Associate Director, Delivery Leadership

Career Stage – Associate Director / Sr Manager

Craft – Delivery Leadership

Mindshare is a media services company that accelerates Good Growth for its clients in the age of transformation. The solutions we create are both Good for consumers and drive Growth for our clients. We were the first purpose-built company created by WPP and today we are 10,000 people working in 116 offices in 86 countries, helping to drive Good Growth for our clients, our people, the industry and the world. Mindshare is a WPP agency and a principal member of the GroupM network of Media agencies within WPP. Please visit us at www.mindshareworld.com 

Summary

This role will work closely with multi-disciplinary client account leadership squads to drive transformation projects helping to ensure they’re delivering promised and expected results to unlock value for our clients. This critical role will act as a facilitator and collaborator across marketsm workstreams, specialists, sister agency teams and client stakeholders to translate scope into plans needed to deliver required outputs.  This role requires management of multiple internal stakeholders, timelines, and resources, ideally in an agile way. The ambition is to consistently optimise processes, delivering better quality and more efficient outputs.

This role will also work across Mindshare practices as part of the sales and solutioning process to understand client needs and ensure the team is shaped appropriately to deliver the desired outcomes.

Mindshare operates in a matrixed organisation – you'll be part of the Delivery Management practice which will provide community of craft, frameworks / toolkits, performance expectations and career management while day-to-day work and priorities will be directed by the client leadership team.

Key Attributes:

As an Associate Director in the Delivery Management practice, you will work as an integral member of client teams driving marketing and media transformation as well as day-to-day delivery of media services.  You will play a key role in the management of, communication about and coordination across multiple concurrent workstreams.  You will design, implement and run simple and efficient project / program governance processes. 

You build strong relationships across the agency, sister agencies and the client team to ensure visibility, clarity, collaboration and strategic alignment. 

You will be a strategic problem solver as well as an effective business operator.  You will partner with Finance teams to look holistically at account financials, utilization data and capacity management.   You will work with teams to ensure strategic alignment with client and agency priorities. 

You will work across concurrent workstreams and teams, identifying and solving unexpected issues, and facilitating collaboration to stay on track. A can-do, roll-up your sleeves attitude to problem solving is essential -- making sure you work with people from the client, GroupM, and WPP and other agency partners to find solutions in a timely manner is key.

You will work with other practices as they identify opportunities for organic growth and collaborate across practices to build proactive solutions for client challenges.  Ensuring we have clearly articulated scope and outcomes to frame each potential project. 

You should be passionate about helping Mindshare to build a best-in-class Delivery Management culture focused on driving change, organisational agility and continuous improvement.  When needed you’ll help coach others on project management, process design and change management fundamentals.

You’re comfortable wearing multiple hats including project manager, strategic thinker, process designer, change agent and consultative problem solver with a proven track record of driving results.

You are are comfortable creating order from ambiguity and driving results across a range of internal and external stakeholders.

Objectives:

Delivery Leadership

• Owns day-to-day project management driving collaboration and progress across workstreams
• Owns overall team scope, ensures the team understands their parts, and creates the plans to deliver expected outcomes
• Adept an understanding and translating overall team scope into actionable plans, ensure the team understands their parts and creates comprehensive plans to deliver expected outcomes
• Keeps clients updated on team status, drives mitigation of risks and actively tracks / communicates dependencies
• Internal connector and facilitator to ensure complex solutions are orchestrated across workstreams
• Identifies out of scope client challenges that Mindshare has skills and expertise to solve
• Internal connector and driver to help frame proactive solutions to out of scope client problems
• Partners with leadership to define team governance models to drive connection, collaboration, and communication within the team and with the client stakeholders
• Develops an in-depth understanding of the Client business
• Manages ad hoc requests and enlists people needed to action them

Delivery Operations 

• Works with finance team and media lead on delivery of MSA requirements
• Partnering with finance teams on account financials, invoicing and POs – defining / refining process as needed to optimize back office operations
• May help driving creation and curation of QBR contents

The Ideal Candidate 

• Advanced experience in Business Analysis, Project Management or Management Consulting preferably within a global consulting firm – working knowledge of Media Agency and Holding Company capabilities, solutions and operating models a plus 
• Expert at translating strategic vision and priorities into operational reality.  Seamlessly moves between big picture and tactical details.
• Adept at building efficient and highly effective teams with well-defined ways of working and collaboration 
• Fosters communication and knowledge sharing within and outside of the team 
• Commfortable in a fast-paced, dynamic environment where priotities will shift
• Excels at driving results and expected outcomes 

Essential criteria

• Firm understanding of project, program and portfolio management.  Able to assess and correct established plans, governance processes and tools. Adept at coaching and mentoring others on project management fundamentals
• Excels at process analysis, documentation and design – able to break down silos, identify hidden interlocks and dependencies
• Excels at driving adoption, building enthusiasm and embracing change through effective change strategies and tactics
• Expert planner who can plot the course from start to finish, identify and mitigate risks, and can seamlessly shift between the strategic and tactical
• Strong collaborator comfortable fostering relationships and working across all levels across internal team, other partners, and client
• Excels at through and honest analysis - challenger of status quo and change agent
• Embraces ambiguity and expertly breaks down complex problems into simple solutions
• Proficient at designing and implementing efficient, effective ways of working that leveraging technology and automation where possible to work smarter not harder
• Excellent written / verbal communication and storytelling skills including ability to tailor message based on audience

Other core skills:

• Knowledge of project management, collaboration and knowledge sharing tools such as Teams/SharePoint, Planner, Miro, Wrike
• Lifelong learner who is comfortable leaning into unknown subject areas and quickly gaining working knowledge and understanding
• Understands how to operate in a matrixed organization taking day-to-day direction from client based teams and adhering to practice / craft specific standards

About Mindshare:

We also offer an extensive training program to help guide your career development while you’re with us. There’s a wide range of options to suit everyone at all levels of your career.

At Mindshare, we are committed to actively building a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace where everyone feels welcomed, valued and heard, and is treated with dignity and respect. As leaders and creative partners across industries, it is our responsibility to cultivate an environment reflective of our greatest asset; our people. We believe that this commitment inspires growth and delivers equitable outcomes for everyone as well as the clients and communities we serve.

GroupM provides equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard for factors such as race, religion, national origin, colour, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, protected veteran status, disability, or other protected status.

GroupM is committed to providing reasonable accommodation to, among others, individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans. If you need an accommodation because of a disability to search and apply for a career opportunity with GroupM, please send an e-mail to carmen.serrano@groupm.com or call (212) 297-8507 and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information