EVP, Integration, Program Management & Innovation

job description

position overview

The 4As is the voice of the agency community across America. The global ad industry will pass $1 Trillion in spend this year. The US is set to have $491 billion of that spend. And represent 20% of GDP. So, to be the voice of the industry is a real and unique honor. The things we do, stand for, and advocate for shape the direction of our industry.

Over a 108 year history, the 4As have gone from reacting to member organization needs and key industry topics to the organization today which must set agendas, continually represent the broad agency community, and help its constituents voice in a more complex ecosystem of brands, platforms, creators, technology solutions and clients.

To do so, we need a systematic approach to driving the right types of solutions for our members. And we also need to think about solutions which bring more organizations and individuals in contact with the 4As. The days of having a stable, slow-evolving industry have gone. We have to operate at business speed to have any chance of staying ahead.

This role will relieve senior team members from driving execution and free them to spend more time on (member) value creation, avoid duplicative/ redundant processes, quicken our route and reaction to market, ensure end to end compliance, federate partner platforms and propositions for engagement and revenue realization. This role is an accelerant and growth enabler.

The integral components of the role will include:

• Program Management: delivers best in class execution across every and any channel

• Innovation: enabling amazing experiences whether built internally or with partners with future-forward leverage of technology, CX, human ingenuity and operational expertise. 

• Technology: ensuring our overall technology and platform adoption remains best in class  

• Ensuring that this team works in an integrated manner. Ensure the team holds a view of key activities across the 4As. a) strategic operations programs b) tactical activations

position responsibilities

This is a new role for the 4As. And a critical one. Until now, the individual Practice Leads have led operations, working with the Communication & Events team to 'stage, publish and communicate' their respective initiatives. This was a vertical delivery model. Great for getting things executed. However, this approach encourages siloes and isn’t designed to offer the flexibility and the operational muscle memory we will need in a faster changing industry. 

As our industry accelerates, we have the opportunity and imperative to further evolve our delivery:  integrated planning, standardized processes, integrated activities – making us smarter and affording us the ability to  generate amplification around key go to market topics. This will help us to restate our relevance and impact to an industry which is transforming and re-finding itself.

You will help us become more agile. Learn. Pivot. And constantly improve! And you will free senior resources – ELT / SLT / SMEs - to deliver value, content, programming, to deliver more member value and also  accelerate  growth for the 4As.

We will now move to an era of horizontal operations. Where we will have a team looking across the organization. Still delivering with excellence, but also integrating, scaling, connecting, simplifying, the work we do.

This is the genesis of the Integration, Program Management Innovation business unit.

Central Operations - core leadership:

The EVP will lead end to end delivery across the 4As and over time this team will become the operational brains trust of the organization. 

The EVP will maintain a horizontal visibility of all activities and flag to the CEO and ELT where activity should be reviewed 

The EVP will work with the ELT  to develop a clear agenda of our operational priorities. These will be the key activities we need to deliver across the year. This will be calendarized and reviewed at least quarterly. This will be the heart of the organization operating in lockstep. 

You will be the leading voice in the company for all things operations and delivery focused. This means that you will lead the vendor relationships directly or in partnership with the ELT members 

Process & execution 

The EVP will establish a connected and common way of working across the 4As. From briefing, to technology adoption, to executing programs and events, to co-building our approach to measurement. The EVP will ensure that the 4As adopts a common and smart way of working. A smart way of building this muscle memory . 

The EVP will also set up programs for the most strategic workstreams and be the strategic owner of how we deliver as a company.

Technology  & Build Partners 

The 4As receives multiple invitations to trial, try, and understand new technologies planned for general market or already on the market, but typically not scaled. This is valuable to the 4As because it is our way to stay connected to products, platforms and propositions which could become the next Monday.com (example only) 

We will centralize these  invitations and relationships with build partners  through the  innovation team.. This  will mean the 4As innovation pulse is centralized  and can then be more easily  leveraged. It also means our view of now and next technology partners is owned by one team. And as we integrate and build our products and experiences it will be easier for us to leverage from one place.

The innovation team will also be the catalyst for technology introductions within the 4As

CRM, Predictive modelling and Tech solutions

You will oversee the technology team developing our CRM solution across the Salesforce / Nimble platforms. You will maintain oversight of our data lake work. You will also provide support in mapping out comprehensive data and business process integration work with them to deliver a high level of data recency and fidelity in our systems.  

We will continue to focus on building a ‘near time’ data view of our members. We will look to optimize and aggregate data sources into the underlying datalake. For this we will need to develop and track against a coherent data strategy. You will work with your technology team – taking inputs from ELT and other stakeholders – to define our data strategy. You will ensure the necessary inputs and requirements are captured by your ELT partners (Members as priority)

You will also oversee that our data strategy accounts for full prospect data sources  and activation across all channels.

As we build out wider technical solutions for our members (& to a lesser extent) non-member programs and services, you will ensure coherency, and smart development choices based on real needs and the longer term data strategy.

Capacity management: planning and prioritization 

With your ELT you will ensure that we maximize the capacity of our people in the company to focus on the most important work. .  On an ongoing basis, you  will be responsible for us focusing on strategic value creating work.  

You will level-up our use of internal platforms such as Asana and implement a common and deep usage of tools across the organization. Non-compliant platforms will be stood down with the full support of the CEO and ELT. A smart model of execution requires one adhered to the toolset. You will define our toolset. 

Similarly, as new tools become available you will lead the assessment and adoption inside the 4As - working in partnership with the ELT.

Measurement:

1. To ensure that everything we do is measured 

2. To ensure that KPIs across the organization are set, make sense and roll back up to macro KPIs set by the CEO … working with the respective leads 

3. To bring a new voice of the 4As through the impact we are creating for our members (through measured activities) 

Management 

You will assist in

1. Weekly ELT meetings - 

2. Board meetings 

3. Quarterly Foundation board meetings 

4. Strategic product reviews (Once the Product BU is stood up) 

5. Attending events and experiences: supporting the execution through project management and assessing whether working practices can be optimized 

You will drive :

1. Regular 121s with your team - at least weekly 

2. Quarterly operational debriefs with the ELT and bring learnings to the CEO 

3. Monthly build / technology partner reviews with your team 

4. The connected operations of the organization. Over time this will become a valuable intelligence layer of the business.

5. You will attend member specific member forums – agreed with the CEO - to ensure you have direct periodic input on what members want and need

6. Aligning and sharing visibility with Shared Services, you will interface with legal counsel relative to executional-specific operations and delivery 

Program Focus 

1. Program, process & SLA development for data update

2. Business process development for data capture 

3. Data lake processes and SLAa 

4. Build partners: Trail / build / demos / member invitation program  

5. Sales Force new capability deployment and training 

6. Cross organization activity measurement 

7. Pilots and proof of concept: End to end oversight and delivery 

8. Core 4As events - operational support 

9. Core 4As product portfolio delivery (transition from current practice lead model) 

10. Sales support: process to data support