Associate Director of Client Partnerships
AI Digital • Chicago, Illinois, United States
Client Relationship Management - Senior Stakeholder Connective Tissue: Build strong connections with client-side Directors, VPs, and other key decision-makers, understand their priorities, and help them achieve their business goals. - C-Suite Mentorship: Shadow Client Partnership Directors and VP during senior executive engagements, co-leading C-suite pitches and QBRs to build executive presence and diplomacy skillset. - Navigating Complexity: Professionally address complex client challenges and navigate internal brand politics with growing autonomy. - Insulating Execution: Manage strategic relationship matters and help resolve stakeholder challenges, enabling Client Service and execution teams to remain focused on campaign delivery and performance. Strategic Advisory & Value Realization - Strategic Advisory: Act as a trusted business partner to assigned clients, providing guidance on digital marketing opportunities and aligning AiDigital's capabilities with their broader business objectives. - Value Realization Focus: Proactively identify opportunities to strengthen client partnerships, demonstrate the business impact of AiDigital's solutions, and support long-term client retention and growth. - Business Outcome Mapping: Ensure AiDigital deliverables are directly mapped to the client's unique business KPIs (e.g., customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, market expansion). Operational Alignment & Strategic Integration - Growth Planning: Partner alongside Client Partnership Directors and VP to drive the day-to-day execution of strategic account growth plans, focusing on multi-year retention, roadmap expansion, and scaling the brand's digital impact under senior leadership guidance. - Bridging the Gap: Serve as the partnership linchpin connecting clients' broader business objectives with internal Strategy and Client Service teams, ensuring shared priorities and alignment between client expectations and execution. - Technical Handoff: Collaborate directly with the Elevate TAM to ensure platform demonstrations, software provisioning, and technical tracking setups are seamlessly offloaded, fully preserving strategic bandwidth across Client Partnerships and Client Service. Education & Experience - 5–7+ years of experience in client relationship management, account management, or strategic client partnerships, preferably within a digital advertising agency, media agency, or marketing technology environment. - Stakeholder Engagement: Proven track record of managing relationships with mid-to-senior brand stakeholders (Directors, VPs) and supporting executive QBRs and pitches. - Lifecycle Management: Experience prioritizing the entire customer lifecycle rather than focusing solely on acquisition or single-stage campaign delivery. - Educational Background: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Communications, or a related field. Skills & Competencies - Customer Obsession: A genuine commitment to customer obsession, recognizing it as a nonnegotiable prerequisite for sustainable growth. - Role Discipline: Ability to step out of the weeds to own relationship growth without diluting the core competencies of Strategy or Client Service. - Commercial Acumen: Strong understanding of account growth, client retention, and expansion opportunities, with the ability to connect digital marketing outcomes to broader business objectives. - Adaptivity & Learning Agility: High emotional intelligence, adaptability, and judgment, with an eagerness to absorb coaching and build Director-level executive presence.