The Role

You are a senior leader at Koto, responsible for the long-term success and growth of our most important client partnerships. You show true ownership for the clients you lead - accountable for the relationship, the work, the financial performance, and the internal team.

You’re a strategic and commercial thinker who can connect brand to business impact. You can see the big picture while staying close to the details. You build deep client relationships - both with individuals and across complex organisations - and lead high-performing, cross-disciplinary teams to deliver consistently excellent work.

You bring structure, optimism, and ambition to everything you do. You are proactive and set the agenda on our most important clients.

Your Responsibilities

1. You are the most senior and trusted partner to large retained clients. You deeply understand their business, structure, priorities, and people - and build strong, influential relationships at every level.

2. You are responsible for co-authoring and delivering an annual business plan for each client, bringing in leadership as required. That includes a clear strategic and creative direction, commercial goals, and team structure.

3. You lead a multidisciplinary team across client service, strategy, design, and other specialist roles as identified - hiring, mentoring, and scaling the team as needed.

4. You are accountable for the financial performance of your accounts. You set and achieve ambitious growth targets, and proactively identify opportunities for organic growth both through existing and new capabilities.

5. You are a thought partner to your clients, helping them understand the role of brand, digital and campaign in their business and how to position these services as a strategic tool. You can confidently present Koto’s work to clients and lead workshops and briefing sessions.

6. You are always one step ahead - tracking client news, competitor trends, industry shifts, stakeholder movements and what it all means for our work and relationship. You plan against and attend their important events in the calendar – conferences, hosted events, product launches.

7. You champion Koto’s work for your client both internally and externally, building momentum and visibility for what we create together.

8. You contribute to the leadership of the studio, collaborating with peers across functions to deliver on Koto’s KPIs and uphold our culture.

9. You actively contribute to the life and culture of our studio. You travel frequently - visiting and spending time with our pillar clients at their HQs, alone or with a team, to ensure we are getting contact time with them every quarter and across their business milestones.

10. You work in close collaboration with Koto's marketing and growth teams to ensure frequent and relevant storytelling across Koto channels. You work in lock-step with our Growth Directors to brief and prompt any inorganic growth opportunities across potential new geographies or teams, and drive the creation of account based marketing materials when appropriate.

Our Responsibilities

• We will ensure you have meaningful and regular access to your manager to support your personal development and career trajectory.

• We will actively reward performance with promotions, pay increases and an annual bonus of up to 10% of salary.

• We ensure Koto is an equal environment for all its employees.

• We support you in taking family leave and offer significant paid maternity and paternity leave.

• We actively encourage you to take 25 days vacation annually, in addition to UK bank holidays and a studio closure over the December holidays.

• We contribute up to 3% to anyone wanting to participate in our pension.

• We offer a monthly wellness benefits package via Juno of £75 per month.

• We provide access to YCN and fund relevant training opportunities for any employee looking to grow professionally.

• We reward five years of service with £5,000 and five additional vacation days, and ten years with £10,000 and four weeks of vacation.

• We offer the opportunity to work from any of our global studios with appropriate planning and approval.

Our Culture

• At Koto, we encourage our team to be rationally optimistic—about our work, our clients, their businesses, and the power of brand.

• We work in person, with an optional WFH day on Friday and 20 additional remote days per year. We believe this creates the best work, the strongest culture, and the most opportunities to learn from each other.

• We trust our team to manage their time and responsibilities with autonomy and accountability, so they can do their best work while balancing their lives