Business Director (Social)

About the role

A Business Director is a senior leader within the Account Management team, responsible for the strategic, commercial, and creative success of multiple large-scale or complex accounts. You are the client's trusted senior partner - someone who can navigate board-level conversations, anticipate market shifts, and lead teams to deliver bold, impactful work that drives measurable business growth. You'll oversee the health of your accounts from every angle - financial performance, client satisfaction, creative excellence, and team development - ensuring we are indispensable to our clients and delivering the best work of our lives. You will champion cross-discipline collaboration, bringing the full breadth of Ogilvy Group capabilities to bear on client challenges. You are a visible, confident leader who inspires teams, builds deep client relationships, and sets the standard for strategic thinking, commercial acumen, and creative ambition.

Responsibilities

• Be the senior client partner - Build and maintain relationships with senior client stakeholders across multiple functions, becoming indispensable to their business. Anticipate their needs, advise with authority, and be their go-to for strategic counsel.
• Be the growth driver - Lead organic growth initiatives, spotting opportunities across disciplines and therapy areas. Develop and implement account plans that deliver sustained revenue growth, leveraging the full Ogilvy network.
• Be the strategic architect - Shape and oversee the strategic direction of accounts, ensuring all work is aligned to client business objectives and market realities. Challenge briefs, push thinking deeper, and ensure strategies are robust and future focused.
• Be commercially accountable - Own the financial health of your accounts, including forecasting, profitability, and recoverability. Partner with finance and procurement to negotiate contracts, scopes, and rates that protect and grow agency value.
• Be the creative champion - Ensure creative work is bold, relevant, and flawlessly executed. Challenge teams to push beyond "good enough" and deliver work that drives business impact.
• Be the team leader - Inspire, mentor, and develop account teams, ensuring they have clarity of role, access to growth opportunities, and the support to perform at their best. Create a culture of collaboration, accountability and resilience.
• Be the connector - Bring together the right people from across the Ogilvy Group and WPP to solve client challenges. Build and maintain a strong internal and external network to unlock opportunities.
• Be the problem solver - Anticipate risks, manage challenges with confidence, and escalate when needed. Maintain a solutions-first mindset, ensuring momentum is never lost.
• Key Skills:
• Proven ability to lead large, complex accounts with significant revenue responsibility.
• Exceptional relationship-building skills at senior client levels, including procurement and C-suite.
• Strategic thinker with deep understanding of healthcare communications, market dynamics, and regulatory environments.
• Strong commercial acumen, with experience in contract negotiation and financial management.
• Creative champion with the ability to inspire bold, impactful work.
• Skilled leader and mentor, able to develop high-performing teams.
• Confident communicator, negotiator, and presenter.
• Resilient, adaptable, and able to thrive in high-pressure situations.
• Well-networked within the industry and able to leverage connections for client and agency benefit.
• How we

Benefits

Additional Information

About Ogilvy Ogilvy, part of WPP, has been creating impact for brands through iconic, culture-changing, value-driving ideas since the company was founded by David Ogilvy 75 years ago. It builds on that rich legacy through Borderless Creativity - innovating at the intersections of its advertising, public relations, relationship design, consulting, and health capabilities with experts collaborating seamlessly across over 120 offices in nearly 90 countries. Ogilvy currently ranks as the #1 global agency network for creative excellence and effectiveness by WARC, signifying its ability to deliver creative solutions that drive unreasonable impact for clients and communities. Ogilvy is a WPP company (NYSE: WPP). For more information, visit Ogilvy.com , and follow us on LinkedIn , X , Instagram , and Facebook. About WPP WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world's leading brands. We unite cutting-edge media intelligence and data solutions, world-class creativity, next-generation production, transformative enterprise solutions and expert strategic counsel in a single company - powered by exceptional talent and our agentic marketing platform, WPP Open, to help our clients navigate change, capture opportunity and deliver transformational growth. For more information, visit WPP.com . Department: Social & Advertising) Location: London Contact type: 12-Month FTC Full Time/Part time: Full Time Reporting into: Client Partner

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