Business Director | Retail Experience

The Up&Up Group (affiliated to the global M&C Saatchi Group); Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

The Up&Up Group, affiliated to the M&C Saatchi Group, seeks an experienced Business Director to join our Johannesburg office. You’ll lead a fast-paced retail account, delivering strategic direction and flawless service from brief to rollout.

Start date: February 2027. You will manage multi-workstream projects, build senior client relationships, and drive revenue growth while maintaining profitability and tight timelines.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience as a Business Director in a large agency.
• Proven ability to manage complex, fast-paced retail accounts.
• Strong understanding of retail marketing and client partnership models.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Johannesburg retail account and embed strategic direction.
• Coordinate multiple workstreams with clear timelines and ownership.
• Develop and deliver monthly budget summaries and new revenue proposals.
• Foster senior client relationships (e.g., Marketing Director/CEO) and drive partnerships.
• Ensure flawless service delivery from brief through to completion and rollout.

Skills

Strategic thinking

Retail sector expertise

Client leadership

Project management

Revenue growth focus

Job description

We’re looking for an experienced Business Director with strong retail experience to join our Johannesburg office immediately. You’ll be on the ground leading a fast-paced retail account, so strong client leadership, strategic thinking and project management skills are essential.

Start date: February 2027

Skills Required:

An M&C Business Director must possess the following skills in order to succeed.

• As the senior consultant on the business, embed innovative thinking and strategic direction for the client.
• Bring a strong understanding of retail and the pace, responsiveness and commercial thinking required to deliver effectively in this environment.
• Lead and coordinate multiple workstreams simultaneously, bringing structure to complex projects and ensuring clear timelines, ownership and delivery.
• Apply strong strategic thinking while maintaining hands‑on oversight of project delivery from brief through to completion.
• Be able to ‘connect the dots’ and actively seek to improve the agency's role within the client's business.
• Provide flawless service delivery to client.
• Foster the relationship with the most senior clients (Marketing Director/CEO) and engage meaningfully to drive a partnership model.
• Maintain a partner relationship with the ECD and embed innovative thinking into the core of the business.
• Have a clear understanding of the broader business objectives of the client and be able to act as a strategic consultant on all marketing and communication requirements.
• Manage the financial fitness of the account, including profitability, staff- and income ratios, while driving and identifying additional revenue and business opportunities to increase forecasts. These duties include submitting budget summaries every month as well as new revenue proposals to clients.
• Optimise process and production to drive long-term efficiencies.
• Ensure proper usage of workflow tools by all teams.
• Proactively identifying growth opportunities.

Experience Required:

• 5+ years of experience as a Business Director – big agency experience is preferable.
• Proven experience managing complex, fast‑paced accounts with multiple concurrent projects and tight deadlines.
• Strong project management capability is a critical requirement, with the ability to manage projects from brief and strategy through to final delivery and roll‑out.
• The ability to own a project from start to finish – strategy to roll‑out.
• Strong understanding of the retail sector and retail marketing environment.

Please note:

Due to the volume of applications we receive, we may not be able to respond to every applicant individually. If you don’t hear back from us, it doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the road — we’re building a strong talent pipeline and may reach out should a suitable opportunity come up in the future.