Associate Director, Media Capabilities and Agency Lead

Responsibilities

• Establish yourself as an Media Capabilities Lead and Agency Governance Point for assigned brands. Address media channel best practices and governance, agency relationship, media operations, workflow bottlenecks and media value accountability.
• Continuously assess and challenge media operations approaches and processes and identify improvement opportunities, resolve systemic issues, and drive operational excellence.
• Lead assigned channel expertise in collaboration with Channel Guidance teams, maintaining current, in-depth knowledge of the evolving marketplace, defining enterprise best practices, and supporting governance reviews and approvals.
• Educate and advise internal stakeholders on channel strategy, capabilities, and best practices, translating marketplace developments into actionable recommendations and shaping a forward-looking channel innovation roadmap.
• Serve as the internal partnership lead for priority and emerging media partners, overseeing strategic roadmaps, joint business plans, capability evaluations, pilots, innovation opportunities, and delivery against agreed commitments.
• Strengthen agency accountability and transparency by establishing clear expectations, monitoring delivery and performance, escalating risks, and ensuring agency recommendations are rigorous, evidence-based, and aligned with our company's priorities.
• Connect brand-level needs with media capabilities, identifying opportunities to scale successful approaches, reduce duplication, and maximize the value of our company's collective investments, intelligence, data, technology, and partnerships.
• Oversee multiple efforts and projects at once.
• Ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, processes, guidelines and principles.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 5+ years of demonstrated experience in media channel planning, media buying and Agency Management. In depth specific channel expertise is preferred.
• Have strong understanding of Media operations, buying strategies in variety of channels, measurement approaches and advertising technologies.
• Proven ability to drive strategic initiatives from start to finish, with focus on collaboration, streamlined ways of working and achieving results.
• Proactive, independent thinker and collaborator.
• Demonstrated experience in managing vendor/agency relationships.
• Exceptional communication and relationship management skills – deep, cross-functional collaboration is required.
• Ability to build strong relationships and collaborate effectively with leaders and peers.
• Agency Relationship Management
• Business Alignment

Preferred

• Digital Media Strategy