Coley Porter Bell: Our story

We’re a global branding agency that helps clients seize opportunity in moments of critical change by harnessing the power of creativity and neuroscience to deliver immersive brands that stand up, stand out and win in a changing world.

We’re Coley Porter Bell. We’ve been building iconic, world-class brands for over 40 years.

We are a close knit and collaborative team of 55 people. Just as we create opportunity for our clients, so we aspire to create opportunity for our people. The opportunity to create great work, to work with some great talent and some famous world-class clients. The opportunity to develop your career because we are looking for people who are ambitious and proactive, people who roll their sleeves up, who care about being and doing the best and who want to push themselves and the agency that they work for to new heights.

We have offices in New York and London, and we are part of a global network – Ogilvy – and in turn of WPP.

What we value

We believe in artistry; we take pleasure in craft and pride in doing things well. 

We believe in curiosity, in learning, exploring and fresh ideas. 

We believe in the extraordinary, in clever strategies and brilliant creative.

And we believe in each other, that anything is possible when we join our talents together.

Why this brief?

With the success of the launch of our New York office, we are now looking to expand our team to support our growing business.

We are looking for someone to partner with our President to lead current client relationships and help with the overall growth of the business.

You, in a nutshell

You have a passion for branding and design.

You’re a talented relationship builder, both with clients and internal teams, and a real team player – you love to roll your sleeves up and jump in.

You understand the different personalities and styles required to create great teams and extended teams with your clients. You’re brilliant at motivating and empowering your teams and are seen internally and externally as persuasive and a leader. 

You have a creative eye and solid strategic understanding.

You are a great communicator, both in terms of written and oral communications.

You are positive, naturally curious and comfortable wearing many hats. 

You are a commercially minded negotiator and entrepreneurial. You have a track record for delivering profitable programs, profitable growth, and can actively improve profit margins and project efficiencies.

The role

Leading agency accounts and helping grow the overall business, which includes:

Building strong client relationships to deliver extraordinary work

• Growing and nurturing relationships with clients, being the trusted partner
• Understanding clients’ goals and objectives, and helping them achieve them
• Knowing your clients’ business inside and out including their politics, stakeholders, how they like to work and how they prefer to absorb information
• Anticipating the needs of your clients, being one step ahead of them
• Being a generous and natural leader who can provide insight, encouragement and constructive direction to clients
• Feeling comfortable presenting and influencing clients in face-to-face meetings
• Being strong on content, as well as process

Establishing the environment in which extraordinary work can be created

• Driving impactful delivery of work for clients, partnering with our strategy and design teams
• Serving as the champion for your clients within the agency, making them the accounts everyone wants to work on
• Balancing empowerment of teams with the ability to spot problems and jump in to provide guidance, as needed
• Being a good communicator with intuitive sense and being comfortable initiating difficult conversations
• Writing briefs that capture our client’s needs and help inspire amazing work
• Building and managing project timelines
• Maintaining a positive attitude, even under challenging circumstances
• Keeping current with what’s happening in the world, everything from global news to specifics within your clients’ industries, as well as our own industry, and actively using this information to sharpen our offer

Being commercially savvy

• Owning the financial health of your client business, always knowing where you are vs. commercial targets
• Having a clear picture of margin, profitability and revenue including what is driving these and what can be done to improve
• Providing revenue forecasts to the Managing Partner and Finance Director, keeping them abreast of any changes
• Taking responsibility for scopes of work, partnering with the wider team to ensure these are accurate, profitable and will deliver the appropriate margins

Helping to grow the business

• Developing account plans for your clients, including identifying opportunities to extend the business, mapping out how plans will be achieved and updating leadership on progress made against the plans
• Collaborating on new business, including developing proposals and pitch presentations, as well as participating in pitches
• Being entrepreneurial and comfortable wearing many hats in a start-up environment within a large organization
• Playing an active role in the marketing and outbound efforts of the marketing and new business team

Minimum qualifications

• 8+ years of account management experience at an agency (branding a must)
• Passion for branding and design
• Large, multi-disciplinary project and people management experience with corporate (a must) and FMCG clients (a plus)
• Effective problem solver with the ability to multi-task and meet tight deadlines
• Excellent presentation and communication skills, including clear, concise writing skills and ridiculous attention to detail
• Well versed in MS Office –PowerPoint, in particular