Director, Programmatic

Company Overview 

At Horizon Media, we are committed to fostering innovation and achieving success for our clients' businesses through exemplary media planning and buying. Within Horizon, the Programmatic media capability plays a pivotal role in ensuring that our clients' messages and value propositions resonate with consumers amidst a rapidly evolving media landscape. Horizon is devoted to investing in technology, automation, and artificial intelligence to enhance our offerings, making them as intelligent, sophisticated, interconnected, effective, and distinguished as possible. Programmatic media planning and activation goes to the heart of Horizon’s investment focus. 

Job Summary 

The Director, Programmatic role seeks an experienced, confident, programmatic media veteran who can be a leading voice for clients in steering them to adopt the most effective and advanced programmatic media strategies and activation approaches.  The person will demonstrate an elevated ability to think and provide thought leadership as relates to emerging opportunities and constructs that can achieve faster adoption with clear and organized understanding of what things mean and how to package them up effectively.  This person is vital in creating the reputation that Horizon’s programmatic practice wants to have for being best-in-class.   

Main Duties and Responsibilities 

60% Thought Leadership 

• Thought leader:  Recognizes every opportunity to dimensionalize a client question or line of inquiry into an organized perspective that shows comprehensive understanding, connection to a client’s business, and thoughtfulness in threading a throughline.  Oversees powerpoint creation for external deliverables, POVs, recommendations and all client matters to present an impressive imprint on client material and interactions.   

• Frameworks work:   Develops and implements measurement frameworks in conjunction with lead Analytics team members to answer questions that clients may not have realized were even possible to answer.   

• Know-it-all (in a good way):  Has a tight grasp on technology partners for any given fit or situation and can help spin up vendor solutions and scorecarding.  Owns a keen sense for how to devise a data-led strategy, with deep knowledge of the evolving landscape around contextual, deterministic and privacy related considerations.   

• Curiosity didn’t kill the kpi:  is always asking questions and pursuing answers around emerging channels and formats, endemic and nonedemic considerations, and how everything plays together in terms of features and costs and results. 

40% Account Management 

• Health nut:  Ensures day-to-day account health and client satisfaction on the whole.  Drive timelines, collateral, deliverables, output, and follow-up for day-to-day client deliverables. 

• Looking for a long term relationship:  Serves as a visible and indispensable point of contact for clients, maintaining strong relationships and ensuring clear communication. 

• An educator at heart:  Excited to conduct client and investment team education in an ongoing manner on the belief that rising knowledge lifts collective work product. 

Additional Responsibilities 

• Help drive innovation for account portfolios that meet and/or exceed client expectations. 

• Stay on top of industry development and the ever-changing media landscape.  Be able to synthesize how industry developments may impact the client and bringing them to the client proactively. 

• Lead team in producing insights from Horizon resources/tools to offer clients holistic business solutions.  Ensure the team adheres to processes and established norms. 

• Promote various topics of education for the team, including presentation skills, advancing Excel knowledge, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, and mentorship soft skills. 

• Contribute to team members’ development, providing consistent feedback and education on best practices, programmatic media principles, and industry trends. 

• Define areas of improvement and implement processes to ensure change. 

• Vet vendors for potential training sessions and stay abreast of industry trends and capabilities. 

• Eagle eye:  See across the entire process to identify spots to step in and mitigate risk.  Ensure a positive working relationship with your team and DAT, BST, analytics, and client. 

Who You Are 

• A collaborative, team-oriented manager with strong delegation and organization skills. 

• A solutions-oriented problem solver. 

• A self-starter who takes initiative. 

• A strong communicator and presenter. 

• Able to actively seek out and implement feedback. 

• Nimble and flexible to succeed in a fast-paced and ever-changing environment. 

• A business-mature individual who exudes professionalism and respect and leads by example. 

• Committed to the success of the team. 

• A strong leader eager to grow and develop team members. 

• A supporter of and advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Preferred Skills & Experience 

• 7+ years of previous in-platform programmatic experience. 

• Expert-level understanding of programmatic buying and planning. 

• Experience mentoring and managing a team. 

• Effective communication and presentation skills, both internally and externally. 

• Familiarity with multiple DSPs. 

• Proficient in Excel and PowerPoint and storytelling. 

Supervisory Responsibilities 

Management responsibility for team structure aligned to account portfolio. 

Certificates, Licenses, and Registrations 

None required. 

Physical Activity and Work Environment 

None required. 

The statements herein are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by employees and are not to be construed as an exhaustive list of responsibilities, duties, and skills required of personnel so classified. Furthermore, they do not establish a contract for employment and are subject to change at the discretion of the employer. 

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