Group Account Director

Cheil Dallas/Account Service
Group Account Director

About us
Cheil Worldwide is the 11th-largest creative agency in the world. Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, we were founded by Samsung in 1973 to grow its local and global business. While Samsung is still one of our main clients, our network roster has evolved to include other globally recognized brands such as Adidas, PayPal, ESPN, Lego, Coca-Cola, Nivea, Starbucks and many more.

Cheil Dallas serves as the lead agency for all Samsung Mobile projects in North America and is strategically located at Legacy Central in Plano, Texas. It's the home base for more than 200 creative problem-solvers who share a passion for developing groundbreaking ideas rooted in data, driven by insights, and enabled by innovative technology.

And that brings us to you... or rather you to us. Cheil Dallas is looking for a Group Account Director with a strong aptitude for cutting edge technology (including AI). This senior leadership role requires demonstrable experience managing complex integrated campaigns including CRM, retail signage, experiential, and influencer projects. If this sounds like you, please read on and apply!

About you
Who you are is just as important as (if not more important than!) what you can do.

• A great listener and intuitive.
• Resourceful and inquisitive.
• You have an entrepreneurial spirit and the desire to build and lead.
• Have great people skills and the natural ability to maintain a positive outlook, even when faced with challenging circumstances or high-pressure assignments.
• You build relationships far and wide, both internally and externally to see the business from all sides and use them to create momentum and drive clarity during times of ambiguity.
• You are a person who knows how to fix problems and navigate the road ahead to circumvent potential issues.
• You are experienced and passionate about defining brand strategy and translating that to outstanding integrated marketing plans and creative work that drives results.

About the role
Like you, this job is multidimensional. And every aspect is crucial to creating culturally relevant work.

The Group Account Director

• Serves as the business lead for multiple assigned business verticals.
• Proactively seeks out opportunities to partner with agency leadership, expand the business portfolio, and actively contribute to building the positive culture of Cheil.
• Believes their job is to imagine the future of the client's business and of Cheil as an agency always three steps ahead.

Account Leadership

• Provide strategic leadership and road-map for the business that integrates all disciplines, including strategy, creative, media, production and analytics.
• Command complete ownership and accountability for assigned lines of business and relationships with clients and agency team at all levels.
• Encourage a positive, professional environment that supports the clients, management, teammates and the work.
• Sets a standard of excellence through coaching and mentorship that develops strong, motivated internal teams.
• Identify opportunities and grow billings within assigned lines of business.
• Spot challenges in the distance and know when to bring in agency leadership and offer solutions to help them troubleshoot.
• Positively lead and foster a spirit of healthy debate and dialog in service of the work.
• Demonstrate a deep understanding of relevant categories, competitors and emerging media that may inform the work.
• Have a can-do attitude, bringing a sense of calm and optimism to the client and team.
• Build strong relationships with senior clients, having the ability to have tough conversations
• Seek opportunities to deliver break-through work.
• Demonstrate strong supervisory, delegation, and escalation skills.
• Build relationships with senior clients ensuring the health of the account is strong.

Management Oversight

• Provide leadership to integrated teams internally to ensure pitched concepts and HQ adaptations become great executions out in the world.
• Manage multi-disciplinary team ensuring all team members are entrusted with work appropriate for their experience level, and that the team remains challenged and engaged.
• Provide ongoing guidance to the internal team to ensure production processes and needs (budgets, timely approvals) are clear; pave the way for easy approvals and decisions that lead to the best possible output.
• Mentor a team of direct reports, working together to set goals, training them to ensure best practices are followed and managing the annual review process.

Financial Leadership

• Ensure successful financial operations across assigned lines of business adhering to the Scope of Work.
• Manage project plans that can be accurately tracked against and that set the team up for success.
• Establishes processes and best practices to ensure the account is as efficient and profitable as possible.
• Have ongoing knowledge of how work is progressing against projections and billing holistically.
• Understands production bidding and is able to navigate complex conversations regarding production costs/trade-offs and overarching campaign budgets.

Agency Leadership

• Is highly respected by all agency departments, inspiring and encouraging innovative thinking and solutions.
• Actively participates in internal management and training of agency personnel.
• Builds trusted relationships with agency leadership, identifying opportunities to impact agency culture and operations and ensure learnings are shared with the internal team.
• Proven ability to build strong relationships with partners that overcomes day-to-day hurdles.
• Assist with new business pitches.
• Stays informed and shares industry and cultural trends and technological advances that may help inform the work.
• Transcends the day-to-day challenges to lead conflict resolution and implement solutions both internally and externally.
• Becomes a trusted right hand to the Executive Director of Account Services and helps champion leadership efforts.

About the requirements
You've got to check the boxes before you can think outside of them.

• Bachelor's Degree in advertising, marketing, strategic communication or a related field.
• 15+ years integrated advertising agency experience or combination of agency and in-house preferred.
  • 10+ years supervisory experience and 5+ years as the leader of client business.
• Be a north star to cross-functional teams within the agency, serving as a trusted advisor to talk through challenges, pressure-test ideas, and help push the work forward.
• A proven track record of solid client partnership, exemplary team leadership, and world-class output.
• A great communicator (written and oral) and an excellent presenter that fully commands a room.
• Experience managing complex integrated campaigns from strategy through execution including CRM, retail signage, experiential, influencer/high-profile talent projects, 3rd party research and production.
• Passionate about cutting edge technology (including AI) and has a track record of testing new solutions for client deliverables and internal needs.
• A great listener, able to turn information into action.
• Organized and detailed.
• Well-versed in Microsoft Office Suite.
• Passionate about mentoring and training an industry leading team.
• Able to work in a hybrid office environment with 2 days (Tuesdays & Thursdays) minimum in-office and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday optional remote.
  • For this leadership position, flexibility is needed when meetings and project demands require more in-office days.
  • Able to travel to meet business needs (approx.15-20%).