Account Director​/CPG Strategy Lead

Dossier Creative | Vancouver, BC | Full-Time | In-Studio

Dossier Creative is a nationally recognized design studio known for leading complex brand transformations, new product development, and category-defining brand work. We are seeking a Senior Account Director to play a studio-wide leadership role across client engagement, pricing, scoping, and delivery. This is a senior, in-person position for someone with deep agency experience, strong commercial instincts, and a genuine passion for design-led brand work.

The Senior Account Director is a senior client partner and strategic advisor to the studio. You will shape how Dossier engages with clients, from initial pitch through delivery – ensuring projects are structured thoughtfully, priced realistically and set up to succeed. This role combines senior client leadership with studio-wide oversight of scoping, pricing, and engagement quality across all accounts.

You will work in close partnership with our Design/Innovation Director to balance creative ambition with commercial realism. Together, you will shape new project approaches that honor the studio's design-led vision while ensuring engagements are set up to deliver both creative excellence and business sustainability.

• Serve as senior client lead on select key accounts
• Build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders and decision-makers
• Navigate complex conversations around scope, priorities, expectations, and trade-offs
• Anticipate client needs and identify opportunities for expanded engagement
• Serve as escalation point for complex client situations across the studio
• Model best practices in client communication and expectation management and relationship building
• Partner closely with creative and strategy leads to deliver strong outcomes

• Provide senior oversight on scoping, pricing, and contracts across all studio projects, not only those you directly lead
• Review new scopes and contracts for clarity, feasibility, margin, and alignment with studio capacity
• Flag risks, ambiguities, or misalignment early and partner with leadership to resolve them
• Pressure-test assumptions around effort, timing, and complexity before commitments are made
• Help maintain consistent use of scoping templates and best practices while allowing for customization
• This oversight role ensures consistency and quality across the studio while supporting Account Managers in their day-to-day client work

• Lead or support new business pitches and proposals alongside studio leadership
• Collaborate with the Design/Innovation Director to translate ambitious creative vision into realistic scopes and delivery models
• Help frame engagements strategically, ensuring creative ambition is matched with achievable project structures
• Translate high-level opportunity into clear phases, deliverables, resourcing plans, and pricing
• Support contract and pricing structures that protect both creative quality and profitability
• Ensure proposals reflect how the studio actually works and delivers value

• Ensure new clients are onboarded strategically and thoughtfully
• Help define kickoff structures, governance models, roles, and decision frameworks
• Align internal teams around objectives, success metrics, and ways of working
• Work with Design/Innovation Director to establish creative process expectations and collaboration rhythms
• Set projects up for momentum, clarity, and confidence from day one
• Identify early warning signs and course-correct engagements as needed

• Provide oversight and mentorship to Account Managers
• Support team members in managing scope, client expectations, and delivery
• Raise the overall consistency and quality of client engagement across the studio
• Contribute to improving studio processes and operational clarity
• Foster collaborative working relationships between account, strategy, and creative teams

• 10+ years in senior account leadership roles within creative or design agencies
• Proven experience overseeing scoping, pricing, and contracts across multiple projects
• Strong understanding of agency economics, resourcing, risk management, and margin protection
• Confidence leading senior client relationships and high-stakes conversations
• Ability to partner effectively with creative leadership
• Experience mentoring Account Managers and supporting team development
• A genuine respect for design craft, creative process, and design-led thinking
• Strong communication skills and ability to bridge creative and business conversations

• Experience in a boutique or entrepreneurial agency environment
• Exposure to large-scale rebrands or complex brand programs
• Experience leading or contributing to pitch processes
• Experience partnering closely with Creative Directors or design leadership
• Experience contributing to studio-level operational decisions