Director - Sport

M+C Saatchi UK; London; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading agency in Sport & Entertainment seeks a Director to drive the growth of their Sports department. This role includes leading teams, managing financial targets, and executing innovative strategies that create authentic connections between brands and consumers, supported by a passionate team.

Benefits

27 days annual holiday

Private healthcare

Employer contributory pension

Life assurance

Income protection

Qualifications

• Proven track record in driving commercial success.
• Experience in team leadership and development.
• Deep understanding of global cultural trends.

Responsibilities

• Drive the growth of the Sports department.
• Lead responses to client briefs and manage financial targets.
• Mentor team members and promote a collaborative culture.

Skills

Exceptional communication skills

Leadership

Strategic mindset

Job description

M+C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment arelooking for a Director to join our industry leading Sport team. This is an exciting opportunity to drive continued growth in the department responsible for supporting the Managing Partner across: the commercials, the team, the work and the cultural impact.

You play a pivotal role in shaping and driving innovative work that pushes the boundaries and is industry defining. Your deep understanding of global cultural trends, consumer behaviour, and passion points across Sport & Entertainment will enable you to lead multidisciplinary teams in crafting compelling narratives and campaigns that connect brands to consumers through the things the love, in authentic and meaningful ways.

You are a leader with a strategic mindset, exceptional communication skills, with a passion for culture and fostering creative and inclusive work environments.

About The Role:

You will be responsible for driving the continued growth of our Sport department across Sport & Entertainment clients, leading commercials, the team, the work and the agency:

The Commercials

As a Director you will contribute to the commercial success of the Sport department, playing a key role in the commercial success of the business, which includes:

• Achieving financial targets and goals
• Procuring and progressing new business leads
• Growing your client workstreams through incremental growth, spotting opportunities and proactively chasing them
• Lead responses on client briefs to success
• Negotiating rates and payment structures that are financially efficient
• Tight management of scope delivery, dealing with hour overages with clients and ensuring your projects are not operating at a loss
• Monitoring team performance and analysing data to provide actions to any team members under-utilised or overservicing
• Manage budgets and financials on your accounts, ensuring projects are delivered within scope and on budget
• Ensuring finance processes are adhered to and commercial paperwork is completed promptly and in line with audit and internal regulations
• Ensuring your POs are approved and on time from clients
• You work with other Directors to find staffing efficiencies and solutions that benefit the commercial success of your campaigns

The Team

You are an excellent team leader, responsible for the development and operations of an A-class team:

• Oversee the Sport team and division alongside our Directors across line-management, recruitment and facilitating work
• Mentor and guide team members, fostering a culture of creativity, collaboration, and continuous learning
• Keeping your team close-knit, engaged and highly motivated
• Pre-empting and trouble-shooting any team issues
• Maintenance of a good retention rate to ensure client stability, department efficiency and to maximise the benefits of long-standing tenure
• Provide clear direction, feedback, and support to help team members achieve their professional and personal goals
• Promote diversity, equity, and inclusion within your team and the agency, encouraging diverse perspectives and ideas.
• Adapting your approach to each individual

The Work

Clients should work with the agency because of their working relationship with you and your team, and because of our exceptional output:

• Socialising and close relationship building with clients to support retention, growth and prospecting
• Nimble and personalised approach to clients, leaning into who they are and how we can ensure a long-term relationship with them
• Providing first-class counsel and strategic and creative oversight across the work
• Maintaining standards of output and assuming responsibility for the work your team delivers, ensuring best in class work across all deliverables- keeping our standards high and teams accountable
• Driving industry-defining work to ensure our campaigns are celebrated and talked about
• Assume accountability for KPIs
• Have periodical transparent conversations with clients around reviews/performance to pre-empt and address any issues early on

WHAT YOU'LL BRING:

The Agency

The agency is a sum of its parts and while departmental focus is your core area of responsibility, you play a huge role in ensuring the success of the business overall, both culturally and commercially

• Having a prominent voice across the business as a leader of the company
• Working collaboratively with other offices and teams and encouraging you teams to work in a collaborative and integrated way, while celebrating their specialisms
• Representing the business internally, working with other parts of the group to work towards overall growth plans
• Representing the business externally, via industry events, trade press, networking and profile work
• Maintaining the upmost professionalism and discretion as an ambassador of the agency, keeping agency information private and confidential and maintaining the integrity of the business

ABOUT M+C SAATCHI SPORT & ENTERTAINMENT

M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment is ‘the’ Passions Agency – we create brand impact through the things people love, forging authentic connections between brands and consumers through their love of sport, entertainment, and culture.

Our clients include, adidas, Ballantine’s, Barclaycard, Barclays, Jameson, Heineken, Kia, LEGO and Unilever. With offices in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dubai, Sydney, New York and Johannesburg, a team of specialists deliver the agency’s core disciplines across sport, entertainment and lifestyle, including sponsorship consultancy, rights amplification, PR, branded content creation & experiential production.

Our work has been awarded across the board, including seventh-time Agency of the Year at the Sport Industry Awards and two-time large Agency of the Year at the UK Sponsorship Awards.

M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment sits within the M&C Saatchi Group. Beyond this, the M&C Saatchi global network spans 23 countries with major hubs in the UK, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia and Australia.

WHAT YOU'LL GET

For the right candidate, we will offer a competitive salary and benefits package which includes 27 days annual holiday, private healthcare, employer contributory pension, life assurance and income protection.

Our commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion sees us offer inclusive bank holidays, learning opportunities around DE&I, targeted mentoring programmes and the opportunity to participate in active Employee Led Networks and associated events.

All employee information is kept confidential according to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

ABOUT M+C SAATCHI GROUP