Associate Director, Strategy

Company Description

Thank you for considering joining Spark Foundry for the next step in your career. Our exceptional people (Sparklers) are what make us special, set us apart from the pack, and lead our agency and our clients into the future. Voices like yours are essential to our ability to connect with and remain relevant with increasingly diverse audiences. The perspective you bring helps ensure our solutions are fresh, and modern and help our clients grow.

At Spark Foundry, our purpose is clear: we bring HEAT to brands. HEAT stands for Higher Engagement, Affinity & Transactions. In other words, we get consumers to pay more attention, care more deeply about the brand, and buy more of its products and services.

Our Sparklers “bring their heat” - their unique superpowers and individual backgrounds – with them to work every day, and that heat is what has driven the continued growth of our culture and our brand.

Spark Foundry is not just a media agency. To our clients, we are true partners. This is not only a huge benefit to the brands we work with, but to our people as they expand their skills and expertise. We offer clients the best of both worlds: a startup spirit and a powerhouse soul. Our spirit embraces our ability to deliver high-touch service, boutique insights, bold creativity, and ever-evolving product and process, just like a startup. And our powerhouse soul comes to life through our unique marketplace access, best-in-class partnerships, and unparalleled buying clout to deliver our clients' increased value.

We believe a fulfilling and rewarding personal life inspires fresh thinking and the ability to create great work.

Job Description

The Associate Director, Planning is the day-to-day steward on media issues for assigned brands, including accurate budget control and flow of online media activity.  They will be required to develop and maintain a strong knowledge of their clients’ business and apply their media understanding accordingly to help deliver against the clients’ needs/objectives.  They will work closely with the Managers in the development and communication of all media recommendations.  

Role Objectives:

• Strong cross-channel planning and buying skills, particularly in digital
• Successful at building strong, collaborative client relationships, instilling trust and authority on behalf of the agency
• Ability to manage timelines, projects and personnel within direct report team and across cross-functional teams
• Flexible and able to keep up with a fast-paced, constantly-evolving environment
• Including the capacity to successfully manage multiple work streams at one time
• Strong foundation in strategic and critical thinking, finding ways to innovate and collaborate with teams to improve outputs
• Experience with productive and positive vendor relationship management 
• Individual should possess confidence, composure, and polished presentation skills to effectively attend and lead in-person meetings with key clients on a daily basis
• Self-motivation and organization are key due to coordination with multiple internal and external clients

Qualifications

• Have been working in digital media planning, buying and management for 5+ years with progressive levels of responsibility
• Think strategically, take into account the bigger picture, analyze everything and think critically when solving problems to come up with unconventional solutions
• Have led a team before, know what it takes to manage a group, even when a lot of moving parts are involved
• Able to take care of the day-to-day part of overseeing others and good at helping them grow and realize their own potential
• Build great relationships with clients, vendors, and reps; have a history negotiating to get the job done right and track record of success in media; understand business; have a knack for sharing complicated ideas in a simple, understandable way
• Already active in the kinds of digital gadgets and communities that are changing our business; have a passion for tablets, smartphones, social networks, instant messaging, widgets, apps, blogs and whatever is new and life-changing; want to find ways to make them work for brands

Additional Information

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Compensation Range: $91,000 - $144,000. This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on the skills, qualifications, and experience of the applicant along with the requirements of the position, and the Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. For this role, the Company will offer medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, and paid time off