Commercial Director

This job is brought to you by Jobs/Redefined, the UK's leading over-50s age inclusive jobs board.

About Assembly

At Assembly, we find the change that fuels growth. We apply this principle to the work we do with our clients and how we engage with our people. We are a modern global agency bringing together data, technology and talent to deliver a connected set of solutions for media + more to the best brands on the planet.

At Assembly, we also know our purpose is more than media. The agency is proud to have 10+ years in dedicated social and environment Impact work. In March 2022, we were named Ad Age's first-ever Purpose-Led Agency of the Year atop the A-List, recognized for our purpose driven mission to leave the world better than we found it. We have created a culture where diversity of thought, experience, and background are valued.

When you become part of Assembly, you become part of a global community of digitally-led experts - with 1,600 people in over 20 countries and 30 office locations around the world who bring unmatched omnichannel media, data, and technology expertise and business consulting capabilities to help our brand partners find change and fuel growth.

Assembly is going through its next chapter of growth. We are a growth mind-set, meritocratic, and high-performance business with a progressive outlook in all that we do. To realise our potential in this next chapter we need some new skills and thinking.

The core DNA of Assembly resides in performance marketing and has ample deep technical expertise in providing digital solutions for leading brands. New and existing clients are asking us to extend that digital expertise across all media and connect the remaining nodes of traditional media with digital methods of execution, measurement and automation.

We were born the right way to do this - we are building out from a leading digital and technology capability and adding the rest; not trying to reverse engineer a traditional legacy business into a more modern version of itself.

The role

We are looking for a London-based Commerical Director to lead our commercial function for Europe.

Partnering with the client leadership, new business and affiliate partners of Assembly, the commercial leader will take ownership of the end-to-end commercial practice within Assembly across Europe. Commercial covers all aspects of how we make money and how we create innovative commercial arrangements for our clients - from agency pricing, PRIP construction and management, margin evaluation, client profitability and contract negotiation, supported by the General Counsel. You would also partner with the Global Chief Investment Officer on trading partnerships and ensuring that the Europe business is maximizing the commercial opportunity.

The commercial leader must be comfortable with the complex dynamics that a multi-region, multi-currency operation delivering media in over 30 markets entails. The person should have a progressive mindset looking to question the status quo and enjoys the challenge of continually seeking to make improvements across their areas of responsibility. Resilience is key as is strong leadership skills - this is about working in collaboration with internal teams and clients, many of which are based across Europe, being client facing where necessary but also having the steely ability to drive change and strong commercial practice and governance.

Bringing energy and wanting to provide an uplift in commercial practices is going to be an important trait of this role. The commercial leader will need to both 'do' and 'tell' and put into place a strong, well-governed commercial function that sits across the agency - this will require hands on analysis, training as well as ensuring that as a leading digital specialist we are creating ways of binding our success to our clients with innovative commercial practices that are sustainable in the long term.

Key responsibilities

• Set-up and establish a commercial practice across the European business

• Ensure we are operating at the right level of profit through sustainable commercial practices with our clients

• Lead new business and new scope pricing

• Be able to produce a commercial strategy that they will then execute - the candidate must be skilled and experienced in building financial simulations reflecting strategic business decisions

• Renegotiate client scopes and contract renewals, being client facing

• Setting service matrix pricing and continually optimise these models

• Be the voice of client profitability within the agency and produce and monitor commercial action plans as a result of client profitability

• Present regional leadership with commercial reporting on the performance of the business at client level profitability

• Enhance the accounting infrastructure to support the Company's growing operations

• Be proficient in how to represent data in visual analytics and the platforms that can do this, with support from the required teams internally to build them out

Requirements

• Experienced commercial leader having worked in finance or commercial roles ideally with multi-market experience

• Have a strong understanding of how agencies make money and what future commercial innovation looks like and plan to that

• Strongly prefer expertise within the Marketing Services industry, ideally from the Media industry

• Self starter - want to build and create vs being part of something already established that is harder to influence

• Feels comfortable as part of a leadership team where their opinion is valued and welcomed

• Know the business - vague answers, generic views and not knowing the business position commercially is not ok

• Experience using technology solutions to bring efficiency across the organization and to be able to operationalise those solutions with the rigour required

• Strong communication skills with executive presence

• Be present - this role requires a minimum of 3 working days in the office, with core collaboration days on a Monday and Wednesday

We are committed to empowering workers in the communities local to where we operate, and are mindful of minimising the carbon cost of commuting. Where a position required regular presence in the office, as in the case of managerial positions, we attempt to hire staff who live within a reasonable commute (<50 miles or 1.5 hours) of the office they will be based in.

Equal Opportunities

Assembly is an advocate for equal opportunity in the workplace. We are committed to ensuring equal opportunities regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability and gender identity. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.

Social and Environmental Responsibility

At Assembly, we have a responsibility to bring impact into our every day. This means we must always look for ways in which to be conscious citizens in our roles to support society and environmental sustainability. We encourage employees to; be a conscious citizen by actively participating in our organisation's sustainability efforts, help us promote environmentally friendly practices within the workplace, collaborate with community organisations and stakeholders to support initiatives aligned with our company's values, participate in volunteer activities that benefit the community. Employees are also encouraged to make suggestions and evaluate our business practices to identify areas for improvement in social and environmental performance. Employees at Assembly demonstrate commitment to sustainability and inclusivity in their actions and behaviours