Director, Agency Partnerships

The Desire Company; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity included

Health, dental, vision insurance

401(k)

Job summary

The Desire Company is seeking a New York–based Director of Agency Partnerships to own and grow our relationship with Publicis Groupe and the agencies within it. You will lead expansion across the agency network, turning conversations into programs, with support from a dedicated account manager and a marketing enablement team.

As a remote-first startup, you will drive growth across multiple states, manage a pipeline of new programs, and report on performance and risks while expanding our

Qualifications

• 7+ years in agency, media, commerce media, advertising, or brand marketing with revenue responsibility.
• Proven track record of growing accounts or territories.
• Experience selling through or alongside client-facing teams — agency, channel, partner, or seller enablement.
• Strong understanding of how holding companies, agencies, brands, and retail media networks coordinate budgets.

Responsibilities

• Grow the partnership with Publicis and agencies within it, achieving revenue targets.
• Own an expansion strategy with a prioritized target list of agencies and growth plans.
• Build and manage a pipeline of programs, scopes, and renewals across multiple agencies with accurate forecasting.
• Collaborate with the account manager and marketing enablement teams; report on adoption, performance, and risks.
• Represent The Desire Company in market through meetings, capability presentations, pitches, and events.

Skills

Relationship building

Agency sales

Cross-functional collaboration

Matrixed orgs navigation

Strategic thinking

Job description

The Desire Company matches brands with real industry experts to create product education content that drives conversion. We are a remote-first startup in a growth phase, operating across multiple states and moving swiftly and purposefully.

At the core of the company is our community of experts — Lady Gaga’s dance captain, Pink’s makeup artist, Rihanna’s backup dancer, Charlize Theron's stylist, NFL players, top chefs, and artists — all sharing what they know through honest product reviews and how-tos. By partnering with credentialed professionals, people who use these products in their work every day, we help shoppers make confident choices about what they buy.

The Opportunity

We are looking for a New York–based Director of Agency Partnerships to own and grow our relationship with Publicis Groupe and the agencies within it.

Publicis is one of our most important partners, and it is not one relationship — it is dozens. Each agency has its own leadership, client roster, and way of building recommendations. We work with a small number of them today, and expanding across the network is the central ambition of this role.

Much of that growth comes through the agency teams themselves. Client leads, strategists, and commerce planners are in front of brand clients constantly, and when they can speak to our product detail page video offering confidently, our content reaches brands at a scale we would not reach on our own. The rest is relationship ownership and program development: understanding how each agency works and turning good conversations into programs that get built.

You will not be doing this alone. A dedicated account manager owns day-to-day execution and delivery, and a marketing and enablement team builds materials alongside you. Your focus is growth.

What You’ll Own

Grow the partnership

• Carry and deliver against an annual revenue goal for the Publicis portfolio, weighted toward new program growth.
• Own our expansion strategy: a prioritized, deliberately sequenced target list of agencies with a plan and a growth target for each.
• Start where the fit is strongest — the commerce and creator-led agencies — and use those wins to open the media, creative, health, and CRM agencies behind them.
• Build and manage a pipeline of new programs, expanded scopes, and renewals across multiple agencies, with accurate forecasting.
• Work at the holding company level on what unlocks everything below it: master agreements, approved vendor status, and procurement.
• Get us into the moments that matter: annual client planning, new business pitches, and campaign development.
• Report to leadership on adoption, program performance, revenue impact, opportunities, and risks.

Enable their teams

• Help client leads, strategists, and commerce planners understand our offering well enough to bring it to their clients with confidence. This is one of the most important levers in the role.
• Run training sessions, capability days, and office hours, and build the case studies and proof points their teams will actually use.
• Make it easy to include us in a pitch: clear pricing, sample content, turnaround times, and slides that drop straight into a client deck.
• Track adoption agency by agency, and bring feedback back to shape our positioning, pricing, and packaging.

Own the relationships

• Serve as the primary point of contact between The Desire Company and Publicis, building relationships at both the holding company and individual agency level, across multiple levels of seniority.
• Develop a deep understanding of how agencies make money and make decisions: client rosters, fee structures, planning calendars, and pitch cycles.
• Make sure conversations translate into clear next steps, owners, and timelines.
• Represent us in market: on-site meetings, capability presentations, pitch support, and industry events.

What Success Looks Like

• First 90 days: You have met the stakeholder map at both the holding company and agency level, you understand our current programs, and you have a prioritized target list with a clear point of view on sequencing.
• First 6 months: You have brought in programs beyond our existing scope, you are live with agencies we were not working with before, and their teams present our product without us in the room.
• First 12 months: The portfolio has grown against goal, we are active across a meaningfully wider set of agencies, and the relationships are broad rather than dependent on any single contact.

What You Bring

Required

• 7+ years in agency, media, commerce media, advertising, or brand marketing, with meaningful time in a revenue-carrying role.
• A track record of growing accounts or a territory rather than only maintaining them.
• Experience selling through or alongside someone else’s client-facing teams — agency, channel, partner, or seller enablement.
• A strong understanding of how holding companies, agencies, brands, and retail media networks work together, including how client budgets actually get committed.
• Demonstrated ability to navigate complex, matrixed organizations and build relationships across functions and levels of seniority.
• Based in the New York metro area, Chicago or Los Angeles.

Nice to have

• Experience working inside a holding company or one of its agencies, or existing relationships across the agency community.
• Experience selling video, content, or media programs.
• Background in commerce or shopper marketing, retail media, or creator marketing.
• Experience at a company small enough that you helped build the playbook rather than inherit it.

Logistics & Compensation

• Regular in-person presence with our partners is central to the role. Our wider team is distributed across multiple states.
• Competitive base salary plus an uncapped performance-based component, with accelerators past goal and a guarantee during ramp. Equity included.
• Expect travel to agency offices across markets including Chicago, Detroit, Dallas, and Los Angeles, plus company gatherings and industry events.
• Benefits include health, dental, and vision coverage; short- and long-term disability; a 401(k); and paid time off.

The Desire Company is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic.