Senior Vice President, Influencer & Creator Strategy

Influship’s take

5WPR’s SVP role offers responsibility for building the influencer and creator practice itself: its strategy, client growth, team and commercial performance. It should interest an agency leader who enjoys developing services and winning business as much as directing campaigns. The remit spans creator partnerships, celebrity deals and social commerce, giving someone with experience leading teams and growing a client portfolio a broad brief to apply that experience to.

About the role

We are seeking a Senior Vice President, Influencer & Creator Strategy to lead and scale 5W's influencer and creator practice across the agency.

This role is ideal for a seasoned influencer marketing executive with a proven track record of building award-winning creator programs for global brands, leading multi-million-dollar account portfolios, and driving meaningful agency growth. The SVP will serve as the senior-most influencer and creator strategist on assigned business, a trusted advisor to C-suite and executive clients, and a visible leader in shaping the future of the agency's influencer and creator capabilities.

The SVP will own the vision, growth, and performance of the influencer and creator practice. This includes setting strategic direction, driving new business and organic revenue growth, building and developing high-performing teams, and ensuring the agency's work consistently sets the standard for creativity, cultural relevance, and measurable business impact.

Here's what you'll be doing:

• Define and drive the strategic vision, positioning, and growth roadmap for the agency's influencer and creator practice
• Establish and evolve agency-wide frameworks, playbooks, measurement standards, and best practices that elevate the quality and consistency of influencer work across all accounts
• Serve as the agency's foremost expert on the creator economy, providing thought leadership internally and externally on emerging platforms, partnership models, creator compensation trends, and cultural shifts
• Champion innovation across the practice, including emerging areas such as AI search visibility, LLM optimization, social commerce, affiliate models, and creator-led brand building, and translate these into new client offerings
• Represent the agency externally through industry panels, awards juries, press commentary, bylined content, and conference speaking opportunities
• Partner with executive agency leadership on cross-practice integration, ensuring influencer and creator strategy is embedded across PR, social, paid media, experiential, and creative offerings

Executive Client Counsel & Strategic Leadership

• Serve as senior strategic counsel to C-suite and executive-level clients across a portfolio of Fortune 500 and high-growth consumer brands
• Lead the development of large-scale, integrated influencer and creator programs spanning earned and paid creator partnerships, celebrity and talent deals, ambassador programs, always-on creator communities, and tentpole cultural moments and launch events
• Guide high-stakes talent strategy and negotiation, including celebrity partnerships, long-term ambassadorships, and complex multi-party deals involving talent agencies, media organizations, and rights holders
• Translate brand objectives, audience insights, and cultural trends into breakthrough strategies that deliver measurable business outcomes across awareness, engagement, search lift, follower growth, sales, and earned media value
• Elevate measurement and insights as a strategic differentiator, ensuring programs are built around clear KPIs and that performance narratives strengthen client relationships and inform future investment
• Serve as the senior escalation point for assigned accounts, ensuring client satisfaction, retention, and long-term partnership health

New Business & Growth

• Own revenue growth targets for the influencer and creator practice, including new business wins and organic growth across existing accounts
• Lead influencer and creator strategy for new business pitches, shaping the strategic narrative, developing creator recommendations, and presenting as a senior voice in the room
• Identify and pursue organic growth opportunities across the agency's existing client roster, partnering with PR and digital account leads to expand influencer scopes and introduce new capabilities
• Develop compelling, differentiated offerings and go-to-market materials that position the agency competitively in the influencer and creator space
• Build and maintain a strong external network of brand-side marketers, talent agencies, platforms, and creator partners that generates referrals and business opportunities
• Manage practice-level financial health, including portfolio oversight of multi-million-dollar budgets, SOW development, staffing plans, profitability, and forecasting
• Build, lead, and inspire a high-performing team of influencer and creator specialists across all levels, from coordinators through VPs
• Set clear performance expectations, provide ongoing coaching and mentorship, and create development paths that grow the next generation of agency leaders
• Oversee staffing, resourcing, and utilization across the practice, ensuring teams are structured for both client excellence and profitability
• Foster a collaborative, entrepreneurial, and solutions-oriented culture that attracts and retains top talent
• Serve as a senior resource and educator for the broader agency, upskilling PR and digital teams on influencer strategy, creator trends, and integrated program design

Operational & Delivery Excellence

• Maintain ultimate accountability for the quality, strategic rigor, and timely delivery of influencer and creator work across the portfolio
• Ensure consistent adoption of agency tools, processes, contracting standards, and measurement approaches across all accounts
• Oversee risk management across creator partnerships, including vetting standards, FTC compliance, contract terms, and brand safety protocols
• Anticipate client, program, and team challenges before they escalate, and implement solutions that protect both the work and the relationship

Here's what you have:

• 12+ years of experience in influencer marketing, creator strategy, social media, and integrated communications, with deep hands-on and leadership experience building influencer programs for global consumer and technology brands
• Agency experience required, with a track record of leading large, complex account portfolios across multiple clients, teams, and priorities, ideally with oversight of $10M+ in annual revenue
• Demonstrated success serving as executive strategic lead and senior counsel to C-suite clients at Fortune 500 and category-leading brands
• Proven ability to drive agency growth, including winning new business, expanding existing client relationships, and developing new revenue-generating offerings
• Extensive experience across the full spectrum of creator partnerships, including earned and paid influencer programs, celebrity and talent negotiations, brand ambassadorships, micro-creator and UGC ecosystems, affiliate and commerce-driven programs, and large-scale creator communities
• A portfolio of high-impact, measurable work, such as major product launches, tentpole cultural activations, creator events, and always-on programs, with results spanning impressions, earned media value, engagement, search lift, and sales
• Industry recognition (e.g., Shorty, MarCom, PRWeek, or comparable awards) or equivalent evidence of best-in-class creative and strategic work
• Sophisticated understanding of influencer measurement and analytics, with the ability to build KPI frameworks, translate performance into executive-level insights, and connect creator investment to business outcomes
• Fluency in the evolving creator economy and marketing technology landscape, including influencer platforms (e.g., CreatorIQ, Traackr, Tagger), social analytics tools, paid amplification, and emerging areas such as AI-driven search visibility and LLM brand optimization
• Experience building, managing, and developing teams of 5+ direct reports, including managers of managers, with a demonstrated commitment to mentorship and talent development
• Strong financial acumen, including budget ownership, SOW and contract development, forecasting, and profitability management
• Executive-level presentation, communication, and storytelling skills, with the presence to lead pitches, client summits, and industry appearances
• Deep cross-functional fluency, with experience integrating influencer strategy across PR, paid media, experiential, creative, and brand marketing
• An entrepreneurial, culturally attuned, and solutions-oriented mindset, with the judgment to operate independently at the highest levels of the agency and client organizations

Why you’ll love working here:

• Competitive salary with comprehensive benefits & wellness programs including partnership with ClassPass!
• Flexible PTO
• Summer Fridays and Winter, Spring, and Fall Fridays too!
• Hybrid work model offering flexibility and work-life balance
• Expanded parental leave and family planning support
• Continuous learning through “5W University” and development initiatives
• Professional Development Support
• Exclusive access to season tickets for pro sports teams along with Broadway shows, and more!
• Charitable giving, including matching donations

#LI-Hybrid

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