Business Unit Director

ROLE PURPOSE

• The Business Unit Director is a senior client and business leader responsible for the successful leadership, growth, integration and delivery of an assigned area of the Publicis/client partnership.
• The role translates the Managing Partner's overall business ambition into strong day-to-day client leadership, integrated agency delivery, commercially sound account management and consistently high standards of strategic, creative and operational execution.
• The Business Unit Director develops trusted client relationships, understands the client's business and marketing priorities, leads the account management team and coordinates relevant Publicis capabilities to ensure work is delivered effectively across TTL, digital, social, content, media, customer experience and emerging channels.
• A critical part of the mandate is to move the relationship beyond campaign administration toward proactive business partnership - identifying opportunities, improving integration, using data and digital intelligence more effectively, and ensuring the team continually creates greater value for the client.
• The Business Unit Director is ultimately accountable for ensuring their area of the partnership delivers strong client relationships, high-quality integrated work, sustainable growth, commercial discipline, effective resource utilisation and a high-performing client leadership team.

Responsibilities

STRATEGIC BUSINESS LEADERSHIP

• Translate the Managing Partner's strategic direction into a clear business agenda for the assigned client portfolio, business unit or scope.
• Develop a strong understanding of the client's business, customers, competitive environment, brand priorities and commercial objectives.
• Support short- and long-term strategic, creative, operational and financial planning for the client business.
• Ensure account teams are focused on solving the client's business and customer problems, not only delivering campaign outputs.
• Bring proactive perspectives and opportunities to the client rather than relying only on incoming briefs.
• Provide clear direction, accountability and decision-making across the account management team.

SENIOR CLIENT PARTNERSHIP

• Own and develop strong day-to-day and senior relationships across assigned client stakeholders.
• Act as a trusted client partner, bringing clarity, challenge and informed recommendations to business and marketing conversations.
• Maintain high standards of responsiveness, communication, expectation management and follow-through.
• Identify relationship, delivery or scope risks early and ensure timely corrective action.
• Act as an escalation point for client issues within the assigned business area, escalating material risks to the Managing Partner where appropriate.
• Translate client feedback into visible improvement across the team and agency product.

BUSINESS GROWTH & PARTNERSHIP EXPANSION

• Support the Managing Partner in growing the value and scope of the client partnership.
• Identify unmet client needs and opportunities across strategy, creative, digital, data, customer experience, media, content, production, technology and related capabilities.
• Develop commercially sensible growth opportunities and coordinate the right Publicis expertise to respond.
• Drive organic growth through proactive thinking, strong client relationships and consistent delivery performance.
• Support pitches, proposals, scope expansions and strategic growth conversations.
• Focus on sustainable growth that creates value for both the client and Publicis.

INTEGRATION & POWER OF ONE LEADERSHIP

• Coordinate the relevant Publicis Groupe disciplines and partner agencies required to deliver integrated solutions for the client.
• Drive collaboration across Strategy, Creative, Media, Digital, Data, Technology, Production, PR, Activation and other specialist capabilities.
• Ensure the client experiences a connected agency team rather than separate departments or agencies.
• Clarify roles, ownership, responsibilities and hand-offs across integrated workstreams.
• Enable strong intercompany and interdepartmental communication, knowledge sharing and decision-making.
• Resolve integration issues quickly and escalate structural barriers where necessary.

DIGITAL, DATA & FUTURE-FIT CLIENT LEADERSHIP

• Lead with a digital-first mindset and understand how digital platforms support and enhance broader integrated campaign development.
• Maintain working understanding of consumer journey mapping, search, SEO, UX/UI, digital development and QA, performance media, social platforms, CRM, data and insight gathering.
• Ensure teams define meaningful KPIs linked to client business objectives rather than channel activity alone.
• Use campaign and performance information to drive optimisation and proactive client recommendations.
• Support the use of real-time dashboards, reporting and connected data to improve decision-making and campaign performance.
• Build practical fluency in AI, automation and emerging marketing technologies and identify where these can improve client value, speed, quality or efficiency.
• Champion responsible use of AI and technology while maintaining appropriate governance, security and human oversight.

FUTURE-FIT OPERATING MODEL & TRANSFORMATION

• Support the Managing Partner and Operations leadership in implementing the future client operating model.
• Help embed agreed workflows, governance structures, standards, platforms and ways of working across the account team.
• Challenge legacy processes that create unnecessary duplication, delay or fragmented delivery.
• Ensure transformation and new technology adoption do not compromise business continuity or client service.
• Support behavioural change across teams and reinforce new ways of collaborating, briefing, reviewing and delivering work.
• Provide practical feedback from client and team experience to continuously improve the operating model.

CREATIVE, STRATEGIC & PRODUCT EXCELLENCE

• Maintain oversight of the quality of strategic and creative work delivered within the assigned business area.
• Ensure briefs clearly reflect business objectives, audience understanding, desired outcomes and agreed success measures.
• Create the conditions for Strategy and Creative teams to develop ambitious, effective and culturally relevant work.
• Ensure digital, data and customer-experience thinking are integrated into the agency product from the outset.
• Participate actively in key strategic, creative and integrated reviews.
• Use campaign performance and client feedback to improve future strategic and creative output.

COMMERCIAL LEADERSHIP & PROFITABILITY

• Manage the commercial health of the assigned client portfolio in partnership with the Managing Partner, Finance and Operations.
• Maintain visibility of scope, fees, estimates, budgets, resource requirements and commercial risks.
• Support revenue planning, forecasting and delivery against agreed contribution targets and ratios.
• Identify resource and infrastructure optimisation opportunities and drive efficiencies and economies of scale.
• Ensure new or expanded work is appropriately scoped and commercially viable.
• Balance client value, delivery quality, resource efficiency and agency profitability.

TALENT & CLIENT LEADERSHIP

• Lead, coach and develop a high-performing Account Management / Client Leadership team.
• Attract, retain and grow strong client-service talent and create clear accountability for performance.
• Embed Publicis values, expected behaviours and a culture of collaboration, ownership and continuous learning.
• Develop the team's ability to lead integrated campaigns, build client confidence and operate effectively across digital and traditional channels.
• Support knowledge transfer, upskilling and exposure to best practice across the Groupe.
• Conduct regular performance conversations and support formal review and development processes.
• Demonstrate professional matu