Description

About the role

As a Senior Operations Director, you will report into the regional VP of Operations, and be accountable for the strategic and day-to-day leadership of client operations for one of WPPs biggest global clients. Leading a team across APAC, and partnering with Client Services, you will be expected to:

• Support the management of financial performance of the client for EssenceMediacom, maintaining visibility and advising on actions to ensure financial gain is balanced with client and employee satisfaction
• Lead the successful delivery of work across our APAC markets, by ensuring work is effectively planned, effort is carefully project managed, barriers to delivery are overcome and risks are proactively managed
• Champion the use of the agency’s ways of working, and strive for their continual improvement, to drive operational effectiveness and work quality within all teams and practices.

Some of the things we'd like you to do:

Supporting Financial Performance

• Oversee the development of clear scopes of work and commercial proposals:
  • Partner with Client Services to understand client needs
  • Partner with Product Leadership and Resource Management to translate client needs into a scope of work, and build a clear understanding of work effort to deliver it
  • Ensure assumptions made during the estimation of effort is clearly documented and reflected in the scope of work
  • Partner with Finance and Client Service to ensure level of effort is accurately translated into a commercial proposal that is approved by appropriate agency leadership
• Maintain visibility of financial performance to drive future recommendations:
  • Partner with Resource Management and Finance to ensure resource utilisation and financial performance is accurately reported to Client Services and agency leadership
  • Make ongoing recommendations to Client Service as to how they can manage work to meet financial targets
• Help maintain an accurate view of client demand and forecast financial performance:
  • Combine historical scope and financial performance with the most recent client context shared by Client Services to prepare estimates of future client needs and financial performance to advise on decisions
  • Ensure Resource Management maintain visibility of future resource needs, and Finance of future financial performance
• Help optimize resourcing against fluctuating client needs:
  • Work with Resource Management to identify ways to leverage different resourcing solutions [including permanent, freelancing, offshoring and outsourcing] to best match resourcing to fluctuating resource needs to ensure we can deliver the work on time and to expectations while optimizing financial performance
• Support the generation of incremental revenue:
  • Identify areas of service that are out of scope, and work with Client Services to develop compelling proposals for cross-sell or upsell opportunities

Leading the Delivery of Work

• Play a leadership role in the onboarding of new teams, ensuring they are set up for operational success from the outset
• Develop, coach and manage Project/Operations managers to:
  • Translate scopes of work into effective project plans that will ensure we meet client expectations on time and on budget.
  • Partner with Resource Management to ensure appropriate resource is identified to execute the plan, and to resolve resource challenges along the way
  • Give Client Services leadership visibility of the necessary Client’s and Partner Agency’s obligations to meet the plan, and help them set appropriate expectations and hold them to account
  • Coordinate efforts across the cross-functional team, including the successful use of daily huddles to maintain context and drive decisions, and break-out sessions to overcome challenges
  • Maintain an up-to-date view of progress against plan, working with them to get effort back on track if behind plan, and escalating to Client Services for input where appropriate
  • Continually identify potential risks, helping them to overcome those with low to medium impact and taking direct accountability for high-impact risks, escalating to Client Service and agency leadership where appropriate
• Work with the Client Directors to ensure successful client billing within your portfolio
• Educate the team on client-by-client service expectations, and coach them on ways to better manage their work to scope
• Support Client Services by inspiring the cross-functional team to effectively collaborate and communicate in a truly integrated way
• Work closely with clients to present commercials, manage operational challenges and oversee the ways of working to align with client goals. 

Driving Operational Effectiveness

• Ensure cross-functional teams are holding regular wash-ups, which lead to actionable recommendations that are implemented to improve the way they work together
• Ensure teams understand the end-to-end Essence Campaign Delivery Process and supporting Quality Standards, and how they should apply them to their role and day-to-day work
• Monitor how Process and Quality Standards are being adhered to, championing their use, resolving barriers to their adoption and sharing the results with Operational Leadership
• Share operational recommendations to improve the way we work, and subsequently work with peers and wider Operation leadership to realise them across the business.
• Lead some of the regional initiatives to drive improvement, and ensure the successful adoption of all agency improvements [including those led by your colleagues] across APAC. 

A bit about yourself:

• You’ll have 10+ years’ experience, with a proven track record in an operations or project management role within a service industry
• You have ideally worked within a media agency
• You have strong project management skills, balancing best-in-class approaches with pragmatism for a given situation
• You are commercially-savvy, and you have experience managing large-scale projects involving cross-functional teams
• You possess strong communication skills and the ability to discuss complex issues with many different stakeholders, both internal and with clients. 
• You can demonstrate strategic initiatives you successfully delivered to improve business effectiveness
• You have a data-driven, analytical mind, able to use it to identify root  causes to complex problems
• You can make decisions and resolve problems quickly and effectively
• You are a very organised person, and have strong attention to detail, allowing you to bring structure to otherwise unstructured situation
• You have strong spoken and written communication skills, ensuring you can get your point across, and drive engagement and interest in most situations
• You have well-tuned relationship skills, and you’re able to use them to build rapport and influence people at all levels
• You have a can-do attitude, you can multi-task and you remain calm and composed under pressure
• You exude positivity and energy, and you can thrive in a fast-paced and dynamic working environment
• You work best in team environments, and you are a beacon of collaboration
• You’re able to recruit, develop and nurture a talented team
• You have experience of working across multiple markets in APAC, knowing how to adapt ways of working to suit market and team nuances. 

More about EssenceMediacom

We are a global communications agency leading with breakthrough thinking, building explosive growth for brands, and helping our clients see the bigger picture. Our daring global network of 10,000 influencers help our clients breach traditional boundaries in media, uncover novel ideas, and unleash exponential growth. EssenceMediacom challenges conventional thinking to build, propel, and supercharge our clients’ businesses at scale and lead our industry in critical areas such as diversity, equity, inclusion, and sustainability.  

EssenceMediacom understands that our people are tasked with big goals: building breakthrough growth for brands and leading with breakthrough thinking in our industry. Our people are at the heart of this work because their ideas will enable us to decode the intersections of people, content, and technology to bring our aspirations to life. Our success is down to our eclectic, diverse, and talented people. EssenceMediacom is a place for us to grow our careers and expand our horizons. EssenceMediacom is committed to building an agency culture that supports our people, puts diversity at the forefront of our operations, and creates opportunity for all. This collective culture will be our “new power” where ideas are freely exchanged, and collaboration is actively encouraged in a place where you can innovate in our hyperconnected world.  

About Singapore

GroupM Singapore operates in one of the most dynamic and exciting environments in the world. Although it is a small domestic market, there is a vibrant media industry which is undergoing rapid evolution as digital technology reshapes the way marketing supports advertisers’ needs. Being at the crossroads of Asia means, that aside from the local clients and media owners, we also have a high proportion of multi-national clients, renowned brands and media owners. Making GroupM Singapore the Number One organisation to join and develop your career in media investment.

GroupM is an equal opportunity employer. We view everyone as an individual and we understand that inclusion is more than just diversity – it’s about belonging. We celebrate the fact that everyone is unique and that’s what makes us so good at what we do. We pride ourselves on being a company that embraces difference and truly represents the global clients we work with.