Commercial Lead

UNAVAILABLE; London; On-site; GBP 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading global agency seeks a Commercial Lead to oversee resource management across European clients. This role involves optimizing staffing decisions, managing proposals for new business, and ensuring effective communication within agency teams. Ideal candidates will possess strong analytical and project management skills, with a proven track record in a media environment.

Qualifications

• Strong background in resource management within media or advertising.
• Excellent relationship management and influencing skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects with set deadlines.

Responsibilities

• Ensure effective and optimal resourcing through hiring and work allocation.
• Manage delivery of commercial proposals for new business opportunities.
• Provide accurate reporting and analysis to leadership.

Skills

Commercial-led resource management

Communication skills

Analytical skills

Project management

Negotiation skills

Job description

About Us

At Assembly, our mission is to find the change that fuels growth. We apply this principle to the work we do with our clients and to how we engage with our people. We’re a modern global agency bringing together media, data, technology and talent to make brands perform.

Our business is purpose driven. In March 2022, we were named Ad Age’s first ever Purpose-Led Agency of the Year, recognised for our mission to leave the world better than we found it. This year we became B Corp certified, the result of a two-year journey. We’re proud to have created a culture where diversity of thought, experience, and background are valued, within an environment that fosters continuous learning, adaptability, and a shared passion for meaningful impact.

When you join Assembly, you become part of an award-winning global community of digitally led experts, home to 1,500 talented people across 25 offices globally. Together we create unique data, technology and media solutions that enable faster and smarter problem solving within an inspired, collaborative workplace.

Assembly is poised for its next chapter of growth. We’re a meritocratic, high-performance business with a progressive outlook and a growth mindset in all that we do. To realise our potential we need some new skills and thinking.

The core DNA of Assembly lies in digital performance marketing. New and existing clients are asking us to extend this expertise across all media, connecting traditional channels with digital methods of execution, measurement and automation. We were born the right way to do this – we’re building out from a leading digital and technology capability and adding the rest, rather than trying to reverse engineer a legacy business into a more modern version of itself. At Assembly we ask our people to embody three core values:

Show Up: actively contribute to a space of personal and collective growth

Make Change: embrace obstacles as opportunities, taking intentional steps to drive positive change

Win Well: approach success with integrity, responsibility, and a commitment to collaboration, understanding that the journey is as important as the destination.

We look forward to meeting you and to discussing how we can grow together.

Overview

The Commercial Lead is responsible for the overall resource in the agency, knowing when to reduce, when to hire and what to hire for what client. Having oversight of all European clients and resources in one place will allow for the right decisions to be made at the right time.

Across retainers and projects the CL needs to be strong of character, informed by data and able to see multi-dimensional resource challenges. You will partner with leadership, finance, talent acquisition and HR to follow, enhance and optimize our operational process using data to drive decisions within the agency, working to the end goal of automation in this area through tools and systems.

You will understand client(s) scopes of work, revenue profile and timesheet analysis, in order to support the agency to make the right decisions. This includes proactively working on new business proposals, utilising resourcing data to inform optimal team structures and personnel for each client, working closely with agency leadership.The Commercial Lead is responsible for making commercial recommendations, facilitating decisions as part of a collective.

You will provide accurate reporting and analysis to leadership and department heads, identifying gaps, and resolving issues. You will assign the right people to the right projects and retainers at the right time and help drive an efficient and effective high-performance culture.

Responsibilities

• Ensure effective and optimal resourcing through hiring, moves and work allocation takes place both within client Assemblies as well as departments
• Ensure, at all times, we represent an accurate staffing picture showing by client and discipline what staff are allocated on what accounts
• Manage the delivery of commercial proposals for new business opportunities, working closely with the Growth team, Agency leadership and Commercial Director
• Identify instances of current and potential future over/under utilisation and work with leadership to address issues and mitigate risk
• Maintain effective communications with agency teams to understand utilisation, capacity, schedule and budget changes and upcoming resource availability
• Escalate sensitive or high-risk staffing situations to leadership
• Lead resource meetings to understand impacts to resource needs (new projects, timeline movement) and facilitate risk/issue mitigations
• Maintain understanding of main resource management metrics and how these metrics impact department’s financial performance
• Provide resource forecasts to Agency leadership and Finance including under/over utilisation, new business pipeline allocation and resources needed to execute
• Manage resource requests by validating requirements and affordability
• Partner closely with Talent Acquisition to prioritise and manage the pipeline of demand in accordance with business priorities

Required Skills

• Strong background in commercial-led resource management/staffing/workforce planning, preferably within a media or advertising agency environment
• Excellent communication skills — written and verbal/presentation
• The ability to make tough calls and deliver bad and good news with equal comfort
• Excellent relationship management and influencing skills
• Ability to work with senior leaders and all levels in the organisation
• Strong analytical skills
• Ability to take complex issues or situations and present them in a simple and easy to follow manner
• Ability to manage multiple projects with set deadlines as time management, pattern recognition, prioritisation, diligent attention to detail and judgment are critical in this role
• Strong understanding of project management practices
• Confident, assertive (but tactful) communication style
• Ability to work in ambiguous environments and comfortable with the unknown, as well as work well under pressure, solve problems
• High level of personal accountability, integrity, and authenticity
• Excellent negotiation and leadership skills operating with absolute professionalism and confidentiality

Equal Opportunities

Assembly is an advocate for equal opportunity in the workplace. We are committed to ensuring equal opportunities regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability and gender identity. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.