PR Deputy Account Director

ABOUT HALPERN

If you want to future proof your career in PR, Comms and Influencer Marketing then Halpern is the agency for you. We are an entrepreneurial, mid-size agency with a tenacious start-up approach, which is coupled with having the stability of being minority owned by WPP, the worlds largest network of global advertisers. We are also partners in T&Pm – a global group of ambitious agencies designed to help comms move at the speed of life. From creative, to strategy, experiential, production, social and paid media, joining the Halpern team will give you unrivalled access to our partner agencies and unlimited learning opportunities across the full marketing mix.

But that’s not all. Our enviable client portfolio spans global innovators, culturally relevant trendsetters and purpose-led brands which demand change and action. We are proud to be partners with Google, Co-op and Five Guys to name just a few.

And it doesn’t end there. We know now more than ever the importance of looking after our people and building an agency which the team are proud of and enjoy. Our ever-expanding employee benefits package includes multiple work/life balance perks, private medical care and a generous family policy care package too. We also have an in-house Learning & Development Coach on permanent staff who oversees our extensive bespoke staff training plan. Covering all levels from entry level practitioner skills to advanced senior team members, our curriculum covers resilience, building high performance teams, writing skills, presentation workshops, time management, creativity, line management and more.

We are committed to promoting diversity, equity and inclusion through our recruitment process and welcome applicants of all backgrounds. We have set up a number of DE&I initiatives across the network over the last decade which include:

• Unite! – aiming to improve the representation and experience of LGBTQ+ people across our business and WPP’s global network, build better futures for our people and our clients and take responsibility for our industry and its influence
• #AdlandCommits – we have committed to promoting true racial equality across our business, signing up to the #AdlandCommits pledge and building these commitments into our diversity, equality and inclusion strategy; as well as into our business planning and performance metrics
• The Collective – promoting smart ways of working that enable everyone to be successful whoever they are and wherever they’re from. The Collective currently represents the following pillars: ethnic diversity, gender, LGBTQ+ and neurodiversity
• Girls On Tour – a team of our creatives who tour universities and schools across the UK to inspire young creatives to start a career in advertising - and promote access to the industry to young female creative talent
• Ambitious About Autism – we’ve partnered with Ambitious About Autism for their intern programme, diversifying our intake of employees and creating an inclusive environment for neurodiverse people. Alongside this, we also have a number of Neurodiversity champions, who have completed neurodiversity training and work with our recruitment and management teams to improve hiring and development processes

ABOUT THE ROLE

RESPONSIBILITIES

Key Personal Attributes:

• Strong problem-solving skills
• Commercial awareness
• The ability to inspire and lead a team
• Strong interpersonal and networking skills
• Excellent listening skills and organisational skills
• Ambition
• Creativity
• A keen interest in current affairs and able to take an educated point of view on news stories that relevant to your clients
• A positive and ‘can-do’ attitude

Client Services:

• Produce optimal client plans by analysis and solid understanding of your client’s business, by allocating resources appropriately and by detecting any problems early and working to resolve them
• Provide regular, accurate and concise progress reports back to your client ensuring that we are delivering on all KPIs, consistently working in a reactive and proactive way, achieving a high standard of results, whilst adhering to deadlines and budgets.
• Monitor all targets for your accounts and flag any concerns to your director in an appropriate and timely way, as well as playing a key part in resolving any such problems
• Ensure you are the senior contact for your client to monitor satisfaction and continuously offer up professional consultative advice and realistically manage expectations of results within budget and time constraints
• Provide your client with total accessibility to you personally and to appropriate resources at your command
• Deliver consistently high levels of client satisfaction by great responsiveness to client requests and timely, valued advice on programme concept and execution
• Generate valuable and practical ideas for your clients through leadership of creative brainstorms
• Oversee all client activity to ensure all deadlines and expectations are met, that all plans and reports are done in an accurate and timely manner and that all written copy is consistently high quality as a result of practice, guidance and excellent editing

Team Management:

• Oversee general day-to-day management of your account teams making sure they are delivering all results on time and within budget
• Use project management skills to allocate tasks, coordinate your team, manage budgets, anticipate problems, develop workable solutions and ultimately meet your goals
• Manage account workflows effectively with clear communication of set performance goals, adequate explanation of tasks, regular updates and realistic expectations to ensure that your everyone in your team is happy and functioning in the most productive way possible
• Ensure that each member of your team is receiving adequate coaching, training, feedback and opportunity – highlight and areas of concern to your director
• Identify high talent staff in your team and personally take it upon yourself to train them ready for promotion
• Be aware of all your teams personal career goals and objectives and work with them to achieve them
• If appropriate, promptly escalate any performance issues to a member of the senior team in a professional way and take advice from your director to rectify any client issues
• In case of absenteeism, ensure that your junior team’s responsibilities have been accomplished

Financial Results:

• Work closely with your director to make a smart plan of action to exceed your new business and client incremental goal
• Utilise current contacts as well as seek out new business leads and build a pipeline of potential new business connections with the view to convert leads into wins – update the tracker on a weekly basis
• Work closely with your director and significantly contribute to a new business planning, deck writing and pitching
• Proactively highlight areas for potential incremental growth within your clients and work with your director to craft detailed and targeted ideas to present to the client
• Create detailed and realistic client account budgets (annual and project) and accurately forecast client revenue stream for specific projects
• Advise and guide your junior team on choice of suppliers and invoicing
• First approval of invoices before passing to your director and first update of billing schedule
• Ensure that budgets are monitored closely, and all work comes in on or under budget, utilising team time and resources in the most effective way to maximise profitability

Leadership Development:

• Make high quality recommendations regarding hiring, promotions and account assignments as a result of your observations
• Plan your teams’ hours and capacity alongside your director to effectively utilise resources to hit KPIs and deliver on new biz requirements
• Ensure that your team are fully aware of client account strategy and performance against targets
• Motivate all team members through constructive feedback, appropriate praise and recognition
• Monitor team relationships and interactions, flagging any concerns to the senior team in a professional and timely manner, to maintain a positive team work environment

Media Results:

• Ensure you have solid media and influencer contacts and a clear understanding of every title’s requirements and continue to generate and confirm substantial feature placement
• Develop creative features plans for your clients and deliver to meet expectations
• Create sound strategies and positively drive your team to ensure that all KPIs are met or exceeded and plan for the upcoming year
• Monitor and track all media results accurately with your team and deliver comprehensive reports to your director and clients with analysis of coverage
• Share your media knowledge and expertise with your wider team, identifying areas for development and guiding the direction of your teams media approaches.

Self-Development:

• Offer relevant, strategic and creative ideas and valuable insight to the wider agency to increase your presence
• Proactively widen your business awareness and commerciality
• Manage your time, multitask and delegate to increase your personal effectiveness and reduce pressure of multiple deadlines
• Manage your team to increase their productivity and successfulness.
• Continuously take on new projects in order to develop your knowledge presence within the agency and wider & partnership