We are looking for A Client Service Director (CSD) to bring ideas and smart solutions to clients, helping them transform their business. Understanding Creative Culture’s full breadth of services and working closely with our new business team, you are a hunter and team builder who drives existing client business, as well as grows Creative Culture’s opportunities and revenue.
You add value by building and growing client relationships and partnering with confidence across our existing client network and able to cross-sell within our extensive end-to-end cross-cultural solutions. You are valued by our most senior clients for your partnership and strategic guidance while managing team performance and profitability. An exceptional leader of clients, complex teams and individuals, you personify Creative Culture’s values, are passionate about the business and inspire others to continually push to be better.
You will be reporting directly to the Managing Director and CEO.
Key Focus Areas
● Product and service excellence (the client experience)
● Client satisfaction
● Client income & profitability
● Client team management
● 1 year perspective
● Real time performance & team optimisation
● Management of Senior/C-suite client relationships
● Client/portfolio diagnostics to inform development of client growth areas
About You
● Positive, a motivator, a people person (but ability to challenge)
● Intuitive collaborator
● Critical, diverse thinker
● An influencer and connector of client dots
● Simplifier
● Adaptable self-starter
● Enterprising, solutions focused
● A challenger
● Hunter gatherer, able to lead client pitches as required
● Ability to build and gain trust quickly
● Strong communicator and presenter (written & verbal e.g., RFI’s/proposals/decks)
● Not shying away from the tough conversations, internally or with clients/partners
● Strong desire to take people on a journey
The role will focus on four success areas:
Team leadership
● Inspiring and ambitious leadership; sets the team agenda and standards for exceptional client delivery (currently a team of 8-10 with ambitions to grow)
● Defines priorities; ensures internal alignment against the client development plan and the core teams competencies/capabilities to deliver it
● Team development; creates an environment where future leaders flourish, identifying opportunities for upskilling through training or integration of passion points into their day-to-day role if relevant (and commercially convertible)
● Builds momentum; gains commitment to client projects and future ambitions from all key stakeholders in the business
● A winning culture; creates an environment for the account management and project management team to thrive
● Sets expectations; everyone in the team understands their role within the team and the expectations of them, internally and externally
● Paints the picture; able to demonstrate what great looks and feels like for clients
● Team optimisation; ensures the account management team are working efficiently and effectively with project managers and any subject matter experts
● Quality control; challenges mediocrity and intervenes to ensure first-class client deliverables
● Removes obstacles; eliminates internal process or ways of working that negatively impact the client experience, quality of output or timely response to client needs
● Manages talent; in or out of the team, to ensure its constantly valued by clients
Client leadership
● Gold standard; adherence to best-in-class client governance and anticipates any emerging client issues with proactive and appropriate resolutions
● A strategic partner to clients; builds confidence through collaboration and curiosity in the business capabilities
● Finger on the client pulse; understands the medium to long-term client vision/objectives to enable proactive recommendations
● A positive challenger; persuades the client and the business to stretch thinking and builds the case for change by instilling confidence in taking more informed risks
● Creative Culture mascot; confident in presenting company credentials & capabilities
Commercial leadership
● Responsive; reacts immediately to any existing client growth opportunity
● Commercially savvy; understands and able to input into the business/individual client P&L and drive quarterly income forecasting
● Margin hunter; apply diagnostic tools to understand individual client profitability and set margin/profitability targets by client
● A nose for business; can translate client challenges/opportunities into incremental revenue opportunities
● Intimate with the numbers; aware and close to monthly income forecasts, margin expectations and chargeability performance
● Value ambassador; ensures clients (especially procurement teams) understand and recognise the commercial value of the Creative Culture relationship
● Going for growth; set specific incremental commercial growth objectives to motivate the team (as a collective target)
Behavioural leadership
● A living embodiment of the Creative Culture values
● Actively leading ways of working and processes to improve client experience
● Leads the conversation, proactive, autonomous (and ask for forgiveness later)
● Lead by example (walk the walk)
● Can-do mindset; critical and diverse thinking around opportunities
● Challenge mediocrity, wherever/whoever it comes from
● Transparent, straightforward but respectful and diplomatic
If the opportunity sounds interesting to you, please apply with your updated CV and a cover letter by connecting with Jonathan on
[email protected] with your expected salary and availability. Applications without a cover letter may not be considered.
Creative Culture is the number 1 expert in culture-centricity. Our aim is to open a window into a world of new possibilities for our clients and partners. We help brands and creative agencies make sense of cultural differences and convert them into opportunity and competitive advantage. In other words, we are a key partner in enabling them to roll out effective strategies, messages and campaigns across international markets and cultures. To do so, we benefit from Culture Connexion, our unique global network of over 3,000 strategic, cultural, content and subject-matter experts, our connexions, which we manage centrally from our London office.
Diversity is what makes humanity and its cultures so fascinating. We fully embrace the need to include the widest diversity of experience, opinions, aspirations and values from our team, clients and partners in order to create a fully Salary based on experience + commission structure inclusive and collaborative environment. Drawing on this, as part of our cross-cultural offering, we provide clients with customised programmes to support inclusivity and belonging across their organisation in a global and cross-cultural context whether they are addressing internal and external stakeholders.
You can browse some of the incredible testimonials from our recent employees and interns about their time with us by viewing either our Glassdoor or our Careers page.
For more information visit www.creativecultureint.com.