performance standards, and assess and manage risk within and across multiple projects and disciplines
- Monitor work in progress and be accountable for alerting internal departments and clients about changes that could affect the cost, quality, or time of projects
- Proactively identify opportunities for client growth and engagement
In all areas, you’ll need to be a patient listener and confident communicator with a firm grasp of established goals and metrics for shared success.
You are also expected to be digital native (or to be able to pass as one), with an understanding of how to deliver innovative digital solutions as part of complex, integrated communications solutions.
Your success
It starts, of course, by carrying out your responsibilities in a way that adds value. You take client and account management seriously (yourself less so), and you know how to keep clients and internal teams on track and in-scope. And you are comfortable with change—except undocumented scope change—and taking advantage of the opportunities it affords.
But there’s something else. Win or lose, we do it as a team. At the same time, all employees at McMillan are expected to strive towards being recognized as sought-after, trusted advisors by clients and colleagues alike. That recognition is earned by displaying:
- Curiosity – You show a genuine interest in clients and coworkers and ask tough questions (when appropriate) to inform, explore, and encourage fresh perspectives and solutions. At the same time, you seek to continuously widen and improve your own knowledge and skills, while also expanding your competency in other disciplines within the agency, so that you can generate creative and strategic ideas that are both informed and unexpected.
- Expertise – You combine expert proficiency in your role with industry-specific awareness. You exude confidence, yet know when receiving constructive feedback is important. In fact, a critical part of the McMillan culture embraces both giving and receiving feedback in the moment, to make all of us better people and turn good work into something that’s great.
- Service – You communicate clearly, stay calm under pressure, anticipate the needs of others, respond promptly to requests, show a sincere desire to build relationships, and prove yourself to be a reliable, go-to player on the McMillan team.
You bring
- Five or more years of experience with a digital or interactive agency; similar experience leading digital projects for an integrated marketing/advertising firm or organization will be considered (in other words, you need to show us what you’ve done to prove that you can lead digital—in addition to print-based—projects, and that you understand technical website structures (including UX, IA, navigation, and content), effective lead-generation initiatives, and email marketing campaigns to positively affect business outcomes
- Experience with brand and/or go-to-market campaign development and execution processes
- Strong people management and negotiation skills and a demonstrated ability to prioritize work and resources across projects, based on client priorities, while considering both short- and long-term needs
- Sufficient depth of knowledge in project management and development models (waterfall, iterative, and agile) to be able to educate clients and oversee the delivery of projects using these approaches
- Familiarity with digital marketing tools used for research, content development, tracking, and reporting
Experience working with global B2B clients will be considered an asset.
You should expect
Travel and overtime may be required.
Think you have what it takes? Then we want to hear from you. Just fill out the application below, and if you’ve got what we’re looking for, we’ll be in touch.