Senior Project Manager

We are seeking a Senior Manager to join the Corporate Practice in our Chicago office to support a broad range of client and new business needs. In this role, you will be working on programs involving reputation management, earned media strategies, executive thought leadership, internal communications, crisis communications, and integrated communications planning to protect and drive corporate reputation and value proposition narratives a variety of clients and prospects across many industries. The ideal candidate will possess experience and skills across many of the above areas and will be responsible for supporting multiple account teams and collaborating with specialists and subject matter experts across the practice and agency. This role will help lead work from concept to execution, be a primary client contact, and mentor junior talent. The ideal candidate must have strong written and oral communications skills, be able to creatively support corporate reputation and positioning programs that resonate in today’s environment and possess a passion for earned storytelling.

 

PRIMARY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own responsibilities for execution of client programs, budgets, and plans.
• 5-7 years of relevant experience
• Contribute to development of plans, translating strategies into tactics.
• Ensure team deliverables align with strategic plans to deliver strong results across agreed-to communications channels.
• Create media strategies and oversee pitching of well-developed stories to key national, trade and other media of importance to client goals.
• Developing executive positioning programs and tactical outputs including media, speaking, awards and social opportunities.
• Support issues and crises, including media monitoring, creation of reactive statements and materials, preparedness and scenario plans
• Build strong client and internal relationships, confidence and trust by proactively anticipating and understanding client needs.
• Leverage industry knowledge and experience to proactively support and recommend new ideas.
• Contribute to the career growth of junior team members, serving as mentor and role model.
• Actively participate in team culture, external visibility events and assist with new business.
• Demonstrate financial acumen in the areas of budgeting, billing and staffing.

The Weber Shandwick Collective recognizes that your health and wellbeing are a priority. This is why we offer a full suite of benefits including:

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• 401k (with employer match)
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Juice Money – $60 monthly reimbursement to be used towards purchases that nourish your health, mind, body, and soul
• MyDays – Flexible holiday schedules
• Short-Term Disability
• Paid Employee Family Leave
• Family Building Benefit

Weber Shandwick is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Weber Shandwick recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.

#LI-JP1 

Who We Are

United Minds is a global change consultancy that helps Fortune 500 clients transform their organizations, with a particular focus on the people side of change.

What Makes Us Different

At United Minds, our purpose is to make business more human – because we believe our collective futures depend on a human-powered world. We do this by helping leaders decide, design, develop and drive the future of their organization in partnership with people, and for people, using business intelligence to inform human-centered change experiences.

Partnering with some of the world’s biggest organizations, we deliver impactful, enduring change. Our core services include organizational transformation (M&A, spinoffs, restructures, marketing and digital transformation), leadership alignment, talent strategy development, culture change and employee experience. 

Our values – Big Thinking; Little Details; Giant Heart – inform our work… and the way we work with our client partners. We thrive on bringing original ideas to the table but know this only comes alive in the details. And most importantly, we do this with our whole heart – giving ourselves permission to care for each other, for the work, for our clients and ourselves.

What’s more, as part of The Weber Shandwick Collective, we’re able to tap into award-winning creative capabilities, the latest in AI thinking, and research, data and analytics to supercharge our solutions for clients.

Our Growth Ambition

We have big, bold growth ambitions at UM. And in a world defined by “extreme change”, we’re uniquely positioned to help our clients navigate the myriad of challenges they face. Our agile, innovation-first mindset means we are constantly incubating new offerings such as stakeholder fluency and narrative intelligence to ensure we’re as future-oriented as the companies we propel forward.

As part of our continued growth, we are looking for a Senior Consultant to join our North America team who can lead client-consulting projects, contribute to thought leadership, and participate in new business. 

Responsibilities

Client Solutions and Team Lead

• Serve as daily client contact and act as client lead when appropriate, demonstrating a bias for delivering proactive solutions and inspiring confidence that business objectives and challenges are understood
• With input from senior leaders, oversee development of strategic recommendations on change management, organizational culture and and/or employee engagement projects, requiring knowledge of change management processes and principles, with the ability to work in a fast-paced environment
• Understands the end-to-end methodologies across the core suite of UM offerings and, as such, when to pull in senior leaders or specialists from other practices
• Ensure deliverables are client-ready – reviewing deliverables produced by junior team members
• Ability to share insights, distill findings, and trends with clients and teams to mobilize, develop and motivate

Account Management Expert

• Partner with Senior Principals and Principals to design the project team structure and organically grow the business – identifying new opportunities and proactively developing client relationships
• Effectively “manages up,” proactively seeking out senior input and counsel when needed rather than waiting for senior team members to check in
• Drive creation, approval and management of SOWs and project budgets
• Identify resourcing needs/gaps/opportunities to solve with UM’s VP, Operations

Talent and Culture Cultivator

• Exemplify our values of Big Thinking, Little Details and Giant Heart, and bringing them to life into relationships with clients and colleague at all levels
• Role models and fosters collaborative and supportive relationships with team members and counterparts in other practices
• Integrate junior staff into workflow scenarios; possesses the ability to delegate tasks while remaining accountable for outcomes
• Supervise junior staff by motivating, coaching, consistently providing feedback

Growth Enabler

• Contributes to development of new business response (depending on scale/scope of opportunity)
• Contribute to thought leadership and offering development

Our Ideal Candidate

• At least 6-8 years’ of consulting experience working in human capital and organizational transformation in large, complex, multinational organizations.

