Senior Director - Public Affairs

 

More about the role:

Burson, is looking to hire Senior Director - Public Affairs for our Gurugram location. The individual will join our Public Affairs client servicing team.

As a Senior Director you are expected to independently lead and manage large teams/ a practice with revenue targets. You are responsible to leverage your industry expertise to contribute to Burson’s performance by managing a portfolio of client relationships and integrated communication (IC) programs, satisfying, and delighting clients, generating new business, and developing strong teams. You are required to actively support our corporate strategy and your practice or office to help ensure superior client service, a winning culture and profitability.

What you'll do:

Client Engagement:

• Oversee a significant portfolio of clients/ lead a practice with the responsibility to profitably grow clients and build long lasting relationships.
• Will be the lead link between the GR team, the clients, and the team.
• The individual must specialise in one but must understand all areas of Public Affairs, Government Relations, IR/Advocacy, Research, Insights & Analysis, Content (Policy papers, background papers, representations, presentations, reports, white papers, etc). Have expertise in. Should be an expert on research- Insight & Analysis/ Content
• Provide supervision and guidance on advocacy opportunities (strategic partnerships and collaboration opportunities with the government/ think tanks etc)
• Use your leadership and category expertise to be your clients’ senior strategic partner and point of contact for major concerns.
• Be a knowledge leader-understand the trends and issues that impact brands, including media, business, political and cultural.
• Oversee the management of client relationship and be an innovative leader that leads, inspires, supports, and celebrates your team’s creative ideas and compelling platforms to unify IC activities.
• Manage and motivate account teams to deliver superior client service.
• Timely Decision Making – The ability to identify a problem and find solutions. Makes decisions in a timely manner, using available information and under tight deadlines.
• Be a source of creative ideas and effectively use Burson’s proprietary tools Creative Studio, BAV, Decipher and other businesses under the Burson umbrella (i.e. PSB, Axicom, etc.) to build brands and nail client objective.
• Partner with the digital innovations team and other network resources at the beginning of an engagement to ensure a truly organic and cohesive digital strategy.
• You must possess a strong familiarity with how Generative AI tools are used across communications programmes, especially in planning, research, ideation, content creation, and daily operations.

Business Development:

• Support and personally drive integration across the Burson’s internal network between practice specialties.
• Proactively identify opportunities for organic growth with existing clients and keep up with client and market changes and pursue those leading to new business opportunities.
• Be the consummate networker- support and strengthen our new business development process by actively developing business contacts through professional activities and networking.
• Introduce existing clients to Burson offices in other geographies to contribute to the global and regional growth of the company.
  Build relationships with our WPP sister agencies and explore cooperative opportunities with clients.

Talent Management:

• Be a mentor and serve as a trusted coach and advisor to all your team members, take an active interest in their career development by helping them identify development needs, acquire new skills, and grow within the organization.
• Build diverse, inclusive, and high performing teams and encourage participation from all individuals without bias, continuously building morale and motivation and rewarding good performance.
• Provide continuous constructive feedback to your team members, not just during performance reviews, to develop the next generation of client leaders.
• Play a leading role in encouraging and introducing staff development and retention programs that look for ways to engage top performers.
• Be a consummate leader embodying the values of the company and serve as a role model to all employees.

Financial Management:

• Take responsibility of revenue targets
• Manage teams and allocate resources for agency profitability.
• Act as a conduit between finance and the client servicing team to ensure that accounts are profitably managed and understand the reason for over and under servicing.
• Take decisions on planning and preparing annual budgets and forecast of projected income.
• Follow and ensure staff follow agency procedures for client budgets, budget tracking, contract approval and billing rates.
• Spearhead and lead development of business plans to increase market shares and profits.
• Create and execute a practice plan that supports our corporate strategic plan.

Experience that contributes to success:

• Bachelor / Postgraduate degree required; (MBA/Communications/Public Policy or related field) is preferred.
• 15+ years of experience in Public Affairs / Communications, with hands-on experience across areas like government relations, advocacy, research, insights, and content development.
• Strong track record of driving agency growth through new business development, identifying opportunities, and leading end-to-end proposal and pitch processes.
• Strong familiarity with how Generative AI tools are used across communications programmes.