Head of Agency Communications – UK

If you require any adjustments or additional support during the recruitment process, for any reason whatsoever, please let us know at [email protected]

At EssenceMediacom we want to eradicate inequity. We don't tolerate it and when we see it, we act. We attract, support and develop our talent without bias and strive to foster the empathy, creativity and diversity of thought needed to drive meaningful change for our people, our clients, our industry and our society. WPP and GroupM have already made strong commitments to combat racial injustice. While we are part of this group, we know we have an individual responsibility as an employer and an industry leader to fight against racism. That’s why we have pledged the following seven commitments.

Even if you don’t meet all the requirements, that’s okay, and we encourage you to apply anyway to find out more about whether this is the right match for you.

Did you know that marginalised groups including women, people of colour and people with a disability are more likely to discount themself for a role if they don't feel they meet every requirement or understand the reasonable adjustment that can be made? This is why we encourage connection and conversation to ensure that everyone has the opportunity and information needed to find the right role, for them. If this role isn’t quite right, you may be the perfect fit for another – so go ahead, apply and find out!

What’s exciting about this role:

• The role is fast paced, and it has a huge amount of variety within it
• It is highly creative and requires a high degree of problem-solving ability
• The work done in the UK agency is industry leading, you will learn a lot, all the time
• Development: You will get lots of exposure to the most senior people in the UK organisation and the industry (C-Suite and Board of Directors)
• Dynamic team: the role is supported by an excellent broad skill-based team who are hardworking, creative, fun and highly skilled

Skills and attributes you need:

The most important attributes we are recruiting this role on are energy, attitude and values.

• Energetic and dynamic leadership with a proven ability to engage and manage senior stakeholders
• Friendly, approachable manner with a flexible attitude to work, with the ability to build relationships collaboratively across the business at all levels
• Presentation skills are key to this role
• Ability to use own initiative whilst working to tight deadlines in a demanding environment
• Highly organised, an excellent communicator and people manager
• In-depth understanding of the UK media market the to understand how agencies work
• Ideally have experience of handling client relationships and media owner/platform relationships
• A deep understanding of digital marketing (inc. Website, LinkedIn and all owned channels)
• Experience of developing or delivering B2B marketing strategies and specifically a robust understanding of current and future integrated marketing concepts, strategy and best practice
• Good knowledge of best practice and best in class use of CRM databases
• Experience of developing and delivering a meaningful internal communications plan
• PR: understanding what good looks like, being able to manage the PR agency and ensure delivery
• Writing experience, you will be heavily involved with awards and thought leaders, good writing skills are key to this:
  • Excellent written and oral communication skills with strong attention to detail
  • Excellent copywriting and editing skills
• Understanding and experience of managing design teams

The role itself…

The Head of Communications is a role based in London, UK and is responsible for the implementation and delivery of the global marketing and communications strategy in the UK.

This is a multifaceted and broad role and the successful person will be able to play a role in shaping the agency of the future.  To give you a flavour here are some of the area’s that the team have responsibility for:

One of the key facets of this role is the brining together and externally pushing our Thought Leadership from across UK offices.  This is then used as a competitive advantage, working collaboratively with the MediaCom Growth/New Business part of the team.

The UK agency has a strong tradition of delivering excellent events for clients, prospects and industry leaders, there is an ambitious programme to develop, improve and oversee this.

Industry relationships are key, whether this is with trade bodies or with PR agencies (you will oversee this relationship and their delivery) it may also be with media owner partners.

Of course, supporting our existing clients and growing their business is also key as is our extensive awards programme, the team working on awards report directly into this person.

Our team work closely with the people team this means overside and responsibility for delivery of our employee brand programme along with the ability to oversee internal comms and cultural events and areas of focus for our own people. This includes the messaging to the agency, producing and scripting our regular Thursday townhalls with the UK agency.
 

A key focus in the first year of this role will be supporting the successful preparation and launch of the new agency, EssenceMediacom.

There is of course an excellent team in place to help with all of this!

Reporting Structure

This role reports into the Chief Growth Officer.

There are other key senior stakeholders that this person will interact/work with, including the whole UK Exco and the global head of marketing for EssenceMediacom and stakeholders at GroupM, WPP and sister agencies within the network.

About EssenceMediacom

EssenceMediacom is GroupM’s newest and largest agency, committed to delivering marketing breakthroughs for brands. It has disrupted the old models across media, creative, innovation and analytics to find new opportunities for advertisers and deliver truly integrated media solutions.

Born out of two pioneering agencies, EssenceMediacom fuses Essence’s performance, data, analytics and creative technology DNA with MediaCom’s scaled multichannel audience planning and strategic media expertise.

As part of WPP, the world's largest marketing communications services group, and GroupM, WPP’s consolidated media investment management arm, we have access to the richest data, most robust benchmarks and most advanced capabilities in the market. This helps us provide comprehensive solutions to all marketing challenges.

Our ‘breakthrough’ ambition is underpinned by our commitment to ‘continuous learning’. We aim to ensure our people fulfil their potential by investing their whole-person wellbeing, careers and capabilities, which in turn helps grow our clients’ businesses.

EssenceMediacom UK consists of EM London, EM North Group and EssenceMediacom X, with over 2,000 people across 6 offices, is UK’s largest communications specialists, with billings of more than £2.1 billion (Source: COMvergence, 2021). Its global client roster includes adidas, Coca-Cola (TCCC), Dell, Google, Hasbro, Mars, NBC Universal, P&G, Richemont, Shell, Sony, Uber.  UK clients include Tesco, Flutter Entertainment Group, SharkNinja, and many others.

#LI-LS2