• Excellent team and client management skills
• Ability to professionally interface with and influence clients
• Embraces ambiguity and approaches challenges with curiosity, applying past experiences but not limiting solutions to them, to continuously improve and innovate what we do for clients and our own business alike
• Emphasizes attention to detail and quality, while working with a sense of urgency
• Shows exceptional judgment when working with team members, client contacts and vendors
• Exhibits a strong commitment to agency and personal growth
• Master’s Degree in Organizational Development or related field, and/or change management certification such as Prosci are a plus

NYC Salary range: $80.00 – $100.00

Where an employee or prospective employee is paid within this range will depend on, among other factors, actual ranges for current/former employees in the subject position; market considerations; budgetary considerations; tenure and standing with the company (applicable to current employees); as well as the employee’s/applicant’s background, pertinent experience, and qualifications.

United Minds is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. United Minds recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.

#LI-RJ1

Vice President, Client Operations

Toronto, ON

 

The ideal candidate is an established leader who has a proven record operationalizing large Agency Accounts, and driving excellence through the implementation of Client Operational best practices. This role is client facing, owning structure, scope, process and proactive finance management for a group of Accounts.

 

This person is cool, calm and collected with a proactive, solution-oriented, strategic voice. The ideal candidate has the ability to confidently engage in tough conversations with internal team members, partners and clients, communicating a clear and concise POV that establishes Weber Shandwick as a trusted, strategic partner.

 

You are responsible for the optimization of Account staff structure, scope review, establishing processes and workflows at the account level, and overseeing the financial health of each account. If the Account Lead is the Account “CEO”, you are the Account “COO”.

 

RESPONSIBILITIES

Portfolio Operations

• Primary voice with clients, representing agency relative to financial management of the account (SOW development and approvals, scope revisions, client financial reporting). Partners closely with agency account and finance leads
• Proactive, big picture financial management to balance actuals with forecast to flag risks to account leads, including analysis of data to provide recommendations to reduce overservice or correct a chronic issue
• Connects the dots between procurement, brand and marketing clients, in alignment with agency priorities and scope
• Scope complex projects as required, recommending staff and hours required for the deliverables
• Drive high level and long-range forecasting for staff hours, based on minimal information
• Guide the account team on Vendor contracting, reviewing complex contracts as needed
• Supports cross-functional Agency teams on roles and responsibilities, process and templates
• New account set up in partnership with account lead, including recommended team structure, process, templates, staff & financial forecasting

Management/Leadership

• Supports new-business opportunities with input on staff structure and financial scoping
• Provides a breadth of process and business skills as well as hands-on experience
• Able to negotiate conflict, manage differences of opinion, and communicate effectively
• Mentors and manages up to 2 project managers and / or client financial reporting managers

Resource Management

• Responsible for utilization metrics, leveraging real-time data vs forecast to project potential risks
• Partners with Resource Director and discipline leads to identify and manage resource needs for short and long term, monitoring impact on capacity and proactively managing risk
• Partners with agency account lead to manage team on-boarding processes

 

QUALIFICATIONS

• 8-10+ years of professional Client Operations experience in an agency setting, preferably in corporate communications, management consulting is a plus but not required
• Strong skills in scoping, pricing, financial management and timeline development for large, complex programs
• Ideal candidate should have familiarity with different types of programs and deliverables, such as strategic planning, creative ideation, video, social and editorial content, digital, event-based programs, and vendor management
• Project Management background is an asset
• Ability to assess existing processes and identify opportunities to increase efficiency
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Strong organizational and time management skills
• Proficient in collaboration tools such as Microsoft Products and Smartsheets

 

The Weber Shandwick Collective recognizes that your health and wellbeing are a priority. This is why we offer a full suite of benefits including:

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• RRSP (with employer match)
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Juice Money – $60 monthly reimbursement to be used towards purchases that nourish your health, mind, body, and soul
• Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) – $50 monthly cell phone reimbursement
• MyDays – Flexible time off
• Short-Term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave Policy

Weber Shandwick is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Weber Shandwick recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, colour, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.

#LI-SK1