Account Director - Hospitality & Restaurant Lead

ON BOARD EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING

On Board Experiential (OBE) is an award-winning, full-service, experience-led agency that creates meaningful brand experiences worldwide. We work out of our homes and physical offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and NYC, or wherever our adventures take us! Our clients include Nike, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, The Infatuation, Stripe, and OpenAI, to name a few. We know, "Cool, cool, but what's it like to work at OBE?"

We thought you'd never ask. Event Marketer has recognized OBE as one of the best places to work in events and well, we couldn't agree more.

The most important part of our business is our people. They are hardworking, brave and make magic happen on the regular. But under each majestic exterior is a human deserving of a healthy work-life balance. That's why we believe in recovery days, happy hours, friendly but competitive fitness challenges and company offsites.

We conduct open meetings to facilitate discussions that heal, inspire, and bring us closer. We encourage each other to bring our whole selves to work. We want to hear about your lived experiences and unique perspectives. We don't just want you to be unapologetically you: it's part of the job description.

SUMMARY OF POSITION

The Account Director is a leadership position within the Account Team, delivering an exceptional level of service and execution of programs on behalf of our clients. Positioned as a mentor and manager for team members in the department and agency, the Account Director is responsible for generating and expanding our client accounts and relationships. This position requires a comprehensive understanding of our clients' business needs and a competitive landscape.

They provide end to end project management on high profile large scale complex programs, offering creative and strategic solutions to deliver on program KPIs. This position is accountable for financial and operational performance, managing program budgets and resource utilization. The Account Director ensures that programs and marketing strategies successfully promote client brands, products, and services in accordance with client objectives and initiatives.

In addition, this role carries a specialized focus on building and managing restaurant and hospitality relationships, curating culinary partnerships, and integrating hospitality-driven experiences into client programs.

ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS

* Demonstrate thought leadership with insightful analysis of client objectives and develop innovative solutions that successfully deliver clients' message and enhance the brand presence.

* Collaborate with creative strategy to conduct research and develop insights for brand and audience analysis, as the foundation to build concept development.

* Drive and / or supervise client activations to ensure proper planning, development and execution with the utmost professionalism and accountability.

* Develop and manage program SOWs ensuring resources, budgets, timelines, and deliverables stay aligned with terms of contract and client commitments.

* Critically evaluate and offer solutions to optimize client budgets and internal resource management.

* Provide ongoing monitoring and guidance of expenses and actual costs for approved program budgets. Lead honest and challenging conversations with clients at times of budget misalignment.

* Provide ongoing monitoring and guidance of creative deliverables, ensuring client review and approvals as needed in partnership with program Creative lead. Lead honest and challenging conversations with clients at times of creative misalignment.

* Manage multiple projects simultaneously and/or supervise other account personnel, such as Account Managers, Account Coordinators, Interns, and external teams.

* Provide mentorship and candid real time feedback to direct reports, cross functional team members as needed and appropriate.

* Actively listen and empower others to lead conversations, motivate others and share confidence in others with authenticity.

* Recognize the audience needs with varying tones and approach, ability to read the room and address immediately and honestly.

* Ability to self-navigate through conflict resolution, and the ability to recognize when to seek support, strong self-awareness of own energy and contribution.

* In collaboration with Leadership and Executive team, guide teams through conflict resolution, and the ability to recognize when to seek support.

* Drive new business development, including identifying new opportunities with new and existing clients. Lead RFPs process with cross functional team.

* Continually strive to identify new opportunities to enhance the agency's services and lines of business.

* Remain current in industry trends, competitive landscapes, creative technology innovations.

Additional Hospitality-Focused Functions:

* Build and maintain trusted relationships with restaurants, chefs, and hospitality groups across key markets, with a focus on New York City and East Coast regions.

* Curate and…