Senior Account Strategist

Senior Account Strategist, B2B Marketing

Dog and Pony Studios is an integrated creative and digital agency for B2B brands. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, we are a hybrid agency with remote teams located across Canada, South America and Europe. For 25+ years, our teams have worked at the cutting edge of technology and design, collaborating with some of the highest-impact organizations globally.

We’re seeking a Senior Account Strategist with 5+ years of agency experience and a strong background in B2B marketing. As a Senior Account Strategist, you will lead a significant and diverse portfolio of projects for a key financial services account. This is a hands-on role that requires a blend of production experience, B2B marketing expertise, client management skills and the ability to develop subject matter expertise. As the dedicated account expert, you will architect creative solutions to complex business problems, provide strategic direction to internal teams, ensure seamless execution throughout the production life cycle and take charge of the account’s financial health.

Responsibilities

• Owning the Numbers: Manage the account's financial health, forecast revenue, accurately scope projects and ensure projects deliver on budget.
• Orchestrating Success: Lead projects from spark to finish line, ensuring best-in-class solutions, efficient execution and an exceptional client experience.
• Being the Account Expert: Develop a deep understanding of every project and confidently advise clients on strategic optimizations and potential opportunities.
• Elevating the Work: Review and refine materials with a critical eye, ensuring they are strategically aligned, meet business requirements and exceed client expectations.
• Advocating for Excellence: Proactively identify potential challenges and opportunities and provide strategic counsel to both clients and internal teams.

Who you are

Fast, Focused, Flexible

• You are a strategic thinker with a passion for breathing life into B2B marketing through creative excellence. You are an exceptional communicator and ask the right questions to get to the heart of the business challenge at hand. You offer strategic counsel and guidance to clients and are always looking for ways to add value.
• You understand the importance of taking a proactive, client-first approach at all times and bring significant experience building consensus and developing strong relationships in a corporate environment with multiple stakeholders. You tailor your style according to the audience, present confidently and are able to develop and build relationships with clients, partners and senior stakeholders. Clients feel assured that you understand their business.
• You seek to raise the bar in any situation and are excited to grow professionally alongside a senior, high-performing team. You apply consistently high standards and motivate your team to reach them.
• You get things done. You have a track record of success in project management and delivery across various project types (events, digital advertising, sales enablement, campaigns, content marketing, etc.), as well as financial management.
• You have excellent time management skills . You are dependable, conscientious, keen, and reliable. You can juggle and prioritize, meet challenging deadlines, and find solutions.
• You have an excellent understanding of brand and marketing in the B2B space and are up to date on trends, innovations and evolving best practices. You keep pace with technology. You can think fast and on your feet. You research before you ask, and know when to bring in outside experts.
• You have an excellent grasp of production requirements and can effectively translate client requests into actionable tasks and comprehensive briefs. You’re not a “suit,” but you can don one if the situation requires it; most likely, you have been on the production side, and you bring this experience and respect to your interactions with the creative team.
• You have a desire to grow and develop our business as well as grow personally within the role, challenge the status quo, and be part of developing new creative approaches and solutions to both our client’s problems and our internal priorities.
• You have a positive/collegial attitude internally and present yourself professionally to clients at all times. You are diplomatic and are unfazed by unexpected issues, evolving scope or schedule changes.
• You embrace our Dog and Pony Studios values and contribute to a culture of excellence.

What you’ll be doing

Leading, Doing, Building

Leading projects

• Write proposals, scope work and oversee budgets
• Define client needs, including writing actionable briefs and/or production tasks, leading kick-off calls and working closely with production team members to gather, understand and refine client requirements
• Develop timelines, review production schedules and own deadlines
• Manage scope changes
• Guide creative teams and review work with a critical eye and outstanding attention to detail
• Work collaboratively with Production Leads and Project Management teams to scope and triage projects, prioritize resourcing and remove production roadblocks
• Monitor and respond to internal and external communication channels quickly and effectively
• Track and categorize production time accurately using real-time tracking tools

Client management

• Help clients define their strategy, including creating strategic presentations, translating “visions” into proposals and providing strategic counsel
• Proactively communicate project progress and oversee and/or handle all client communication across all required or preferred client communication platforms
• Receive and interpret client feedback and edits
• Lead client meetings, discovery calls and pitches
• Develop and maintain client-facing accounting documents/process
• Build strong relationships with external partners, in-house agencies and brand teams
• Travel as required

Docket Management and Business Development

• Keep our Accounts and Pipeline boards up to date
• Collaborate with Finance teams in a timely manner
• Manage contract/retainers workflow
• Seeking new growth/cross-sell opportunities
• Provide regular, detailed updates to senior leadership

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or higher, or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of related, B2B Marketing, client-facing industry experience in a similar role, preferably within an agency environment
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills
• Knowledge or other educational background in one of our key areas of specialization would help you hit the ground running, but is not a requirement for consideration (Financial Services, Data Services, ESG, Consulting)
• Demonstrated experience in marketing excellence

What we offer

• Global Team: We hire the best professionals from all over the world. Be part of a highly motivated, multidisciplinary team working on world-class creative.
• Global Clients: Work on interesting and complex projects for some of the biggest companies in the world.
• No Diva Policy: This is a friendly, collegial, client-centric team focused on delivering world-class products.
• Hybrid Office: We’ve been a hybrid agency since 2008. If you’re in Toronto, you will frequently work from our headquarters. You’ll meet your global teammates face-to-face a few times a year when we bring people together.
• Structured Career Plan: We recognize great work and reward you accordingly. We provide a structured career path with regular evaluation-based promotions.
• Paid Vacation: 3 weeks annual paid vacation + annual wellness time off through Christmas and New Year.
• Paid Benefits: 100% coverage, without co-pay, with our benefits package.
• Paid Sick Leave: Generous yearly allowance for paid sick days.