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VP (Associate Director) – Consumer PR

London, England, United Kingdom

Who is Weber Shandwick?  
 
At The Weber Shandwick Collective, you are welcomed, valued and empowered to grow and we believe that opportunity grows in a collective. 

We create cultural value and help brands navigate the ever-changing age of earned: an age where consumers actively say no to advertising; an age where everyone is an influencer that can make or break your brand; an age where content can be turned into commercial opportunity. Our talented team builds brands by finding connection points in the real world. We energise the right mix of talent, using the right platforms and latest technology to choreograph stories that make a real and meaningful impact for some of the world’s leading brands and businesses. 

We earn affection, attention, affinity and purchase by delivering value to people around the world, with deep specialisms across food & drink, travel & tourism, consumer tech, consumer health, automotive, sports sponsorship, entertainment & lifestyle and energy. We are known for: 

 

• Developing data driven insights and strategies to drive measurable impact   

• Creating impactful campaigns that tap into culture   

• Creating channel and platform agnostic campaigns that grow organically  

• Delivering integrated campaigns that are earned-first but deliver for paid and owned   

 
What's happening? 

We are looking to appoint an experienced Vice President (Associate Director level) to join the leadership team within our Consumer practice. This is a fantastic opportunity to join a successful team and take the next step up in your career at an award-winning global agency. 

To be successful in this role you will be highly organised and an excellent communicator. You will have a natural motivation to deliver award-winning creative work that is original, thought-provoking and conversation starting. Alongside this, your strong leadership skills will help to develop talent within the team, delivering quality work that sets industry benchmarks. In this role, you must be able to demonstrate how you create exciting, ground-breaking consumer PR and social ideas to deliver outstanding results. 

As a Vice President, you will have a proven track record of overall responsibility for managing a large team and budget, the ability to be one step ahead, to plan and anticipate, as well as having a great eye for detail. A key requirement for this role will be your ability to build strong client relationships and drive new business. You will be responsible for working closely with clients and account teams to lead strategic planning and overseeing innovative communication campaigns.  

The successful candidate will demonstrate the following key attributes: 
 
CLIENT AND WORK 

• Serve as key integrated team member on client and inter-agency teams
   
• Counsel and interact effectively with senior management at client organizations 

• Craft and tell compelling stories 

• Lead story mining sessions with subject matter experts and client executives develop news-making story angles that drive coverage results 

• Build and maintain excellent relationships with national and regional technology reporters 

• Counsel junior members of the team to effectively work with the media 

• Allocate agency resources in accordance with our client's budget 

• Bring a client-focused attitude that results in work being performed to the highest quality standards 

LEADERSHIP AND TALENT DEVELOPMENT 

• Mentor, coach and develop direct reports to deliver high performance while supporting personal and professional development goals 

• Actively participate in the hiring and onboarding of talent; Support and develop processes to enhance inclusive hiring practices for team 

• Establish interpersonal relationships within and outside of department, with focus on building inclusive culture and mentoring colleagues outside of personal relationships 

• Promote the development and advancement of underrepresented groups in team through professional development trainings 

• Participate in trainings build own cultural competency and ability to lead, coach and develop diverse teams 

• Actively participate in office or agency DEI initiatives to attract and retain diverse talent 

GROWTH AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT 

• Identify new areas of growth with existing clients and introduce specialists to expand assignments; Actively participate in new business pitches 

BUSINESS ACUMEN 

• Responsible for executional leadership of multiple client programs and budgets 

• Manage ongoing team resourcing/staffing to ensure successful delivery of work product 

• Collaborate with project management to support development of staff plans and new scopes of work and updates on scope management 

• Develop and advance industry/sector leadership 

• Work with legal on development of client contracts 

• Consistently partner with finance team on all client business matters (contracts, SOW, out of scope, overservice, client profitability, etc) 

 

Minimum Criteria: 

To be considered for this role, you must have an established track record of working at an equivalent level on consumer campaigns in an agency environment.  

 
Ideal Experience Required: 

Ideally you will possess many of the above skills and attributes in addition to:

• Extensive Consumer PR experience to at least SAD/Associate Director level, gained within an agency 

• Strong senior client counsel / internal stakeholder counsel experience, strategic communications and business development experience  

• Proven writing experience that is adaptable across channels  

• Strategic, multichannel experience – ability to understand audiences and plan campaigns  

• International experience is highly desirable  

• Ability to manage a team – strong leadership and management skills are essential  

• Crisis communications/issues management experience 

• Passionate about storytelling and developing original and compelling content for clients  

• Strong interest and POV on the changing landscape of PR and how people learn about and engage with brands  

Join us and help make an impact.  
 
Together, we'll set the bar, cheer each other on and multiply your potential. 

  

At Weber Shandwick we are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer. We are committed to equality of opportunity for all staff and applications from individuals are encouraged regardless of age, disability, sex, gender reassignment, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief and marriage and civil partnerships.  

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