Associate Business Director - Communications Consultancy

Overview

Job Description

Technical & Product

• Lead the end-to-end delivery of integrated campaigns and content workstreams across assigned India and ASEAN hubs, ensuring smooth transition from creative development through production and implementation.
• Act as the integration conduit across CDU (regional), Impact, Last Mile, Production, Creative, and teams.
• Maintain clear visibility across ongoing projects, milestones, dependencies, approvals, and delivery risks.
• Ensure project workflows align with agreed POUL / CDU ways of working and governance frameworks.
• Support creative development workflows including concept development, testing, storyboard / animatic development, production readiness, and digital adaptation.
• Guide teams on practical delivery solutions under compressed timelines and evolving business requirements.
• Ensure teams are aligned on ownership, roles, responsibilities, and next steps across workstreams.
• Bring practical understanding of delivery realities across India and ASEAN markets, including local stakeholder dynamics, operational dependencies, and regional nuances.

Business Acumen & Operational Efficiency

• Build trusted relationships with regional and local clients, positioning the team as a strategic and dependable business partner.
• Demonstrate strong understanding of client business priorities, operational realities, market nuances, and delivery challenges.
• Lead operational governance across assigned workstreams, ensuring projects are delivered on time, within scope, and to expected quality standards.
• Proactively identify risks, escalation points, resource gaps, and operational blockers; drive timely resolution within internal teams.
• Maintain strong commercial discipline across projects, including PO tracking, billing readiness, burn rate awareness, forecasting support, and financial escalations.
• Drive structured project management and disciplined follow-through across multiple concurrent workstreams.
• Improve efficiency across teams by identifying process gaps, operational inefficiencies, and handover challenges, and recommending scalable solutions.
• Support regional leadership in managing complex delivery scenarios, compressed timelines, and evolving client asks across India and ASEAN hubs.

Innovative & Analytical Mindset

• Think strategically and operationally to solve business and delivery challenges across complex multi-market workstreams.
• Join the dots across clients, internal teams, timelines, budgets, and delivery dependencies to propose practical solutions.
• Proactively identify opportunities to simplify processes, improve governance, and enhance delivery effectiveness.
• Demonstrate sound judgment in navigating ambiguity, competing priorities, and operational complexity.
• Bring a solution-led mindset to challenges rather than escalating issues without clear recommendations.
• Produce clear, insightful, and well-structured communication for both clients and internal leadership.

People & Leadership

• Act as a dependable leadership presence across assigned teams, providing clear direction, guidance, and support.
• Support Account Management and cross-functional teams in navigating complex operational scenarios.
• Foster strong collaboration across markets, departments, and hub teams.
• Build trust and credibility with teams through practical leadership, responsiveness, and ownership.
• Coach junior and mid-level team members on ways of working, project management discipline, and stakeholder management.
• Create clarity in moments of ambiguity and support teams in resolving challenges effectively.
• Encourage collaborative, integrated, and solutions-oriented team culture aligned with the POUL operating model.
• Demonstrate strong judgement, maturity, and professionalism in both internal and external stakeholder interactions.

Self

• Demonstrate agility and flexibility in responding to evolving business priorities and complex project demands.
• Take ownership and accountability for delivery outcomes across assigned workstreams.
• Operate with resilience and composure under pressure.
• Show strong initiative in anticipating risks, solving problems, and driving improvements.
• Demonstrate learning agility and openness to evolving ways of working.
• Maintain high standards of professionalism, collaboration, and commercial responsibility.
• Act with integrity, sound judgement, and strong accountability in all stakeholder interactions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Communications, Business, or related field.
• Minimum 8 years’ experience in integrated agency / communications / marketing delivery roles.
• Proven experience managing complex, multi-market, cross-functional workstreams.
• Strong understanding of creative development, production workflows, regional to local operations, finance know-how, process optimisation & change management.
• Experience in financial operations, billing governance, and commercial delivery management.
• **Prior experience working across India and/or ASEAN markets is strongly preferred.**
• **Candidates with direct market experience from India or ASEAN, or demonstrated experience managing these regions, will be strongly preferred given the nature of the role.**
• Experience working across matrixed regional / global organisations preferred.
• FMCG / Beauty experience is an advantage.
• Fluency in English.