Account Director

Haberman; Minneapolis, Saint Paul (MN, MN); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401(k) with company match

Paid vacation, holidays, and sick time

Life and disability insurance

Employee Assistance Program

Job summary

Haberman is seeking a Strategic Account Director to act as a trusted advisor to senior client leaders, guiding integrated marketing programs that drive measurable outcomes and build lasting partnerships. You will energize a talented team, oversee campaigns, identify growth opportunities, and help evolve Haberman's client service model with AI-driven capabilities.

This role blends strategic consulting, paid media leadership, business development, and team management, requiring a track record of

Qualifications

• 10+ years of account management or integrated marketing experience, with a portion in Consumer Products.
• 3–5 years leading client teams and mentoring others.
• Experience leading paid media programs with multi-million budgets.
• Agency experience with senior client stakeholders from Brand Manager to C-suite.
• Experience guiding integrated campaigns across multiple marketing disciplines.
• Proven ability to connect marketing investments to business growth and sales results.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the strategic lead for multiple client relationships and drive growth.
• Lead cross-functional teams and coordinate with internal Haberman experts to deliver integrated campaigns.
• Identify and pursue new business opportunities and renewals with clients.
• Shape and review plans, ensuring alignment with client goals and ROI expectations.
• Mentor and coach junior team members to build high-performing teams.
• Collaborate with media, content, design, and influencer teams to optimize campaign impact.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Client management

Leadership

Communication

Financial literacy

Cross-functional collaboration

Job description

At Haberman, we believe great marketing and communications can make the world better.

For more than 30 years, we've partnered with pioneers—organizations tackling some of society's biggest challenges in health, sustainability, food, agriculture, education, financial wellness, and social impact. Our mission is simple:

To tell the stories of pioneers making a difference in the world.

Today, we're entering our next chapter. We're helping clients navigate one of the biggest transformations our industry has ever experienced—the intersection of human creativity, AI, data, behavior change, and integrated marketing. We're looking for a strategic leader who is excited to help build what's next. If you're someone who loves solving complex business problems, developing meaningful client partnerships, inspiring teams and helping brands grow through smart strategy and measurable results, we'd love to meet you.

About the Role

As a Strategic Account Director, you'll serve as a trusted advisor to senior client leaders while guiding integrated marketing programs that create measurable business outcomes. You'll lead client relationships, energize and guide a talented, always-learning team, oversee integrated campaigns, identify new growth opportunities, and help shape the future of Haberman's client service model.

This role combines strategic consulting, integrated marketing leadership, business development, paid media expertise, and team leadership. We aren't looking for someone to simply manage projects—we're looking for someone who helps clients make better business decisions.

What You'll Do

Lead Client Growth Outcomes

• Serve as the strategic lead for several client relationships.
• Serve as a lead Facilitator with C-level clients in our new AI partnership. This venture will initially support startups and non-profits with positioning and go-to-market services using proven human marketing expertise combined with a rapidly-scaling AI platform.
• Leverage your own experience and all that surrounds you at Haberman to recommend the best marketing investments and ways to deliver them that generate the best business outcomes for our clients.
• Know when to respectfully push back and bring healthy tension to the client relationship and/or with the internal Haberman team in the name of generating those outcomes.
• Build trusted partnerships with client executives, including C-suite leadership.

Create Marketing-Driven Business Success

• Set realistic yet ambitious expectations with the internal team and clients about the role marketing plays in delivering the outcome goals set with clients.
• Lead brand and creative strategy, inclusive of conducting and engaging resources for primary and secondary research, defining audience targets, brief development and ensuring teams stay on brief throughout the development process.
• Lead internal and client alignment around the right mix and cost of marketing elements to meet or exceed the goals—ranging from performance media, shopper, brand awareness, retail media or other tactics.
• Ensure the measurement strategy and specific plan are in place prior to moving ahead so that all activity can be objectively measured and improved over time.
• Partner with and integrate the team and tactics to deliver against the goals and plan, tapping into Haberman skills including design, content strategy, paid, earned and owned content, media planning and buying and influencer marketing.
• Lead integration of the internal client team and any other agencies for seamless collaboration.
• Serve as the final strategic and quality review for plans, presentations, and major client deliverables.
• Partner with Haberman media experts to communicate media and content impacts and recommended actions clearly, simply and in a way aligned to what clients care most about.
• Identify opportunities for incremental growth through measurement, testing and optimization.

Grow Client Partnerships

• Partner closely with clients to solve their toughest marketing challenges in timely ways, and to help create trust with C-suite and board/ownership related to marketing impact on the business.
• Lead strategic planning for new initiatives and project renewals.
• Participate in new business development, including prospect meetings, proposal development and presentations.

Lead People

• Inspire collaboration across cross-functional teams
• Coach, mentor, and develop team members.
• Provide thoughtful feedback and clear direction.
• Help balance workloads and build high-performing teams.
• Contribute ideas that improve both our clients' businesses and Haberman itself.

What We're Looking For

Experience

• 10+ years of account management or integrated marketing experience, with at least a third of that in Consumer Products.
• 3–5 years leading client teams and mentoring others.
• Significant experience leading paid media programs with annual budgets of $2M–$15M+.
• Agency experience working directly with senior client stakeholders from Brand Manager through Vice President and C-suite.
• Experience positioning a brand through to identifying the key messaging and story to unlock growth, including the research to enable those decisions.
• Experience leading integrated campaigns across multiple marketing disciplines.
• Experience connecting marketing investments to business growth and sales performance strongly preferred.
• Experience in healthcare, public health, sustainability, nonprofit, or behavior change marketing is a plus.

Skills

• Exceptional strategic thinking and business acumen—you get the connection between marketing strategy and business strategy, and are a quick study on the role marketing plays in the overall business performance for any particular business.
• Outstanding presentation and communication skills—you listen and read the room, not just "present."
• Strong financial literacy and experience managing client budgets.
• Ability to prioritize multiple clients, workstreams, and deadlines.
• Natural relationship builder who earns trust quickly.
• Curious, collaborative, and comfortable navigating ambiguity.

We're building the next generation of agency services by thoughtfully integrating AI into strategy, research, creative development, media optimization, and client service. You don't need to be an AI expert—but you should be excited to learn, experiment, and help clients navigate what's next. Experience using AI tools to improve marketing effectiveness, strategy, operations, or client service is strongly preferred.

What Success Looks Like

During your first year, you'll:

• Become a trusted advisor to senior client leaders.
• Lead integrated marketing initiatives that produce measurable business results.
• Grow existing client partnerships through strategic thinking and exceptional service.
• Introduce new ideas that improve our agency and strengthen our client work.
• Help mentor teammates while contributing to Haberman's evolution as a modern marketing agency.

Who Thrives at Haberman

You're relentlessly curious.

You ask better questions than anyone else in the room because you're always learning.

You take ownership.

You don't wait for problems to become someone else's responsibility.

You lead with humility.

You know the best ideas can come from anywhere, and you enjoy helping others succeed.

You have courage.

You're comfortable recommending bold ideas—even when they're unconventional.

You build trust quickly, assume positive intent, and believe great work is always a team sport.

You're energized by change.

Marketing is evolving rapidly, and you see that as an opportunity—not a threat.

Most importantly, our mission matters to you. You want your work to help organizations making a meaningful difference in the world.

Compensation

Expected Salary Range: $110,000–$150,000 annually

Compensation will be determined based on experience, qualifications, demonstrated expertise, and internal equity.

Haberman offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Paid vacation, holidays, and sick time
• Life and disability insurance
• Employee Assistance Program (where applicable)

Equal Opportunity Employer

Haberman is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and make employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.