Who We Are
Mediabrands is the media and marketing solutions division of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). Mediabrands manages approximately $40 billion in marketing investment globally on behalf of its clients and provides strategic services and solutions across its award-winning, full-service agency networks UM and Initiative and through its innovative marketing specialist companies Reprise, Magna, Orion, Rapport, Healix, Mediabrands Content Studio and the IPG Media Lab. Mediabrands clients include many of the world’s most recognizable and iconic brands from a broad portfolio of industry sectors.
At Mediabrands we are committed to creating a diverse global community based on excellence and equity. The company employs more than 13,000 marketing experts in more than 130 countries representing the full diversity of humanity. We deliberately foster a diversity of experiences and backgrounds and cultivate the sharing of different ideas and viewpoints as a critical part of our promise of innovation to clients. We pride ourselves in attracting and retaining the best in the industry, across all disciplines and specialties. For more information, please visit our website apac.ipgmediabrands.com.
The Opportunity
The Operations Center of Excellence (CoE) will be a global organization with operations experts around the world providing leading capabilities to clients through all IPG Mediabrand’s media agencies. The Regional Operations Leader will be responsible for the talent and outputs of the craft within their specific region.
The Regional Operations leader will be directly responsible for the Business Operations, Resource Management and Client Operations teams operating within their region, while working in partnership with the Global Operations leader and Global Client Operations leader to ensure Operations capabilities are best leveraged for regional clients.
This role is pivotal in implementing global operational standards across regions and markets, ensuring excellence in client operations and resource management. The ROL will ensure our operations craft remains consistent with global standards, foster skill development and career growth, and effectively engage with senior stakeholders both internally and externally.
Joining at a pivotal time of transformation within IPG Mediabrands and the wider industry, this role requires a strong leader who can navigate change, an excellent collaborator who can execute plans within the region and build a highly skilled, accountable and diverse team bringing together the best talent from across the network.
Key Responsibilities
1. Actively contributing as part of the Global Operations Leadership team
- Work with the Global Operations Leader and Regional Leaders to co-create best-practice, standards and ways of working for the Operations CoE. Representing regional client and agency needs at a global level to ensure standards, ways of working and templates meet regional needs
- Surface best work and innovation from to global/other regional/ local market stakeholders
- Cascade global direction down to regional & local market teams, and be a feedback loop back
- Partner with local/regional agency/client leaders to understand how operational needs evolve and work to enhance future ways of working and how technology can play a bigger role in facilitating
2. Business Operations & Resource Management:
- Responsible for implementation of Mediabrands end-to-end process
- Support regional leadership (craft leads) in troubleshooting delivery issues across the E2E process
- Lead regional/market adoption of ways of working, processes and implementation of operational tools such as: (Asana/Workfront, Salesforce, Guideline (Media Tools), Merlin
- Support acceleration and adoption of GCC for both new and existing clients
- Support acceleration and adoption of Interact for both new and existing clients
- Lead the design of operating models for both new and existing clients within the region, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives. May also be asked to lead development of operational models for global pitches spanning multiple regions as well.
- Act as Operations lead in regional and/or global new business pitches representing operations (operating models, ways of working, team structures etc.)
- Oversee new business transitions within the region, facilitating seamless integration and operational efficiency across all IPGMB agencies.
- Oversee Resource Management sub-craft within the region; ensuring global standards and best practices are adhered to across all markets within the region
3. Client Operations
- Client Operations leads for regional businesses to report to ROL
- ROL responsible for ensuring the Client Ops leads are driving the application of global standards & tools across each client’s business. Global standards included but are not limited to:Mediabrands End to End Process
GCC acceleration & adoption
- Interact acceleration & adaption
- Operational Tools (Asana/Workfront, Salesforce, Guideline (Media Tools), Merlin
- Monitor and analyze operational performance metrics, providing insights for continuous improvement
4. Managing Operations within the Region:
- Team Development: Put in place and oversee robust processes to professionalize recruitment, training, and development of operations professionals across Business Operations, Resource Management & Client Operations, ensuring teams are skilled and have clear career paths.
