Chief Client Director

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Job Description

The role...

Ipsos is recruiting for a Chief Client Director to play a key role in our best in class commercial team. with a genuine passion about understanding our client's businesses and want to help us grow our relationships with them.

We are seeking a commercially minded person who strives for and drives growth with a strong background and track record in Market Research across a broad range of offerings.

The Client Organisation is a valued team within Ipsos. It was created in 2016 and was formalised as the Global Client Organisation (GCO) & Local Client Organisation (LCO) as part of 'Total Understanding' in 2018. The purpose of the Client Organisation is to build and maintain long-term, sustainable relationships with our most important clients, both at global and local levels and to ensure those relationships are future proofed to drive growth. In 2025 the purpose of the client organisation was strengthened to drive more business impact through and responsibilities and competencies refreshed and enhanced to:

• Boost commercial elements: including skills and knowledge around Client First (CF), driving impact, negotiation skills, and being growth and client obsessed
• Include higher expectations as commercial leaders including being player-coaches, talent multipliers and role models
• Ensure a One Ipsos mindset: Global/Local, GCO & LCO to drive our global local superpower
• Include new skills for new content and a changing environment including Gen AI, Ipsos Facto, et al.

What will I be doing?

The CCD operates at a GLOBAL LEVEL, leading the overall relationship with Ipsos Global Partnering (IGP) and Growth Booster (GB) clients.

This is a senior, high-profile and strategic role within Ipsos bringing clients into the heart of our business. You will bring the best of Ipsos' services to deliver against clients' needs with impact. This role will give you the opportunity to become a trusted partner primarily responsible for driving sustainable, profitable growth. You will form part of a highly specialised team, commercial leaders who influence teams, are dedicated to a select IGP and/or GB clients and have +1 assignment (s) at global level (e.g. SL ambassador, sector champion).

Responsibilities:

CLIENT CENTRICITY AND STRONG RELATIONSHIPS

Drive Client Impact

• Define, measure and capture how clients are using the insight we provide and the impact on their business. Share Client Impact Stories to inspire teams and clients
• Support teams to create value through impactful deliverables that drive client action by regularly sharing Client Impact Stories to inspire teams to ask clients deeper questions on activation and resulting business impact

Voice of the Client (externally & internally), best of Ipsos to clients

• Be predictive of client needs by being the eyes and ears of Ipsos with clients, competitors, sectors and market dynamics
• Represent Ipsos at client & Industry events with thought leadership. Be well networked
• Constantly scan for competitive intelligence. Regularly share information to map programs, qualify them and target the best opportunities
• Leverage sector activation from the sector champions and wider Ipsos community knowledge to bring a deeper understanding our clients' needs
• Collaborate with Service Lines, as a CCD through the Ambassador program and as CCO through the market SL leaders to drive the client voice and market needs to help shape our offer and collaboration.

Creation of Client Community within Ipsos

• Influencing, inspiring, leading and attracting the BEST people to work on clients by creating an engaged community to work on clients and support client and market action plans

CCD: works across markets and SLs.

Talent multipliers

• CCD's and CCO's to work together to develop talent for the CO at both a global and market/local level
• Provide constructive feedback global-to-local and local-to-global to help develop/coach local talent and provide talent pipeline for global and local CO roles, including a pipeline of potential future CCDs and Local Client Officers

COMMERCIAL CENTRICITY AND BUSINESS ACUMEN

Strategic Account Management

• Understand clients' business, structure, culture and strategy
• Create trusted relationships and understand personal motivations ('me agendas')
• Identify client stakeholders, map budgets and generate leads, create connections across a wide selection of stakeholders inc. outside CMI and with c-suite
• Understand and adapt to clients' motivations and pressures and have meaningful business conversation at senior level
• Create Joint Business Plans WITH clients reviewing partnership goals and measuring success
• Consistently adopt best practices through sharing ways of working with clients and peers (e.g. account review documents, team meetings, client newsletters).

Commercial Models Client First player- coaches

• Be a role model of Ipsos Leadership Behaviours and be a player/coach for Ipsos' leadership values consistently and expertly building a positive image of the Client Organisation
• Consistently adopt best practices through sharing ways of working with peers to advance learning
• Champion Client First, acting as role models with clients, coaches to teams and ambassadors to the business. Lead and ensure the implementation of growth principles and business development best practice.
• Apply proactive thinking for Win & Retain on large programs to ensure long-term retention and growth, including identification of new buying points. Take a proactive approach to ensure we 'disrupt before we are disrupted' on key programmes
• Play a key role on 'must win' pitches (eg. Pitch Facilitator, Pitch to Win Coach).

