Client Director

About Merkle

With more than 16,000 employees, Merkle operates in 30+ countries throughout the Americas, EMEA, and APAC.

In the Netherlands, we work together with renowned brands such as Odido, Sky Showtime, Dutch Railways (NS), Albert Heijn and Vodafone Ziggo. Moreover, we have strategic partnerships with Salesforce, Google, Adobe, Marigold and more. For more information, please visit www.merkle.nl.

The Client Partner is passionate about forming and driving successful client relationships and can successfully interact with senior/executive level clients as well as technical specialist and SME’s. Through their role, Client Partners focus on quality delivery and execution to ensure satisfaction and growth.

Key Responsibilities

This person is a high-energy leader with the ability to grow client relationships through presenting new strategies and innovative ideas.

The Client Partner is experienced in leading teams of consulting professionals as well as multidisciplinary teams in a matrixed environment. These individuals also have a strong operational acumen in operating their client’s business to meet financial targets.

• Proven track record of creating happy customers. Own overall client satisfaction and the continuing growth and evolution of the clients. Accomplished by driving successful delivery of work product and cultivating strong client relationships.
• Responsible for a portfolio of accounts
• Leadership and direction of cross functional teams focused on delivering value, ensuring quality. Also, responsible for mentoring employees to elevate opportunities for growth.
• Executive engagement, client expectations, value reinforcement, cross-sell, required to be strategic about engagement strategies that lead to relationship building at C-level.
• Effectively manage all commercial aspects of the client relationship including contracts, pricing, profitability, internal revenue and profit forecasting.
• Accurately plan and forecast revenue growth to achieve their net revenue and margin targets.
• Directs team activities to ensure full collaboration and partnership and leveraging the company’s full complement of resources to support the business.
• Engage with senior level client contacts across all areas of the client’s business on a regular basis, delivering a continuous flow of business-building ideas, while securing relationship and performance feedback.
• Develop and drive growth & account plans, processes, and strategies that improve results for clients, while growing the account portfolio.
• Continually increase knowledge of the client’s business (and industry) often serving as the client’s first line consultant.
• Provide leadership and direction to client and capability teams, fully leveraging all direct and indirect resources and ensuring optimal levels of productivity, service, communications, & quality in a matrix environment for assigned clients.
• Effectively plan work, communicate changes, and troubleshoot problems, assuring that the client and company commitments are kept.
• Work closely with the growth team to develop proposal/presentation content and strategy for new business pitches.
• Effectively “on-board” new client relationships.
• Proactively work to assure a highly engaged team staffed with top talent. Hires, retains, develops and engages top level talent that inspires the trust and confidence of our clients and in turn becomes the reason why clients want to work with us.
• Works to stay current with industry trends and best practices to proactively sell fit for purpose solutions and innovation.
• Fluent in English and dutch

Qualifications

Are you a native-level Dutch speaker with:

• Minimum 8 years of experience in a digital agency or consulting environment
• Experience in a wider spectrum of digital consulting space including strategy, technology advisory and development and design
• Relationship/Client Management
• Account Planning and Strategy
• Ability to lead both internal and client teams
• Business acumen to develop and manage budgets/forecasts/ pro forma
• Exceptional written and verbal skills, including presentation and client engagement
• Ability to multi-task and work well in a fast-changing environment
• Consistent, keen attention to detail; successfully deliver on high expectations
• Advanced Word, Excel, and Power Point skills

Additional Information

What we offer? Quite a lot, here are some highlights:

• An international work environment. Brain-picking colleagues from over the globe;
• A challenging position at a successful company in a growing market;
• Enough time for other fun things at work. Table football, table tennis, (thematic) get-togethers, parties, camping with all colleagues, and a lot more;
• 3 extra days off (yes, at Merkle we take your well-being very seriously) - next to 25 annual holiday days off there are 3 Well-being Days;
• 2 Social Impact Days - you can volunteer for the cause of your choice;
• Extensive learning and development possibilities - wide range of in person and online training courses;
• A hybrid work model, we work 2-3 days at the office, other days at home;
• And, of course, a good salary and excellent fringe benefits.

We don’t like shady stuff, but we do like a good atmosphere.