- Systems and Processes: Implement efficient systems and processes to streamline operations, enhance productivity, and ensure consistency in service delivery while always striving to simplify ways of working. Cascading standards from the Global Leader, and being a feedback loop representing regional teams
- Resource Allocation: Manage resource allocation to ensure optimal use of talent and tools across various projects and client engagement, including new business. Partnering with local client leaders to understand demand and match to supply, first from within the region but also working across regions as/when gaps arise to ensure clients always have access to winning capabilities
- Performance Management: Cascade performance metrics, conduct business reviews, and foster a culture of continuous improvement and excellence within the CoE.
5. Stakeholder Engagement:
- Build and maintain strong relationships with regional client leads; ensuring operational excellence is delivered on every business and effectively demonstrating the credibility and rigor of the CoE
- Represent the CoE and supporting key new business efforts
- Work with Global Capability Centre leadership to ensure our offshore teams provide a seamless client experience, optimized ways of working and the very best skilled talent
- Partner with leaders from across Technology and the other crafts to ensure we are building and/partnering with the right tools
Key Success Metrics:
The Regional Operations Leader will have a number of core KPIs, across the below areas:
1. Business Operations
- Client Transition Success Rate
- New & Current Client Operational Model Success
- Operational Tool roll-out and implementation success
- Regional adoption and adherence to global standards (E2E process, GCC adoption, Interact & Operational tools)
2. Resource Management
- Regional utilization & capacity
- Resource Allocation Efficiency
- Staffing Plan & Open Role fulfillment rate
3. Client OperationsRegional client team adoption of global standards and tools
About You (Our Successful Candidate)
The successful candidate will be an operationally minded leader with a proven track record of delivering operational excellence both internally as well as to clients regionally while having expertise in operationalizing multi-market functions within the region.
You are a strategic thinker and trusted partner to executive business leadership with a high degree of intellectual curiosity but also sufficiently hands-on to identify issues likely to impede on-time delivery and lead the resolution process for the toughest of problems. Additionally, you will have consummate communication skills, helping motivate the service team and excite IPG Mediabrands, its clients, and its partners about the Service offering and unique capabilities.
You are an empathetic leader with highly-developed interpersonal skills and clearly defined approach for leading, developing and growing people and teams within rapidly changing environments. You have demonstrated experience building strong partnerships across organizations, especially in Executive teams and leveraged these to build the business and resolve client issues.
You are an agile leader comfortable leading through change with people-first approach in mind. Collaborative visionary ready to lead the way, create and implement strategy for an analytics service organization. You have a deep understanding of what partnership looks like and have ability to interact effectively with a variety of internal and external contacts.
You are a culture champion, sensitive to the company’s priorities, able to chart the direction of the Services team having culture in mind. You are not afraid to take risk and responsibility for the team and are able to deliver under pressure without compromising people first approach.
Key Skills Required
- Extensive years of experience in an operations leadership role
- A trusted and respected leader within the organization who has the ability to lead by influence
- Experience with implementing resource management capabilities either within a team or within an organization
- Experience operationalizing and running teams within complex, multi-region groups
- Experience presenting capabilities and work output to clients and leadership, inclusive of domain experts and non-experts
- A strong presenter who can show up and gain the trust and respect of clients in a new business pitch situation
- Demonstrated ability to work closely with executive, commercial, and finance teams
- A strong collaborator that can bring the right teams together and lead the charge on identifying solutions and outputs
- Ability to forge senior level relationships across the company
- Proven decision-making skills under stress
Key Relationships
- Peers at Kinesso/IPG Mediabrands including those within and across Craft and CoE teams
- Regional leadership of Kinesso/IPG Mediabrands (including front door brands)
- Senior regional client leaders across Kinesso/IPG Mediabrands (including front door brands)
Mediabrands is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. People with Disabilities and all historically excluded or under-represented people are encouraged to apply.
