Social Group Account Director

Ogilvy South Africa; Johannesburg; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work 4:1

Local and global client portfolio

Attractive package and benefits

Continuous training

Job summary

Ogilvy South Africa is seeking a Group Account Director to lead our Social Community Management and Influence offering. You’ll run a portfolio of brands, lead a multi-disciplinary team, and connect PR, community management and influencer marketing end to end.

This senior role requires a proven track record in integrated campaigns, crisis readiness, and a passion for culture-first work that travels beyond traditional advertising. If you spot trends before they trend, we should talk.

Qualifications

• 8+ years across social, PR and influencer marketing, with leadership at senior level.
• Proven ability to drive integrated campaigns across multiple disciplines.
• Strong client and revenue growth track record.

Responsibilities

• Lead culture-first thinking and innovation across a portfolio of brands.
• Own end-to-end integration of PR, community and influencer campaigns as one cohesive strategy.
• Lead influencer and creator strategy from identification to activation and measurement.
• Build and mentor a multi-disciplinary team of managers and account leads.
• Drive new business and organic growth across the portfolio.
• Represent the agency externally at stages, panels and awards.

Skills

Social marketing

PR

Influencer marketing

Tools

Photoshop

Canva

CapCut

AI tools

Job description

Culture doesn't wait for the deck to be approved. Neither should we.

We're looking for a Group Account Director to lead our Social Community Management and Influence offering. Someone who lives in culture, thinks social-first, and builds work that people actually talk about, not work that simply exists.

This is a senior leadership role with real ownership. You'll run a portfolio of brands, lead and grow a multi-disciplinary team, and act as the connective tissue between PR, community management and influencer marketing. End to end. Not in silos.

You'll be as sharp in a 9pm crisis as you are in a 9am pitch. You'll set the standard for how we show up in culture, and you'll be measured on the growth you create, or our clients and for us.

If you spot the trend before the trend piece, and you'd rather shape culture than chase it, we should talk.

What You'll Own

Culture-First Thinking & Innovation

• Set the cultural and strategic direction across a portfolio of brands.
• Turn cultural insight into commercial outcomes. Relevance and resonance with the strategy.
• Champion new platforms, formats, creator models, tools and AI-enabled ways of working.
• Build a visible track record of firsts: new products, new formats, new approaches that move the work and the industry forward.
• Keep the team plugged into what's shaping conversation, subcultures, creators, communities, sport, music, gaming, news.

End-to-End Integration: PR, Community & Influence

• Own the integration of earned, owned, shared and paid campaigns land as one idea, not three disciplines in a trench coat.
• Design always-on ecosystems that connect PR narratives, community engagement and creator partnerships into a single momentum engine.
• Lead influencer and creator strategy from identification and negotiation through activation, governance, and measurement.
• Partner with Creative, Strategy, Media, Experience and Health teams to deliver genuinely borderless work.
• Set the standard for how earned thinking shows up across every channel we touch.

Community Management at Scale

• Build community management models that create advocacy and belonging, not just response times.
• Lead social listening, cultural intelligence and real-time response across META, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, YouTube and whatever launches next quarter.
• Own issues and crisis management. Be the calm, clear head clients call first.
• Set governance, tone-of-voice and escalation frameworks that scale across brands and markets.

Creative Firepower

• Lead the creative development of social content that earns attention rather than buying it outright.
• Raise the bar on social writing, craft and speed-to-culture across the team.
• Push work through to production with creators, studio and creative partners without losing the idea in the process.

Leadership

• Lead, mentor and grow a multi-disciplinary team of community managers, creators, strategists and account leads.
• Build a culture people want to be part of ambitious, collaborative, generous with feedback, allergic to politics.
• Own resourcing, capability building, career paths and succession. Hire people better than you and get out of their way.
• Communicate proactively, wins, risks and problems, and always arrive with a point of view on the solution.
• Take full accountability for the work, the people and the process.

New Business & Growth

• Lead and win new business: pitch strategy, chemistry, story and the room.
• Drive organic growth across the portfolio by spotting the opportunity clients haven't briefed yet.
• Build and convert a personal network across brands, platforms, creators and the wider industry.
• Develop new offerings, products and propositions that open up revenue we don't have today.
• Represent the agency externally, stages, panels, awards, press and the group chat that actually matters.

Client & Commercial Leadership

• Be a senior counsel to senior clients, up to and including C-suite.
• Understand each client's business context, category and pressures, then solve for their business, not just their brief.
• Own commercials across the portfolio: scoping, resourcing, profitability and delivery against targets.
• Make smart scoping decisions that protect both the margin and the work.

What You'll Bring

• 8+ years across social, PR and influencer marketing, with at least three of those leading teams at Account Director level or above.
• Demonstrable experience of integrated, end-to-end work across PR, community management and influencer marketing. Depth in one, fluency in all three.
• A proven track record in new business and growth, pitches led, accounts won; existing business expanded. Bring the numbers.
• An equally proven track record in innovation and culture-first thinking. Show us the work that didn't exist before you made it.
• Deep, current command of social platforms, creator economies and emerging formats - including where each is heading.
• Strong social listening, analytics and reporting ability. You can read data and, more importantly, interpret it.
• Real crisis and issues management experience under pressure and in public.
• Excellent presentation and storytelling skills, with genuine comfort in front of senior clients.
• Sharp commercial acumen: forecasting, scoping, profitability, growth planning.
• Outstanding organisational skills and superior attention to detail across multiple concurrent projects.
• High EQ and self-awareness. You get people, and people get you.

Nice to have

• Working knowledge of paid social, SEO, Google Analytics, and performance measurement.
• Hands-on fluency with content and editing tools, Photoshop, Canva, CapCut and the AI stack.
• Experience across omnichannel campaigns spanning ATL and BTL.
• Multi-market or regional experience.

What we offer

• Permanent position.
• Local and Global client portfolio.
• Attractive package and benefits.
• Continuous training. Career conversation and growing opportunities.
• Hybrid Work 4:1.