Business Unit Director

The Business Unit Director on Absa is expected to be data driven, insights lead and a creative thinker, who strives to make meaningful impact on the business.

You will be required to collaborate with Absa’s creative agency partners to ensure the smooth running of the media requirements on the account. As a BUD in charge of a portfolio on Absa, you will be responsible for ensuring that that the media team meet their deliverables, deadlines and KPI’s collaboratively.

You will need to work seamlessly with the Publicis Media Ad Operations, Data Science, and Buying teams to ensure:

1. The smooth briefing and running of campaigns in accordance with the briefs. 2. That all billing happens on time and queries are quickly resolved 3. The necessary reporting, taxonomy and tagging is implemented and delivered

This role demands confidence, presence and the skills to make a meaningful impact. Never just taking and executing orders, Starcom BUDs are expected to direct, inspire and add value at every turn. As a BUD, you will need to be proactive, steer and direct the team, and together with the direct team and in-direct partner teams, solve client, operations and strategic briefs and challenges.

A high level of collaboration, a willingness to teach others and a real desire to push the boundaries is what will be expected. As the portfolio lead you will need to be an example of how to best collaborate with internal and external creative and PR agency partners. As you will be working in an integrated fashion, you will need to constructively highlight possible creative gaps on creative delivery for media execution. In addition, this role requires a high level of accountability and responsibility over the digital media investments we are entrusted to manage. As a portfolio BUD you need to ensure the team is correctly pacing, tracking and delivering against targets and KPI’s. Some working outside the standard working hours may be necessary.* To lead the teams, the contractual delivery, operational adherence, financial management and output quality and turnaround within your portfolio. The BUD needs to ensure the effective delivery against the contracted Scope of Work, Service Level Agreement, Protection of Data and Financial Remuneration on the account.

• Together with the account management requirements, the BUD is required to direct and work with strategists to deliver quality outputs and remains responsible for the delivery of BusinessReviews, over-arching – portfolio management, optimization and buying strategies.

• The BUD is required to deliver on all reports and deliverables required for client’s senior management.

• Resolve account challenges with a solution driven mindset, whilst maintaining strong relationships with colleagues, agency partners, media owners and clients.

• Drive Starcom’s data led approach, ensuring that local and global tools are used to provide data to guide strategic decisioning.

• Deliver and maintain a strong relationship with client and agency partners, working collaboratively to ensure that we remain aligned to the client’s strategic direction.

• To demonstrate real passion, care and vision for the people and brands in your portfolio.

What you can expect in an average week: You will be involved with numerous brand managers, so it’s important to develop a good understanding and identify specific business needs for each one.

Your average week may include:* Attend key strategic briefings, status meetings, integration meetings with agency partners.

• Produce and present media strategies.
• Prepare and deliver insights decks on consumer and media trends, landscapes, and QBRs - in partnership with the planners, Research & Insights team and the digital implementation team.
• Share pertinent and relevant insights reports with client.
• Be present and on time, to all required meetings.
• Work collaboratively with our clients, colleagues, and creative agency partners.
• Review and direct all offline and online media outputs.
• Collaboratively work with and direct the digital media planners, campaign managers, DV360 and search specialists.
• Work collaboratively within the Digital Advertising Operations, Client Success, Media Buying, and Creative Teams.
• Write and present internal briefs across all disciplines, monitor progress, direct optimization changes, avoid under / over-spends and add provide insight to post campaign reports.
• Sign off all media billing packs relevant to your portfolio, to ensure alignment and avoid under and overspends.
• Update monthly forecasting reports.
• Ensure that your time sheets are maintained and timeously updated.

Qualifications:* A marketing / media / communications degree, diploma or certificate

Experience:* At least 10 years of media experience in agency.

Hard Skills:* Able to effectively project manage

• Strong presenation skills
• Numerically strong and analytically able
• Strong communicator with effective interpersonal relationships across team and clients
• Advanced IT skills including Microsoft Word, best-in-class Power Point, Excel, Outlook and web-based applications.
• The ability to synthesize and reduce different inputs to create a well-considered and accurate representative view.
• English fluency and language skills for effective business writing
• Solid data interpretation and analytics skills
• Be able to exercise strategic principles and structured thinking to tackle business development projects assigned by client
• Be able to select appropriate frameworks, tools and approaches to use in solving client problems
• Develop strategies that interpret cultural and social trends as well as data relevant to client business

Soft Skills* Works well in a high-performance environment

• Is open to constructive feedback and challenges accordingly.
• Is effective at building relationships and working as a team
• Shows leadership and decision-making ability
• Manages change well – adapts and remains flexible to business priorities
• Ability to collaborate without ego as well as work effectively independently
• Is willing to transfer skills and share knowledge openly
• Ability to self-start and self-manage