Account Director (Influential)

Company Description

We are North, a strategic communications agency in Canada that makes it personal, moving brands with ideas that travel and influence.

We combine the agility of a boutique agency with the strength of Publicis Groupe’s global network. Our teams work across earned media, influencer, content, experiential, and issues management, bringing sharp thinking and care to every brief.

In a noisy world, we earn attention through bold ideas, rigorous execution, and a relationship‑first approach that helps our people and our clients grow.

Overview

As part of North Strategic and Publicis Groupe Canada's growing Influencer practice we’re hiring an Account Director, an experienced leader with agency chops who is passionate about the influencer and creator landscape. You’re an entrepreneurial thinker who is excited to take the lead and continue to shape the agency’s growing influencer practice. You’ve got your eye on the ever‑evolving creator and social space: always on top of the latest trends, platform changes (or challenges), and thinking constantly about the opportunities or risks for the agency and its clients. You make it your mission to be on the edge of the shifting landscape and prepared with a strategic POV on opportunities for our clients.

In this position, you inspire and guide your direct reports and cross‑functional teams to shake things up, deliver bold creative ideas, test and learn, build deep client relationships and execute with excellence. You’re used to confidently representing – and leading – within large integrated agency marketing communications team environments. You’ll have the ability to guide, manage and grow top client accounts for some of Canada’s top brands. As a senior lead you can work in a collaborative, fast‑paced environment and consistently contribute to our inclusive culture and high‑performing team as a manager, coach and mentor.

In this role, you’ll own key client relationships. You’re skilled at client service, building lasting relationships with key senior client stakeholders to unlock new opportunities based on your influence and trust. You partner with clients to relentlessly pursue program goals with a focus on identifying and leveraging new trends, forging excellent creator‑brand partnerships and leading high‑performance teams to execute flawlessly. You know the power of strong measurement frameworks and double down on proving success with metrics that matter to your clients. An essential ingredient of your success is your organization and ability to keep multiple clients, programs and team members on track to exceed objectives.

You understand the foundation of PR and communications, influencer and paid/performance marketing to be able to cross‑sell as required, and build creative, impactful strategies that may span practice areas.

Responsibilities

• Reporting to the VP, the Account Director, Influencer, will take a leading role on some of the agency’s flagship accounts and continue to shape the agency’s influencer practice
• Proven excellence in senior client CRM, communications and account management and growth
• Ability to lead new business opportunities
• Deep understanding of the evolving creator, social media and influencer landscapes
• Big picture strategist but able to keep a pulse on the details to ensure executional excellence from the team
• Experience with social and digital paid amplification (strategy development and measurement understanding are a must; executional experience is an asset)
• Experience working within an IAT, with a focus on media agency collaboration
• Skilled in developing targeted influencer strategies to exceed client objectives and performance goals
• Expertise with influencer management tools (e.g., Traackr, Tagger, CreatorIQ, Captiv8etc.)
• Influential communicator, demonstrating excellent written and verbal presentation mastery
• The sky is the limit with creative thinking – bring your A game and encourage others to think outside the box
• Rigorous in forecasting, managing budgets and team resources for a specific set of client accounts
• Proficiency in data and insight gathering to enhance and sell in bold ideas
• Effective development and implementation of influencer / social campaign measurement frameworks
• Leading the strategic direction of brand content based on client objectives; via creator partnerships and/or in‑house content production team
• Inspire, excite, challenge and motivate through coaching, career development and mentoring of agency team members, both direct reports and beyond. Ability to manage up and down with ease.
• Ability to foster strong relationships with Integrated Agency Team partners, but not afraid to disagree or change course if the collective strategies aren’t aligned with meeting client outcomes

Qualifications

• 8-10 years of experience in the influencer space, developing integrated strategies
• Agency or client service experience
• Proactive leader, moving strategies and programs forward with confidence
• Genuine curiosity and commitment to continuously learning about the influencer space, with a view to adapting the practice area to keep it at the forefront as the space evolves (e.g., around emerging platforms and/or talent, existing platform changes, partnership regulation/disclosure, etc.)
• Bachelor’s & post‑graduate degree in Communications, Advertising, Media Studies, Marketing or a related field
• Proven track record of building high performance teams and adding value to company culture in a meaningful way
• Excellent cross‑functional leadership, presentation and communication skills
• Dynamic team player, collaboratively partnering with cross‑functional leaders across the agency to develop and innovate the influencer, social and digital practice areas
• Shows strong initiative as an entrepreneurial thinker taking independent actions and calculated risks
• Superior finance, project management, team resourcing and organizational abilities
• Strong proficiency in social platforms (Meta, X, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat, etc.)
• Demonstrated interest in AI. You already see how it can benefit and amplify our client's campaigns.
• Strong interpersonal abilities to effectively manage internal and external relationships, vendors and agency partners
• Agility, speed and flexibility to manage workflow within a changing work environment
• Calm under pressure
• Inter‑agency experience working with creative, digital, sponsorship, research and media buying companies to ensure all campaigns are fully integrated and agency relationships are nurtured
• Skilled at developing effective measurement frameworks for social programs analyzing data, deriving insights and building creative strategies to meet client objectives
• Refined understanding of community management and paid social/digital campaigns
• Influencer relations is an asset

Additional Information

Why North Strategic?

Something we’re most proud of at North is our level of employee engagement. Our employees love coming to work but also see relationships that extend beyond the work week. As a team we celebrate our company and employee milestones and encourage quality time together. We take pride in our entrepreneurial, creative and empowering culture, a result of our strong commitment to employee engagement.

What we’re offering:

• Meaningful work where you can have a direct impact working on some of the biggest brands out there!
• A culture of entrepreneurship, creativity, growth and collaboration.
• Work with top talent at an award‑winning agency on a serious growth trajectory.
• A focused commitment to career development and personal success – let us help you.
• Access to thousands of on‑demand e‑learning opportunities, and a suite of leading AI tools and resources.
• Highly competitive compensation and benefits package including substantial time off policies and mental wellness resources (like really. It’s a big deal).
• Oh, and did we mention the perks?! Hybrid work environment, parental leave top‑up program, regular social events, cell phone & internet allowance, professional development or wellness allowance, Business Resource Groups, Private health and Dental insurance, Life and Disability insurance… Just to name a few… #workperks.
• Work from (almost) anywhere for up to 20 days per year.
• All staff meetings so you’re always in the know.
• This is a hybrid role tied to our Toronto office.

Salary

Transparency matters to us. The salary range for this position is CAD$105K-$115K per year. Actual compensation within this range will be based on a variety of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, and applicable certifications. This range reflects what we reasonably expect to offer based on current market data.

AI Use

We use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of our hiring process, such as reviewing applications or analyzing resumes. These tools assist our recruitment team but never replace human decision‑making. We believe in a human‑first approach, where your experience and potential are recognized by people.

North Strategic is committed workplace diversity and will provide accommodation to applicants with disabilities throughout the hiring process.

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