Account Director

How You’ll Make an Impact

You'll anchor our building products practice while playing a critical role in the agency's growth strategy. This is not a typical Account Director role – you’re not just managing a client, you're helping build the agency's future.

You'll make an impact by:

Owning a marquee relationship. You'll serve as strategic partner for a keystone building products client with expansion potential. You'll bring the category expertise and strategic partnership they expect, growing the relationship through smart opportunity identification and flawless execution. Your success here is measured not just in client satisfaction, but in profitable growth and strategic impact.

Making our lead generation engine work. You'll manage the operational execution of our new lead gen campaign – microsite, LinkedIn outbound, email nurture, CRM management – ensuring it runs smoothly, performs efficiently, and generates quality pipeline. You're not personally responsible for generating leads, but you are accountable for making sure the campaign is optimized, tracked, and producing results. You'll work closely with our intelligence, strategy, and creative teams to refine targeting, improve conversion, and turn marketing activity into business outcomes.

Helping us close and onboard new business. You'll participate in closing conversations for qualified opportunities, bringing building products credibility and strategic thinking to pitch situations. More importantly, you'll own the onboarding experience for new clients during their critical first 150 days – serving as their primary contact, building trust, coordinating delivery, and converting projects into long-term partnerships. Your ability to make new clients feel confident, supported, and excited about working with us will directly impact client trust and growth.

Elevating how we operate. You'll help us build better client service practices, stronger financial discipline, and more strategic account management. You'll bring experience we don't have, challenge us to raise the bar, and model what excellent client leadership looks like – not by telling us what to do, but by showing us through your work.

Impact here requires both autonomy and informed perspective, willingness to build rather than inherit perfect systems, and the ability to balance deep client partnership with strategic growth responsibilities. You'll thrive if you're entrepreneurial, proactive, and energized by opportunity rather than overwhelmed by it.

What You’ll Do

Client Partnership & Strategic Account Leadership (approx. 50% of role)

• Serve as primary strategic partner for our client's building products business, owning the complete relationship from strategy through execution and P&L performance
• Develop deep fluency in client's business model, competitive landscape, and category dynamics, bringing informed perspective that shapes their thinking, not just responds to it
• Navigate multi-stakeholder environments with political sophistication, building credibility across brand marketing, product management, sales, and procurement
• Lead integrated marketing campaign development from strategic brief through execution, ensuring work is strategically sound, creatively strong, and operationally deliverable
• Own client profitability: manage to gross margin and labor ratios through disciplined scoping, proactive scope management, and strategic commercial decisions
• Identify and develop organic growth opportunities within the relationship, expanding scope in ways that create mutual value and strengthen profitability
• Build a team of 1-2 account team members (added as needed), providing coaching and development that strengthens their capabilities

Building Campaign Lead Generation Campaign Management (approx. 20% of role)

• Manage operational execution of agency's lead generation engine: microsite updates, LinkedIn outbound, email nurture sequences, contact database management
• Partner with intelligence/analytics team to monitor campaign performance, optimize conversion metrics, and refine targeting based on results
• Coordinate with creative and content teams to develop compelling entry-point offers and campaign assets
• Track and report lead generation KPIs: meetings booked, qualified opportunities created, cost per lead, conversion rates by channel
• Maintain CRM hygiene and lead lifecycle management to ensure quality pipeline development
• Identify opportunities to improve campaign effectiveness through testing, refinement, and strategic adjustments

New Business Closing & Conversion (approx. 15% of role)

• Participate in closing conversations for qualified opportunities generated through lead gen or other sources
• Lead discovery calls and needs assessment with prospective clients, positioning agency expertise and approach
• Collaborate with CEO and others on pitch strategy, proposal development, and capability presentations
• Bring building products expertise to new business conversations, establishing immediate credibility
• Develop scopes of work and pricing for new opportunities that balance client value with agency profitability

New Client Onboarding & Success (approx. 15% of role)

• Own onboarding experience for new clients (both building products and non-building products clients) during first 150 days, ensuring seamless transition from sales to delivery
• Serve as primary "concierge" contact for new clients, proactively managing communication and addressing questions
• Coordinate cross-functional onboarding: brief development, team introductions, process orientation, communication rhythms
• Establish strong working relationships that build confidence and trust during critical early period
• Monitor new client satisfaction and project performance, identifying and addressing issues before they escalate
• Identify expansion opportunities within new relationships, transitioning clients from project-based to ongoing partnership
• Document and refine onboarding best practices to create repeatable, scalable client success

What You'll Bring

Required experience and expertise:

• 7-10 years in agency account management with demonstrated progression to senior account leadership
• 2-3+ years working with building products, construction materials, or architectural products clients – hands-on experience developing strategy, managing campaigns, and navigating category-specific challenges
• Practical understanding of building products/materials marketing: specification processes, trade vs. DIY dynamics, dealer/distributor relationships, technical product marketing, long consideration cycles
• Category fluency sufficient to establish credibility with client stakeholders, ask informed questions, and contribute to strategic discussions (not just take orders)
• Experience working with well-known brands or sophisticated marketing operations - you understand what rigor and accountability look like
• Track record of growing client relationships through strategic identification of opportunities, not just reactive service
• Understanding of agency economics: profitability drivers, margin management, scope discipline, how to balance client value with agency health
• New business experience: proven ability to participate in or lead business development, close opportunities, and onboard clients successfully
• Campaign management experience: comfort managing marketing campaigns, tracking performance, optimizing based on results
• Strong project management capabilities - you juggle multiple priorities without dropping balls

Strategic and operational capabilities:

• Strong strategic thinking – you develop insight-driven strategies and translate them into clear creative briefs
• Exceptional communication and presentation skills – you sell ideas internally and externally with confidence
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail – you manage complex work streams, track metrics, maintain systems
• Proactive problem-solver who identifies issues early and works collaboratively to resolve them
• Comfortable with ambiguity and building processes – you don't need perfect systems, you help create them
• Entrepreneurial mindset – you see opportunity, take initiative, don't wait to be told what to do

Leadership style and cultural fit:

• Approaching client relationships as expert partnership, not vendor servitude – you lead from expertise, offer informed points of view, push back respectfully when it serves the work
• Collaborative and team-oriented – you elevate others' contributions and build relationships that enable great work
• High integrity – you deliver on commitments, own mistakes, don't deflect blame when things go sideways
• Low drama, high accountability – you focus on solutions and results, not problems and excuses
• Genuine passion for advertising and building products – you care about doing work that matters

Nice to have:

• B2B marketing experience, particularly technical or professional audience marketing
• Direct experience managing lead generation campaigns or marketing automation platforms
• Experience with CRM systems (HubSpot, Salesforce, etc.)
• Prior experience at well-regarded agency (50+ people) with established processes

Reports To: Chief Executive Officer