Managing Partner

M+C Saatchi Talk is seeking an exceptional Managing Partner to join our leadership team and drive the continued success of our agency. This pivotal role demands a dynamic, commercially astute leader who can balance strategic vision with hands‑on execution. You will oversee four critical pillars; the commercials, the team, the work, and agency growth ensuring we deliver best‑in‑class work while fostering a thriving culture.

As a Managing Partner you are responsible for the commercial success of your department, contributing to the commercial success of the business, which includes:

• Achieving financial targets and goals

• Procuring and progressing new business leads

• Leading pitch work to success

• Negotiating rates and payment structures that are financially efficient

• Managing team time to ensure profitability of accounts and projects

• Developing the commercial acumen of the team underneath you

• Identifying risks to revenue early with a plan to halt or backfill

You are expected to have first‑class financial literacy and a forensic knowledge of your numbers to include:

• Tight management of income and pipeline, ensuring figures are kept up to date and that you are abreast of all department‑related financial information

• A close grip on income v expenditure, ensuring your department is profitable to the required margins and managing your staff costs and overheads diligently

• Maintaining realistic forecasts to manage the commercial profile of your department and diagnose any areas of focus

• Ensuring finance processes are adhered to and commercial paperwork is completed promptly and in line with audit and internal regulations

You should make prudent decisions about the running of your department to ensure cost‑base efficiency and pre‑empt financial considerations to ensure current and future success. You should work with other MPs to find staffing efficiencies and solutions that benefit the commercial profile of the business as a whole to ensure:

• Management of cost‑base

• Positive utilisation levels

• Best use of skillset and client need to deliver successful work

You are responsible overseeing all departmental running, to include:

• Setting and maintaining a culture for your department

• Being an inspirational figurehead for your department

• Keeping the department close‑knit and engaged

• Pre‑empting and trouble‑shooting any team issues

• Talent mapping key individuals to ensure retention of first‑class staff

• Maintenance of a good retention rate to ensure client stability, department efficiency and to maximise the benefits of long‑standing tenure

You are responsible for maintaining an A‑class team:

• Recruiting and retaining first‑class talent

• Quick decision‑making or corrective action against hires that don’t meet agency standards

• Developing team members to ensure progression, addressing any performance issues or area of weakness to set them up for success

• Adapting approach to each individual

Clients should work with the agency because of their working relationship with you and your team, and because of our exceptional output:

• Socialising and close relationship building with clients to support retention, growth and prospecting

• Nimble and personalised approach to clients, leaning into who they are and how we can ensure a long‑term relationship with them

• Providing first‑class counsel and strategic and creative oversight across the work

• Maintaining standards of output and assuming responsibility for the work your team delivers, ensuring best in class work across all deliverables- keeping our standards high and teams accountable

• Driving industry‑defining work to ensure our campaigns are celebrated and talked about

• Assume accountability for KPIs

• Have periodical transparent conversations with clients around reviews/performance to pre‑empt and address any issues early on

The agency is a sum of its parts and while departmental focus is your core area of responsibility, you play a huge role in ensuring the success of the business overall, both culturally and commercially

• Having a prominent voice across the business as a leader of the company

• A key voice in agency‑wide decision making

• A key voice in setting and…