Head of Digital / Interactive (This position and its role vary greatly from agency to agency.)

The Head of Digital (HOD) maintains and grows our client's business with The agency on an ongoing and project basis. They direct and coordinate the day-to-day agency creative innovation and technology efforts on behalf of the client’s on assigned accounts and lead technical strategy, development, deployment and innovation. They act as a senior level counterpart to creative leadership, this person will provide technology-based strategic direction while assessing and informing the feasibility of creative digital solutions. In this role, the HOD insures that the agency provides:

Sound and responsible marketing counseling and planning.
Conceptual creation of ideas spanning all areas of integrated communication, branding and interactive programs.
Proper and innovative execution of work in all areas on schedule.
Deliver a consistently superior creative product.
Strategic and creative vision for technology innovation.

The Requirements

Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Arts, Media Arts, Interaction Design or equivalent education and experience. The ideal candidate will have 10-15 or more years of broad creative and management experience, including experience in both corporate, consumer and digital. She / he must have experience leading cross-discipline teams.
Interest in and aptitude for creative business and marketing solutions
Knowledge of web application design and build.
Experience in Integrated marketing.
Will make fun of the copy here, and write an app about it.
Well versed in planning campaigns across multiple platforms
Great client-facing experience.
Great creative management abilities
Self motivated and willing to expand knowledge
Ability to self-manage while managing assigned teams and projects.
Ability to Provide guidance and growth opportunities for the development team and to be an advocate for the development department within the agency.
An instinctive and profound understanding of technology and a pragmatic, hands-on approach to problem solving.

Major Contacts

The HOD position requires ongoing and in-depth interactions with the following: The HOD reports to the CEO. As assigned, the HOD has overall responsibility for leading the client creative technology innovation and development effort. Within the agency, the HOD is a thought leader for the client and works closely with all agency personnel in developing and executing deliverables The HOD will have direct client contact with assigned agency clients. Must be an excellent pitch person, with great written and oral communication skills. The HOD must have an instinctive and profound understanding of technology and a pragmatic, hands-on approach to problem solving.

Responsibilities and Duties

The HOD has four areas of responsibility (specific duties of each are explained below)

Planning, Analyzing, Evaluating

Develop workable budgets, work plans and realistic timetables.
Collaborates with the ECD, Head of Account Services, President and Head of Strategy, and new business team on preparation of marketing recommendations, strategies and actions for the client.
Reviews, analyzes and evaluates the following, relative to the client’s needs and objectives: media output, creative output, research reports and client data.
Provide client platform / business updates on a regular basis to demonstrate upcoming opportunities and threats to their business
Defining development scope, works with peers in the creation of project scope, specifications and time plans.

Team Leading, Coordinating, Managing

Provides creative technology and innovation leadership within the agency on behalf of the client.
Monitors all budget, research and creative activity.
Maintains communications with appropriate agency and client personnel to ensure positive workflow.
Educating clients and a track record of creating awesome work.
Champion internal systems for higher productivity working
Provide leadership and professional development to development department; hire, mentor and train employees; oversee and conduct yearly reviews
Lead the Interactive Department’s infrastructure, including best practices, tools, processes, staffing requirements, and management of external and vendor partnerships.
Lead best practice documentation, and management of Interactive Development projects to achieve a high-quality end product.
Coordinate quality assurance procedures to ensure error-free product.
Guide day-to-day development of Interactive Development projects within approved plans and in accordance with client’s objectives and budgets.

Project & Product Management

Manage client projects, involved with client projects from start to finish, ensuring successful project completion against deadlines.
Provide and maintain projects status - liaising with development teams, designers and commercial staff to provide accurate updates of project statuses
Project quality assurance - testing and review of output, reviewing outputted deliverables against scope
Participate in weekly resource assignment meetings, which include interactive, creative leads, and development leads to allocate resources based on availability
Understands: positioning development, marketing plans, manufacturing or development needs, timeline and roadmap planning, stats analysis and reporting.
Define and enforce best practices and contribute to company knowledge-sharing effort
Build relationships with third-party vendors, identifying and documenting integration points with third-party solutions to manage risk accordingly.

Creative Development

Strong creative approach for video, interactive and user journey experience with proven skills in interaction design, brand and campaign concepting and execution.
Management and leadership skills
Able to decipher complex communication briefs and objectives into intelligent media / technology solutions. - Master storyteller with the ability to command a room and build strong client relationships.
Previous cross discipline experience that covers interactive / experiential design, creative media arts, immersive and reactive environments and narrative storytelling for multi-sensory physical experiences.
Management and mentoring of creative team. Able to concept and translate a complex technology driven idea to action and drive team to successful execution.