Vice President of Client Services

Kane Communications Group

Kane Communications Group is a results-driven public relations and marketing firm with team members in Milwaukee, Phoenix, and Geneva, Switzerland. Our clients come to us with their problems and it’s our job to solve them.

We focus on delivering business results through research-based strategic planning, public and community relations, brand development, digital and traditional marketing, content development, video production, internal communications and more. Visionary leaders count on Kane for everything from crisis communications and reputation management to integrated marketing campaigns and brand development.

Founded in 2013 by former TV news journalist, Kimberly Kane, our firm has a startup-like environment with sights set high on transforming the way agencies work with clients. Our employees have been known to create new positions for themselves and are frequently involved in envisioning new services and ways of doing things within the agency.

https://www.kanecommgroup.com/


Position Details

Vice President of Client Services
Job
Full-time
5/17/2021
Southeast Wisconsin
Milwaukee, WI

The vice president of client service plays a key role on Kane’s leadership team. The purpose of this job is to run, manage, and oversee the client services experience for all Kane accounts, and elevate the level of sophistication to our clients’ integrated plans.

Within Kane, the vice president of client service serves on the Kane leadership team and reports directly to Kane’s president & CEO. This is a newly created position that will be responsible for developing multiple new initiatives and processes at Kane in conjunction with Kane’s leadership team, including the Kane client services philosophy and ongoing training and development opportunities for Kane’s team members. We believe in research-based strategic planning - for both PR and marketing projects - and you will be responsible for ensuring that our team produces such well thought-out work. In addition, the vice president of client service plays an important role in agency growth and profitability, bearing final responsibility for the growth and profitability of Kane accounts. The vice president of client service will be challenged and inspired by working directly with Kane’s leadership team, working with our C-Suite clients and boards of directors, managing a diverse team of professionals and bringing an innovative and organized approach to client service at Kane.

Accountabilities:

Before applying, make sure this is the right opportunity for you on our team. At Kane, the Vice President of Client Services is accountable for:

1. Leading, managing and holding accountable - You will create a vision that motivates and inspires direct reports; provide direction on how they can execute their own positions; and hold employees accountable for following through with their duties - rewarding and disciplining where necessary.

2. Organic growth - You proactively find ways to re-sign and grow current client accounts year over year. You work with your direct reports to identify new ideas, areas of opportunity and improvement and bring these to Kane clients regularly. 

Accountabilities (continued):

3. Client satisfaction - You are responsible for ensuring that Kane’s clients are satisfied with our work together including establishing baseline client satisfaction metrics, setting goals, and developing and implementing strategies to achieve exceptional client satisfaction results. You seek feedback regularly and resolve issues and concerns quickly and effectively. When necessary, you make changes to teams, strategies and budgets to come to mutually beneficial resolutions for both the business and the client.

4. Team resourcing - You will be responsible for ensuring that our client account teams are put together with the right mix of talent from the account supervisor to the specialists, including any outside contractors. You identify the number of staff and type of staff that are required to meet agency and client needs. You consider the appropriate balance between internal resources (staff) and external resources (such as contractors). You will play an active role in recruiting new team members as Kane employees. Part of team resourcing also includes managing team bandwidth. You will also develop and manage a system that tracks team bandwidth. This system will keep employees on track to achieve their billable targets, help with resourcing for new business planning, and identify areas for outside support when necessary.

5. Team development - You will be sure our team has the knowledge to do their jobs and grow in their skills and contributions to the agency. This starts with ensuring new team members are properly onboarded and acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to thrive at Kane. We are big believers in continuous improvement. Kane uses the Traction 5/5/5 system to manage employees’ work through our core values and the Traction Entrepreneurial Operating System. As VP of Client Services, you will work with current team development processes, as well as identify and add new ones to help employees grow in their knowledge, and grow in their roles at Kane.

6. Quality plans - Kane’s approach to plan development includes research, evaluation, and a focus on achieving measurable objectives. As VP of Client Services, you’re the ultimate owner of quality plan writing, making sure team members write quality plans designed with appropriate measurement and results in mind. You will develop processes and templates for your team to use to write plans, and will review all plans before they go out the door to clients and ensure they meet Kane's process and quality standards.

7. Account profitability - You will work with the business development team and your account supervisors to inform scopes of work and the creation of budgets on the front end, and with account leads throughout the delivery of services to ensure budgets are managed successfully. In addition, you will ensure that any incoming bills from freelancers or outsourced work properly matches estimates, and review/approve prior to sending to Accounting. You will review invoices for Kane client work according to contract terms on a monthly basis.

8. Account service process and tools - You will keep a continuous improvement mindset, working with your team to evaluate, develop and implement the use of new processes and tools that will standardize the way Kane services our clients. You will do so because you understand that processes and tools can improve the quality of our work and provide clearer expectations for employees during their onboarding and training.

General Requirements:

Before applying, make sure you’ll fit in well with the Kane culture.

OUR VALUES:

CURIOSITY

We ask questions and seek knowledge to improve our craft.

EMPATHY

We know that results mean nothing without humanity.

INGENUITY

We provide answers that are unexpected.

TEAMWORK

We devote ourselves to our teammates, our business, our clients and the quality of our work.

Required experience and core competencies for this position include:

  • 10+ years of relevant experience in marketing, communications and/or PR related fields 
  • A minimum of four years of experience working in an agency environment with a demonstrated track record of increasing responsibility and leadership roles 
  • A minimum of four years of experience in a similar role, overseeing agency client services and managing a team of direct reports, and serving as an organizational spokesperson 
  • Proven experience developing and overseeing the implementation of integrated plans, including strategic public relations, digital, brand and marketing 
  • Demonstrated experience managing teams and guiding the successful growth and development of direct report
  • A proven ability to manage large accounts, as well as teams, for multiple clients at once and resolve team and client issues 
  • References from executive and C-suite leaders with whom you have advised, consulted with, influenced regarding their reputation, PR, brand, marketing and/or communication challenges 
  • Excellent written and verbal communications skills and demonstrated ability to delegate tactical assignments and accurately judge and edit work of others 
  • Able to produce examples of well-researched, strategic, integrated marketing & PR plans and/or findings reports with strategic recommendations made to your clients 
  • Strong written, verbal and people skills with the ability to provide writing samples

Kane is continuously adding to and strengthening our benefits package year over year. A growing business, we offer an environment with opportunity for career advancement.

Our current compensation and benefits for this position include:

  • Salary commensurate with years of experience 
  • Bonuses and sales performance incentives 
  • Vacation/PTO 
  • Work remote flexibility 
  • 401K 
  • Health Insurance 
  • Dental Insurance 
  • Vision Insurance 
  • Accident & Critical Illness Coverage 
  • Parking stipend 
  • Onsite restaurant, fitness center and an employee lounge with vending 
  • Professional development and many networking event opportunities 
  • Great Downtown Milwaukee location 


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