Senior Vice President, Influence Strategy

Responsibilities: 

• Earns the trust of senior level and C-suite clients with strategic counsel on approaches to influencer marketing – across the spectrum of identification, compensation, analytics, and risk management.
• Play a lead role in the agency’s Influencer center of excellence in our Central Region, covering Chicago, St. Louis, and Minneapolis, which develops and manages key relationships with influencer networks and content creators, and institutionalizes a set of best-in-class tools and processes for identification, contract negotiation, content planning, measurement, and ROI analysis.
• Experience with CPG-related influencer programs is a plus as much of our growth in the region is centered around CPG brands.
• Design and establish strong influencer marketing teams on major client engagements.
• Develop a deep understanding of our clients’ businesses and target audiences, and working in close collaboration with our Creative, Insights and Client Experience teams, lead the creation and execution of integrated multi-platform campaigns that drive meaningful results.
• Build social influencer strategies cross-functionally to align strategic efforts and priorities and be able to develop strategic outputs with little to no oversight. Collaborate closely with strategy, creative, paid and larger integrated agency teams to deliver program initiatives.
• Closely partner with social platform and digital SMEs to stay at the forefront of technology trends and emerging platforms to champion social and digital innovations and continuously further our offerings to break through social clutter and breakthrough in earned media.
• Collaborate effectively with inter-agency teams to develop holistic plans and fully integrated strategies for our clients.
• Lead a high-performing team; mentor and develop junior team members.

Qualifications: 

• 9+ years of experience, preferably within an agency environment
• Strong understanding of the overall influencer marketing landscape
• Deep expertise in managing influencer programs and leading strong influencer marketing teams.
• Strong knowledge of social platforms, including paid amplification and campaign optimization.
• Familiarity with a broad set of social, media and influencer analytics tools.
• Detail-oriented, multi-tasker with excellent time-management skills.
• Strong written, verbal communication, negotiation and presentation skills.
• Experience leading a team is an asset.

Is this you? 

Be a driver of culture: Must have true passion and understanding of pop culture and are part of the community (be it music, gaming, fashion, food, internet culture, etc.) This job is the intersection of creative, strategy, marketing, technology, content creation and production; your energy must be driven by your lifestyle. You must influence creative ideations: from the ideas presented, to the influencers selected, to the content created, all the way down to the language used in post copy. 

Have high cultural competencies: Understand the role and importance of diversity, equity & inclusion (DE&I) You must be culturally vigilant with the ability to understand, communicate with and effectively interact with people across cultures.  

Have “Gravitas” in the influencer space and skin-in-the-game:  Deep understanding of the influencer landscape is required. Proven ability to build, speak and grow relationships with change agents and cultural makers (celebrities, influencers, artists, thought leaders) directly or via their agents. You must be open to a public-facing role; willingness to speak publicly about influencer trends when opportunities present itself to the WS Influencer Team. 

Know how to identify and manage diverse vendors and partners: in an industry where technologies (saas platforms, AI, managed services, etc) are popping on the daily, at high volume, no less, you must have experience working with RFPs and meeting with leading tech companies to understand their services and identify their uniqueness (and keep up with their ongoing changes in our WS influencer database) 

Be ready to lead at any moment: working with the Influence Lead, NA, you will learn to “step up to the plate” and lead effectively in the client’s and agency’s best interests while also helping to cultivate, mentor and coach mid to junior staff members on the influencer team.  

Hustle: identify influencer opportunities (organic or new) to ensure influencer marketing continues to be a strong marketing discipline and revenue driver on your assigned account or at Weber Shandwick.  

Think like a lawyer: risk management is big to us.you understand how important it is to follow best practices (FDA guidelines, FTC updates, platform requirements), continuously build our COE by partnering with DXTRA legal and finance to ensure risk and liabilities are reduced and tamed for every campaign you touch. 

Have experience building engaged audiences: on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Clubhouse and other distribution platforms.  

Know how to build a story: you will build client presentations that tell smart, compelling stories, never “rinse and repeat” which requires you to be highly motivated, energetically charged and inspired at all times. 

Be curious, always: You are willing to learn a little bit of everything, and open to take on anything. 

The Weber Shandwick Collective recognizes that your health and wellbeing are a priority. This is why we offer a full suite of benefits including:

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• 401k (with employer match)
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Juice Money - $60 monthly reimbursement to be used towards purchases that nourish your health, mind, body, and soul
• MyDays – Flexible holiday schedules
• Short-Term Disability
• Paid Employee Family Leave
• Family Building Benefit

Weber Shandwick is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Weber Shandwick recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.

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