Head of Social - Ogilvy UK

Lead a skilled team of social specialists across Ogilvy UK and deliver effective and award-winning social-first strategies for the world’s most successful brands.

Are you a proven leader in social-first creativity who wants to elevate your career at one of the most successful creative networks? We are on the hunt for a new Head of Social to inspire an established team of social strategists, social creatives, advocacy and analytics experts.

Ogilvy UK continues to thrive. Over the past 3 years we’ve seen our business outgrow the market with much of our success coming from our PR and Influence business. In 2025 we want to capitalize on that by continuing to build, grow and redefine our social offer.

As the social landscape continues to evolve, we want to bring into our business an experienced, well-connected, passionate, commercially savvy social expert. Someone who lives and breathes social, loves it, is passionate about creativity and can help our clients keep pace with the best and most innovative ways to reach consumers.

PR, Social and Influence is one of five Ogilvy UK businesses so, leading the Social practice connects you into a team of super smart people working in Ogilvy One, Health, Advertising and Consulting. As well as leading a team of social experts, you’ll also be working on integrated through-the-line campaigns like our award winning Have A Word for the Mayor of London and Turn Your Back for Dove.

We’ll be looking to you to bring connections, ideas, excitement and knowledge to light a fire in the social space, helping us to keep our existing, long-term client relationships fresh and working hard for us, while bringing in new, big brands that will continue to drive our growth.

Role overview:

In this role, you’ll be responsible for developing our end-to-end social offering from organic, culture-first social through to paid and social commerce.

You’ll play a key role in realising our ambitions as we transition to a truly integrated, social, and earned-first approach.

You’ll relish the challenge of competing head-to-head with pure-play social agencies and developing social-first, culturally impactful and integrated brand campaigns.

Working with senior stakeholders across the business, you’ll be responsible for developing a best-in-class social offering and driving growth with existing and new clients. You'll have the opportunity to influence major brands' role in culture, leveraging our proprietary tech stack, deep creative talent pool and proven methodologies.

The ideal candidate brings a deep understanding of culture-first brand strategy, a passion for creative excellence in social and the ability to consult with clients across the full spectrum of social media.

You’ll be an empathic leader and a highly effective collaborator who drives growth by enabling those around you to deliver the best work of their careers. This role presents a unique opportunity for an established social leader to develop their career on one of the biggest agency stages in the UK with the support of the UK leadership team.

Consulting:

• Lead the development and execution of award winning social-first campaigns that drive cultural relevance and business impact for clients
• Play a lead role in the development of distinctive social strategies for our major clients with a focus on brand building and meaningful cultural impact
• With our strategy team develop social-first creative briefs and guide creative teams through ideation and execution
• Manage senior client relationships and serve as strategic advisor on social brand building and drive integration of social strategy across broader marketing and communications programs

Product and Growth:

• Lead and evolve our product offers including – commerce, paid, organic and community building – and develop integrated strategies and campaigns that weave specialist teams together
• Oversee the operation of an agile content production engine and collaborate with specialists across the network to deliver high-performing and innovative content-led campaigns
• Identify and pursue new business opportunities through the development of innovative social solutions and product offerings
• Join the EMEA and global social media communities and partner with colleagues across the region on multi-market client campaigns and regional new business opportunities
• Play a lead role in the development of thought leadership initiatives and represent the agency at industry events and in external communications

Leadership and Operations:

• Set the direction and growth strategy for Ogilvy’s social offering working in partnership with the Managing Director for PR, Social and Influence, ECD and Social Excellence Lead
• Build and mentor a team of social specialists, setting performance standards, team values and vision and drive professional development
• Create an unstoppable team culture and ambition and optimise the processes, operations and platforms that we need to deliver effectively resulting in profitable growth
• Manage a P&L, including budget planning, resource allocation, and revenue forecasting
• Integrating with Influence, Consumer PR and Corporate Reputation. Ogilvy is the home of Borderless Creativity and integration comes naturally to us all. This role will mean constant collaboration with specialists in advertising, behavioural science, experience, and marketing science but most of all it will mean working closely with our incredible influence, consumer PR and corporate reputation teams in the UK, EMEA and globally. PR, social and Influence have huge cross-over and with your skills and those of our experts, we can be the agency others aspire to be in all fields.

About you:

You don’t need to have worked in a big network agency, but you will be comfortable running a big team, driving growth with exceptional commercial acumen and navigating complex client and stakeholder relationships. You will bring some great experience with both big and disruptive brands and some of those would ideally be multi-national clients. You should be comfortable operating at the highest levels with C-suite clients, giving counsel and advice when required. You’ll bring the outside in with fresh ideas, contacts and an entrepreneurial approach to giving Social at Ogilvy PR a new chapter of its journey.

Here’s some characteristics we’ll be looking for:

• This is first because it is the most important. We want people who radiate energy about the work and the impact they can have on it.
• Our values are – Do the Right Thing, Do the Best Work of Our Lives, Do it Together. If all of those speak to you, you’ll love it here.
• We want to hear about how you have succeeded with team-mates, clients, creators etc as much if not more so than what you have achieved alone.
• Social is a space of constant change, experimentation is a huge part of how we get better and we’d love you to be bold about innovating and trying new things.
• Entrepreneurial spirit. You will be at your best when spotting new opportunities and be relentless in making them happen.
• Of course, you will want to make work which makes your clients famous and alongside that, make the Ogilvy UK brand famous too.
• Cultural intelligence and inclusivity. You are culturally intelligent, actively build an inclusive culture and are supportive, inspiring and equitable in both the way you work and in the work that you produce.

 

Our ambition is to attract the very best diverse talent to Ogilvy, and to be the employer of choice in the UK. We want everyone to feel welcome when they join us, and once they’re here, for them to want to stay with us, grow their career, and to feel they belong with us.

We are an equal opportunity employer and we’re committed to creating an inclusive, welcoming environment for everyone who wants to work at Ogilvy. For us, diversity, equity and inclusion is integrated into everything that we do. We believe that for creativity to flourish, everything about how we work must have diversity at its core. Your race, colour, ethnic, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, have no bearing on our hiring decisions, but we encourage everyone to feel free to express their true selves in an environment we are consistently striving to make as inclusive as possible.

We aim to facilitate an accessible and positive application experience for all candidates. If you require any adjustments from us to support you through the process or expect to require any adjustments to working conditions to be able to best perform in the role, please let us know. We are happy to consider all reasonable adjustments.

If you live with a disability and you would like to take advantage of our offer of a guaranteed interview under the Disability Confident Scheme, please ensure you fill out our voluntary Equal Opportunities Questionnaire when applying.