Business Director

Run the commercial heart of a thirty year independent agency

Imagic is an independent Christchurch creative agency. Thirty years of work we are genuinely proud of, client relationships that have lasted decades, and a standard of craft that holds its own against any agency in the country. The work is the point here, and it is really good work.

We have also quietly rebuilt how we operate around our own proprietary platform, which is why a team this size moves like one twice as big. But that is the engine, not the story.

What we need now is the person who runs the business side of the studio, beside the MD.

The role
Let's be clear about what this is not. It is not an operations manager job, and it is not an admin role. The grunt work is automated: our finance and studio systems are wired together, and a contract bookkeeper handles the transactional layer. What is left is the part that needs judgment.

This is the seat where the clients and the numbers both answer to you:

• Lead the client group. You are the senior commercial voice across our client base, working with our Account Managers. You will keep real client work of your own, because we think the person who runs the commercial engine should still be in the room where the work is sold and defended.
• Own the money in motion. Job budgets and variations, scope calls, WIP, resourcing and utilisation, the monthly billing rhythm. When a job is drifting off its budget, you are the person who says so before it costs us, not after.
• Run production. The traffic function is yours: who is on what, what is due when, where next month's capacity crunch is coming from. The weekly WIP is your meeting, the studio schedule is your call, and the function leads own the quality of what ships. The MD reads your numbers; he does not compile them.
• Partner on growth. Work with the MD on proposals, pricing and pipeline, and move our biggest clients onto long-term agreements.

You will report to the MD, sit on the leadership team, and have genuine influence over how this business is shaped for its next chapter. That is the actual offer: not a job adjacent to the business, a hand on the wheel of it.

Who we are looking for
Probably an Account Director, Group Account Director or senior suit who has been thinking: I could run one of these. Specifically:

• Solid agency or professional services experience at a senior client facing level.
• Real commercial instincts. You read a P&L without flinching, you know what utilisation means for an agency, and you have opinions about why jobs blow their budgets.
• The spine to hold a scope conversation with a client you like, and the warmth to keep the relationship better than you found it.
• An organised, calm, low drama way of running things. People bring you problems because you settle them.
• Real care about the work. You are commercial to the bone, but you know the numbers exist so the studio can keep making work worth defending.
• Curiosity about new ways of working. We are further down the AI road than most agencies, and we will teach you what you do not already know.

Why this is a good move
You will sell and defend work you are genuinely proud of, for clients who have stayed for decades because of it. You will work directly with the MD and a small, senior team where your calls actually land. And you will get the thing an Account Director rarely gets handed: the commercial levers of the whole business, with the mandate to pull them.

Christchurch based, central studio on Colombo Street, full time, salary $125,000 to $140,000 depending on what you bring, plus a bonus scheme tied to the commercial results this role exists to drive.

To apply
Send a CV and a short note, a paragraph or two on why this role and one story about a commercial call you made that mattered, to [email protected]. No cover letter theatre required. We will reply to everyone.

No recruiters required, thank you.