VP, Client Partner

Job Description:

The Client Partner is passionate about forming, creating, driving, and maintaining successful client relationships, while successfully interacting with senior/executive level clients, driving revenue expansion and long-term client retention. Client Partners focus on outcomes-based solutions & delivery in order to ensure the customer business strategies and experience transformation objectives are achieved. Client Partners are expected to have a diverse set of skills to drive business agility– including a strong Growth and Client Services mindset, while operating customer level P&L’s. These leaders are entrepreneurial and prefer to build rather than maintain businesses with a strong customer-centricity mindset in addition to their excellent ability to cultivate enduring customer relationships.

Key Responsibilities

This individual manages growth and evolution of multiple customer relationships between $10-$20 million in annual net revenues and can lead complex multi-dimensional engagements that combine Media, Creative and Customer Experience solutions that may include Strategy, Commerce, Loyalty, CRM, Data, Analytics, Identity, and Marketing Technologies. This person is a high-energy leader with the ability to expand customer relationships by presenting new strategies and innovative ideas to solve Experience Transformation challenges & opportunities.

The Client Partner is experienced in leading teams of Client Service professionals as well as multidisciplinary teams in a matrixed environment. These individuals also have a strong operational acumen in operating their customer’s businesses to meet and exceed financial targets.

• Proven track record of creating high customer satisfaction. Owns the overall client satisfaction and the continuing growth and evolution of the client relationships. Accomplished by driving and overseeing successful delivery of work product, while cultivating strong client relationships.

• Responsible for a portfolio of customers within the Customer Experience & Commerce, CRM, and/or Data Platforms & Analytics areas.

• Leadership and direction of Account Directors and Engagement Leaders, focused on delivering value, ensuring quality. Also, responsible for mentoring employees to elevate skills and opportunities for career advancement.

• Executive engagement, client expectations, value reinforcement, cross-sell, required to be strategic about engagement strategies with VP C-level relationship building.

• Effectively manages all commercial aspects of the client relationship including contracts, pricing, profitability, revenue and profit forecasting.

• Accurately plans and forecasts revenue to achieve net revenue and margin targets.

• Directs team activities to ensure full collaboration and partnership and leveraging the company’s full complement of resources to support the business.

• Engages with senior level customer contacts across all areas of the customer’s business on a regular basis, delivering a continuous flow of business-building ideas, while securing relationship and performance feedback.

• Actively teams with Alliance partners through proactive relationship development with Account Executives, pipeline mapping and joint account planning in order to enable co-selling of partner products and services to Merkle customers, as well as Merkle solutions to partner customers.

• Develops and drives growth & account plans, processes, and strategies that improve results for customers, while growing the customer portfolio.

• Continually increases knowledge of the customer’s business (and industry) often serving as the customer’s first line consultant.

• Provides leadership and direction to Client Services and Capability teams, fully leveraging all direct and indirect resources and ensuring optimal levels of productivity, service, communications, and quality for assigned customers.

• Effectively plans work, proactively communicates changes, and troubleshoots problems, assuring that the customer and company commitments are kept.

• Works closely with the Growth, Capability, and other teams to develop proposal/presentation content and strategy for new business pitches.

• Effectively “on-boards” new customer relationships.

• Proactively work to assure a highly engaged team staffed with top talent. Hires, retains, develops and engages top level tal