Client Partner

Company Description We are the Human Experience Agency. We believe the growth opportunity lies in people. We understand and anticipate human desires to deliver media experiences of value. We call this PeoplePoweredGrowth! Focusing on both business outcomes and human outcomes is proven to deliver stronger growth for clients. PeoplePoweredGrowth identifies the intersection between what people want and what brands need, to create media experiences of value. PeoplePoweredGrowth orchestrates the right talent and capability to solve for clients’ unique business challenges through interconnected capability. PeoplePoweredGrowth embodies a way of thinking, working, and learning; challenging the status quo and always reaching for a better. It is a culture of never standing still. Starcom is a full service, global media agency with a presence in multiple markets around the world. We believe in the power of our network and work closely with our global colleagues to ensure that we are providing our clients with global best practice, localized for the South African market. Our clients include Mondelez, Haleon (GSK), Samsung, Stellantis, Sandoz, Kellogg’s to name a few. We are part of the Publicis network – the fastest growing global network.

Overview Reports to Managing Director

Dotted line Head of Media

Role purpose Owns the client relationship, business context, commercial priorities, scope, revenue protection and senior stakeholder alignment. Ensures every media assignment starts with a clear business problem, growth ambition, JTBD and success definition — so the agency responds to the client’s business challenge, not only a media brief.

Responsibilities Scope of role

• Client business understanding
• Stakeholder management
• Business brief quality
• Scope & fee protection
• Commercial risk escalation
• Internal team alignment
• Client-facing narrative
• Returning learnings into the next brief

Core Accountabilities

• Own the client relationship and senior client confidence.
• Understand the client’s business, category, competitors and growth ambition.
• Translate client needs into a clear business brief and JTBD.
• Ensure all assignments have success criteria before strategy and planning begin.
• Confirm budget, timelines, stakeholders, approvals and commercial constraints.
• Align internal teams around the same brief.
• Protect agency scope, fees and revenue.
• Escalate client-facing delivery, billing or commercial risks.
• Ensure PCA learnings influence future briefs.
• Managing / Client Partner Owns executive relationship, revenue growth, scope expansion and partnership.

Mandatory artifacts owned

• Business Brief

Defines the business problem, objective, market context and required response.

JTBD Definition

• Defines the job media must do for the brand or business.
• Success Definition Confirms business, brand, media and commercial KPIs.
• Stakeholder Alignment Note Confirms decision-makers, approvers and timelines.
• Scope & Fee Check Confirms whether work is covered by scope or needs additional fee.
• Client Escalation Note Used when material delivery, billing or commercial risks need client discussion.
• Next Brief Input Ensures PCA learnings feed the next campaign brief.

Decision rights

• Is the brief complete enough to begin strategy In scope or additional fee
• Whether client escalation is required
• Whether the response answers the business problem
• Whether PCA needs formal client discussion

Qualifications

• Client leadership
• 10+ years managing senior stakeholders, large accounts, revenue and teams.

Manage senior client relationships.

• Business understanding

Grasp commercial, category and brand challenges.

• Briefing discipline

Convert client needs into clear briefs.

• Commercial awareness

Manage scope, fee, risk and revenue.

• Stakeholder management

Align client, agency and partner teams.

• Communication

Present clearly and influence decision-makers.

• Escalation management

Handle sensitive delivery or billing issues

Additional Information How performance is measured

• Brief quality

Percentage of briefs accepted without major rework.

• Client satisfaction

Relationship health and senior stakeholder confidence.

• Scope control

Reduction in unscoped work and fee leakage.

• Revenue protection

Retention, growth and commercial risk management.

• Approval discipline

On-time client approvals.

• PCA adoption

Evidence learnings are used in future briefs.