Trusted Partners

• Build relationships that mean we are always seen as Trusted Partners whose advice clients seek out
• Advisory / Strategic thinking and insight
• Empower teams to create trusted relationships with clients and understand their personal motivations ('me agendas')
• Best in Class Storytellers and Presenters.

Accountable for Budget

• Work in partnership to agree on strategic priorities/actions (incl. Retain & Win plans) as well as tactics to optimize client portfolios.
• Optimise client portfolios between CCO, CCD and Country Managers ensuring coverage of largest budgets and clients with most growth potential and aligned on sector priorities

CCD accountability for global IGP/GB client budget and building the client strategic account plan in partnership with country teams, agreeing priorities and actions (to include retain & win plans). Win client mandates annually, help create hooks to help local markets grow

What do I need to bring with me?

The role will suit candidates with a string pedigree and track record in performing similar roles within a Market Research setting.

Passionate about clients' success

• Be client obsessed
• Have client empathy and an ability to walk in the clients' shoes

Business and Commercial Acumen

• Constantly scan for competitor intelligence; map, qualify and target opportunities to unseat the competition
• Hunter mentality, relentless in pursuit of growth
• Have negotiation skills and ability to partner with client procurement teams at the client
• Understand SL solutions, including new capabilities, to enable opportunity identification

Intellectual Curiosity

• Join the dots across Service Lines to drive greater impact with clients
• Lead and leverage wider Ipsos knowledge to bring a deeper understanding of our clients' needs
• Keep up to date with latest client and sector trends, map with Ipsos capabilities (e.g. GenAI), and use this knowledge to create opportunities

Excellent Communication Skills

• Impactful communication, internal and external
• Excellence in delivering impactful presentations
• Able to deliver clarity through succinct and impactful charts/narrative

Collaboration & Influencing Skills

• CCD with markets so that IGP & GB clients are prioritised and can deliver against the client growth plan
• To collaborate across Ipsos expert teams to develop enhanced offers to deliver greater value to clients (e.g., Operations, Synthesio, Ipsos Facto, Ipsos Digital, et al.) through new solutions and/or pilots
• With SL & financial teams to influence competitive pricing verses competition, whilst maintaining margin for Ipsos

Intellectual Curiosity

• Ability to collaborate in an international environment
• Think and act as a global citizen, whilst also understanding local nuance

What is in it for me?
Ipsos UK offer an attractive basic salary and a rewards package including 25 days annual leave, private healthcare, a pension scheme and a great range of flexible benefits to suit your personal needs.

In addition to this we have a fantastic Learning & Development offer delivered through a mix of face to face, online or on-demand.

We realise you may have commitments outside of work and will consider flexible working applications - please highlight what you are looking for when you make your application.

Ipsos is committed to equality, treating people fairly, promoting a positive and inclusive working environment and ensuring we have diversity of people and views. We also recognise that this is important for our business success - a more diverse workforce will enable us to better reflect and understand the world we research and ultimately deliver better research and insight to our clients.

About Us

Ipsos is one of the world's largest research companies and currently the only one primarily managed by researchers, ranking as a #1 full-service research organization for four consecutive years. With over 75 different data-driven solutions, and presence in 90 markets, Ipsos brings together research, implementation, methodological, and subject-matter experts from around the world, combining thematic and technical experts to deliver top-quality research and insights. Simply speaking, we help the biggest companies solve some of their biggest problems, serving more than 5000 clients across the globe by providing research, data, and insights on their target markets. And we're proud to share we've received our Great Place to Work Certification in 2022 & 2023!

About the Team

The Client Organization seeks to bring the best of Ipsos' solutions to clients, and to be the 'voice of the client' inside Ipsos. The mission of the Ipsos Client Organization (CO) is to deliver greater value for our clients and profitable growth for Ipsos. The CO is comprised of senior executives from across the industry who are focused on building long-term client relationships by understanding their business context and priorities, and then identifying and penetrating the relevant buying points for Ipsos' broad portfolio of services that address these needs.