Account Director

Guardian Australia is part of Guardian News & Media (GNM), publisher of theguardian.com. As a leading global media organisation, we are renowned for our pioneering independent journalism and our award-winning digital products.

We are seeking a skilled and motivated Account Director to join our close-knit team in our Sydney office on a full-time, permanent basis. As an Account Director, you will play an important role in helping the organisation generate revenue from allocated clients and agency patch using all available Guardian products and platforms.

You'll work on

  • Represent Guardian Australia to a portfolio of key agencies and clients in order to hit designated revenue targets using elevated sales skills and acumen.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of all Guardian products including display, content, podcasts and programmatic in order to meet the demands of agencies and clients.
  • Drive and develop deep relationships with agencies and clients with a view to creating long term, strategic partnerships and maximise existing contacts in order to drive revenue.
  • Ensure all clients and agencies are kept up-to-date with relevant information about Guardian Australia through regular meetings and presentations - up holding a minimum of 5 client meetings per week and maintaining focus and traction via the super service list, pipeline and contact plan.
  • Continue to drive content partnerships, direct display, programmatic, and audio driven solutions for key clients on Guardian platforms in order to maximise revenue, with a focus on new and repeat business.
  • Lead by example and coach the Account Coordinator, working as a cohesive team in order to meet client needs and achieve revenue targets for allocated agency and client patch.

You'll bring….

Sales Skills

  • Demonstrate strong business acumen and be able to talk at a senior level about major business issues and challenges in a confident manner using problem solving skills.
  • Customer focused attitude and able to deliver complex solutions, with the ability to offer alternatives and resolve customer objections whilst keeping the client happy.
  • Execute strategic thinking and be able to persistently approach an agency or a customer proactively with solutions to meet marketing objectives as part of the Victoria and South Australia revenue growth strategy.
  • Continue to nurture agencies, business units and clients within your portfolio. Understand key timings and curate a long term contact strategy in order to keep The Guardian top of mind.
  • Showcase excellent presentation skills both virtually and face to face to bigger groups and the ability to bring an idea to life and craft the narrative to take an audience on a journey in a compelling manner.
  • Identify client needs and match to a solution. Work with clients to shape a brief for The Guardian and help them understand the core benefits using insights and wider knowledge.
  • Ability to build end-to-end sales proposals for complex long term campaigns using excellent written skills in order to build market leading responses. Implementing impeccable attention to detail, higher level thinking, professional and visually appealing decks and highly accurate media schedules.
  • Able to negotiate a deal using various closing techniques to achieve a win/win position for The Guardian and the client.
  • Ability to close deals on a multitude of revenue scales.
  • Excellent pipeline management skills, understanding the need for short, medium and long term business to achieve a target across the year and ensuring the pipeline is up to date at all times with a robust number of opportunities.
  • Demonstrate the confidence and skills for strong questioning and listening techniques and possess the ability to extract necessary information through truly open questions.
  • Take the lead in solving problems through innovative thinking in order to achieve a solution for internal and external stakeholder management whilst maintaining a level headed mindset.
  • Demonstrable leadership capabilities, including encouraging others by acknowledging strengths and contributions, taking time to show others, empowering junior members of the team, and taking an active role in onboarding new team members.

Knowledge

  • Demonstrate strong knowledge of display and content marketing, drawing on learnings from past campaigns and applying this knowledge accordingly to form robust media strategies.
  • Competent in our governance process and understand when a campaign needs to go through governance to protect our editorial integrity.
  • Ownership of the production process involved in bringing a successful campaign to life, ensuring all steps are taken to ensure success.
  • Excellent knowledge of the Australian media landscape, including an understanding of how media agencies are structured, their respective clients and the role of media agencies, creative agencies and clients in the process of planning and booking a campaign.
  • Great awareness of what is happening in the competitive media landscape utilising LinkedIn, Trade press and attending events to maximise your own confidence and client know how.
  • Excellent technical knowledge, particularly in understanding production processes, understanding of Ad Tech, GAM, forecasting, implementation and reporting systems.

Mindset

  • Able to collaborate with multiple stakeholders in order to lead a project from start to finish in a positive and inspiring manner
  • Ensuring company values are applied on a daily basis both internally and externally and you are seen as a champion of values and with excellent integrity
  • Self-sufficient in your role, can be relied upon to complete tasks and use initiative to solve tasks and conduct meetings in the market alone when required.
  • Highly goal oriented in regards to budgets and understand the process involved to achieve short and long term revenue goals. With a positive and tenacious mindset in order to achieve budgets even in difficult times
  • Showcase in-built resilience and be able to stay calm in the face of setbacks, responding with a positive attitude under pressure and able to go above and beyond to ensure clients needs are met.
  • Good self-awareness and excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate well with different personalities, always in a positive manner
  • Maintain an open-minded approach to tasks, tackling them with an optimistic mindset

About working at Guardian Australia

  • Hybrid working
  • Employee assistance program (EAP) to support employee wellbeing
  • Paid volunteer leave
  • Dedicated diversity and inclusion employee groups, action plans (including our Reconciliation Action Plan) and cultural competency training
  • Guardian digital subscription

For more information please view the full job description here.

This role is being offered on a full-time, permanent basis.

To apply for this position, please apply online and upload your résumé (maximum three pages) plus covering letter as one document. In your covering letter please outline your motivation for applying for the role and why you think you are suitable.

Closing date for applications: Thursday 23 January 2025

If you have application questions or if you require an adjustment to be made during the recruitment process, please email australia.hr@theguardian.com

We believe that our role in the Australian media is to give a voice to the most marginalised people in society and value and respect all differences in all people — including people of colour, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, people from different social classes, people with diverse gender and sexual identities, and people with disabilities (seen and unseen). We believe that these communities must be centred in the work we do, bringing a new perspective and a diversity of thought. We also encourage flexible working and aim to create a work environment where all employees feel respected.