Location: Miami, Florida strongly preferred

Employment Type: Full-time

Compensation: $135,000–$155,000 base salary, plus performance-based bonus

Work Authorization: Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

The Role

We are seeking a senior agency leader to own and grow a portfolio of sophisticated client relationships.

The Senior Account Director, Client Leadership sits at the intersection of client strategy, media, commercial leadership, and agency operations. This person will be responsible for understanding the client's business deeply, ensuring that the agency's work is excellent, anticipating problems before they become problems, and helping both clients and internal teams make better decisions.

This is a senior role for someone approaching Group Account Director level: an independent client leader who can manage complex relationships, lead cross-functional agency teams, contribute meaningfully to strategy, and command the confidence of senior client stakeholders.

The right candidate will be able to move comfortably between a CEO-level business question, a CMO's investment decision, a campaign performance discussion, a difficult scope conversation, and the practical details required to make sure work gets delivered properly.

Responsibilities

Client Leadership

Own senior relationships across a portfolio of agency clients and become a trusted strategic partner to client leadership.

Develop a deep understanding of each client's business model, commercial priorities, competitive environment, internal stakeholders, and growth objectives.

Lead client meetings, quarterly business reviews, annual planning processes, campaign recaps, and strategic working sessions.

Ensure that every client interaction moves the work forward and that presentations, meetings, and reports answer the questions that matter.

Anticipate client needs, identify opportunities and risks early, and establish clear paths toward decisions.

Navigate difficult conversations with candor, judgment, and professionalism.

Build strong relationships across client organizations—not only with the agency's primary day-to-day contact.

Integrated Media and Strategy Leadership

Work closely with strategy, planning, performance, activation, analytics, finance, and ad operations teams to turn business objectives into actionable media programs.

Maintain sufficient media fluency to challenge recommendations, ask strong questions, recognize strategic gaps, and ensure that execution remains connected to the client's business goals.

Help clients understand the role of different media channels and how investments work together across the customer journey.

Partner with strategic and activation leads on budget allocation, audience strategy, geographic priorities, measurement frameworks, optimization decisions, and post-campaign learning agendas.

Ensure that reporting emphasizes implications, learning, and next actions—not simply campaign activity.

Account and Commercial Management

Own the overall health of assigned client relationships, including retention, growth, scope management, profitability, and client satisfaction.

Understand contracted scope and identify scope expansion or scope-creep issues early.

Work with agency leadership to develop proposals, scopes of work, annual renewals, and expanded engagements.

Identify organic growth opportunities based on genuine client needs and agency capabilities.

Ensure internal resources are aligned appropriately with client requirements and commercial realities.

Contribute to new business pitches and senior prospect conversations.

Team Leadership

Lead cross-functional account teams with clarity and accountability.

Create clear internal briefs, assign ownership, establish realistic deadlines, and ensure that teams understand the business context behind their work.

Develop more junior account and strategy team members through direct feedback, coaching, and increased responsibility.

Create a culture in which problems are surfaced early and solved collaboratively.

Maintain high standards for written communication, presentation materials, meeting preparation, follow-up, and client service.

What We’re Looking For

8+ years of relevant agency experience, ideally within media, integrated marketing, advertising, or a closely related discipline.

Substantial experience independently leading complex client relationships.

Experience working with senior client stakeholders and presenting strategic recommendations.

Strong understanding of paid media strategy and the contemporary media ecosystem.

Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary teams across strategy, planning, activation, analytics, and operations.

Strong commercial judgment, including experience with scopes, fees, staffing, profitability, and account growth.

Exceptional written and verbal communication skills.

Excellent organizational judgment: the ability to distinguish what is urgent, what is important, what needs escalation, and what can simply be solved.

Experience with international, multilingual, multi-market, or culturally complex business challenges is strongly preferred.

Professional proficiency in Spanish and/or another language in addition to English is highly valued.

The Person Who Will Thrive Here

You are a grown-up in the room without needing to dominate the room.

You are excellent with clients because you listen carefully, think ahead, and do what you say you will do.

You understand that client service does not mean saying yes to everything. It means helping clients make better decisions and building the trust necessary to have honest conversations.

You can see the difference between a delivery problem, a strategy problem, a relationship problem, and a scope problem.

You are highly organized without being bureaucratic.

And you enjoy an agency environment where senior people are expected to contribute directly rather than manage from several layers away from the work.

Please apply at criterionglobal.com/careers/senior-account-director-client-leadership