Client Lead /Business Director at Publicis Groupe

Overview

• Owns the client relationship, business context, commercial priorities, scope, revenue protection and senior stakeholder alignment. Ensures every media assignment starts with a clear business problem, growth ambition, JTBD and success definition — so the agency responds to the client’s business challenge, not only a media brief.

Scope of the Role

• Client business understanding 
• Stakeholder management 
• Business brief quality
• Scope and fee protection
• Commercial risk escalation
• Internal team alignment 
• Client facing narrative
• Returning learnings into the next brief

Responsibilities

• Own the client relationship and senior client confidence.
• Understand the client’s business, category, competitors and growth ambition.
• Translate client needs into a clear business brief and JTBD.
• Ensure all assignments have success criteria before strategy and planning begin.
• Confirm budget, timelines, stakeholders, approvals and commercial constraints.
• Align internal teams around the same brief.
• Protect agency scope, fees and revenue.
• Escalate client-facing delivery, billing or commercial risks.
• Ensure PCA learnings influence future briefs.
• Seniority Level
• Client Lead /Group BD
• Owns senior client partnership, growth agenda and portfolio commercial value.

Qualifications

Experience Requirements

• 7–10 years with strong client leadership and integrated campaign exposure.

Additional information

Mandatory Artifects owned

Business Brief

• Defines the business problem, objective, market context and required response.

JTBD Definition

• Defines the job media must do for the brand or business.

Success Definition

• Confirms business, brand, media and commercial KPIs.

Stakeholder Alignment Note

• Confirms decision-makers, approvers and timelines.

Scope & Fee Check

• Confirms whether work is covered by scope or needs additional fee.

Client Escalation Note

• Used when material delivery, billing or commercial risks need client discussion.

Next Brief Input

• Ensures PCA learnings feed the next campaign brief.

Key Handshakes

• Growth Media Strategist - Client / BUD / MD - Business Brief + JTBD

Decision Rights 

• Is the brief complete enough to begin strategy
• In scope or additional fee
• Whether client escalation is required
• Whether the response answers the business problem
• Whether PCA needs formal client discussion

What this role is NOT accountable for

• Building the media strategy.
• Building detailed TV, OOH, social, search or programmatic plans.
• Loading plans into systems.
• Chasing supplier invoices or reconciling bills.
• Trafficking digital campaigns.
• Producing weekly reports.

AI competency expectation

• Tier 2 · Adoptive

Uses AI for brief synthesis, meeting prep and first-draft commercial narrative — but owns every judgement call on scope, escalation and client risk. AI is never the reason a brief was wrong.

Required competencies
 

• Client leadership - Manage senior client relationships.
• Business understanding - Grasp commercial, category and brand challenges.
• Briefing discipline - Convert client needs into clear briefs.
• Commercial awareness - Manage scope, fee, risk and revenue.
• Stakeholder management - Align client, agency and partner teams.
• Communication - Present clearly and influence decision-makers.
• Escalation management -Handle sensitive delivery or billing issues.

How performance is measured

• Brief quality- Percentage of briefs accepted without major rework.
• Client satisfaction - Relationship health and senior stakeholder confidence.
• Scope control-Reduction in unscoped work and fee leakage.
• Revenue protection-Retention, growth and commercial risk management.
• Approval discipline-On-time client approvals.
• PCA adoption-Evidence learnings are used in future briefs.