Business Director - Consumer PR

 Business Director
Consumer PR 

Department: Consumer PR
Location: London
Contract type: Initial 12-Month Fixed Term Contract
Full Time/Part time: Full Time - Hybrid Working
Reporting into: Managing Partner

About Ogilvy:

Ogilvy UK has been creating iconic ideas that deliver impact at scale for clients ever since David Ogilvy founded the company in 1948. The agency specialises in bringing together brand advertising, customer experience marketing, PR, influence and consulting, all fuelled by Behavioural Science. Our world-class award-winning creative campaigns deliver solutions for clients including Sainsbury’s, Lloyds Banking Group, Madri, Unilever and Mondelēz International. 

Ogilvy’s influencer marketing practice is the largest globally; we are proud to be the most awarded influencer agency for six years running and the recipient of the Cannes Grand Prix for Social & Creator for two consecutive years.  

Ogilvy UK also hosts the world’s biggest festival of behavioural science and creativity, Nudgestock – which is now in its 12th year. James Murphy is the CEO of Ogilvy Group UK, which includes Ogilvy UK and New Commercial Arts (NCA), a boutique creative agency he co-founded in 2020, recently acquired by WPP.


The Role:

As the Business Director on the European and Global FMCG portfolio business within Consumer PR, you will lead client partnership, strategic counsel and integrated delivery across the portfolio, designed to provide the client with fully focused, senior leadership on some of the world’s most iconic FMCG brands.
The role sits at the intersection of earned-first thinking, culture-led marketing, and integrated agency delivery, ensuring that PR, social, influence and advertising work together to create impact at scale across diverse markets. This pivotal role places you at the heart of our operations for large FMCG portfolio, one of the world's most iconic and dynamic brands.

Your remit will span from the initial spark of ideation – identifying trends and innovative opportunities that drive cultural relevance – through the meticulous development of cutting-edge strategies tailored to diverse market nuances and brand objectives. You will lead the charge on defining compelling creative narratives and content frameworks, ensuring brand consistency and breakthrough engagement. Subsequently, you will oversee flawless execution, transforming strategy into impactful activations across various platforms and geographies.

This role demands a holistic leader capable of driving innovation, navigating complex client relationships, and delivering measurable results within a dynamic, multi-market agency environment.

Key Responsibilities:

Client leadership & stakeholder management

• Act as the senior day-to-day client lead for European and Global teams, building trusted, long-term partnerships
• Provide strategic counsel across brand, reputation, partnerships and cultural activation
• Lead complex, multi-market stakeholder management across global, regional and local teams
• Ensure the FMCG Brand has consistent, senior-level leadership fully embedded in the brand business

Global & European strategy development

• Lead the creation of global and European communications toolkits, frameworks and playbooks that balance global brand consistency with local market nuance
• Embed earned-first thinking into all toolkits
• Partner closely with creative and strategy leads to shape culturally relevant, insight-led ideas

Market management & intelligence

• Oversee market engagement across Europe and priority global territories, acting as a central connector between the brands global teams and local markets
• Ensure clients are consistently informed on market trends, cultural shifts, competitor activity and emerging opportunities
• Champion local market insight, ensuring work is adaptable, relevant and executable across diverse regions

Global events & partnerships

• Lead the communications strategy and delivery for global brand moments and events, ensuring alignment across markets
• Play a central role in developing and activating brand partnerships, embedding them seamlessly into toolkits and campaign narratives
• Work with market and agency leads to bring partnerships to life in locally relevant, culturally resonant ways

Team leadership & integration

• Directly manage a London-based team, working alongside creative and strategy leadership
• Foster a collaborative, high-performance team culture grounded in integration and shared ownership

What makes this role different:

• 100% dedicated to the FMCG portfolio, allowing for deep brand immersion and long-term strategic thinking
• Operates at true global scale, balancing global brand stewardship with local market realities
• Deeply partnership-led, with collaborations embedded into brand strategy
• Strong emphasis on earned-first, culture-first marketing, influencing how integrated campaigns are built from the ground up
• Sits within a fully integrated agency model, requiring constant collaboration across discipline
  
  

Key Leadership Competencies:

• Proven experience in global and/or European leadership roles, ideally within FMCG or large-scale consumer brands
• Exceptional stakeholder managementskills — this role is heavily relationship-driven and requires confidence navigating complexity
• Strong understanding of how global brands operate across markets, with sensitivity to cultural and market nuance
• Demonstrated experience working in integrated agency environmentsacross PR, advertising, social and influence
• A passion for culture-led, earned-first marketingand its role in driving brand relevance and business impact
• Commercially astute, strategically minded and comfortable operating at senior client level
• A genuine interest in — and affinity for — the drinks brands and the wider FMCG landscape

• Communication & Collaboration: Defines and communicates the overarching vision for the Influence practice. Develops communication strategies that align the department with agency leadership and fosters a culture of open dialogue and mentorship for senior leaders.
• Organisation & Resource Management: Architects the department's operational structure to support profitability and growth. Oversees P&L, leads resource forecasting, and ensures the practice is structured to handle complex, large-scale business needs.
• Responsibility & Accountability: Holds ultimate accountability for the entire department's commercial and creative performance. Empowers directors to lead their teams while maintaining transparent, high-level communication with executive leadership on business progress and challenges.
• Problem Solving & Decision Making: Acts as the final point of authority on the most critical business issues. Makes high-stakes decisions that protect the agency's commercial interests and mentors directors in strategic problem-solving.
• Growth & Development: Champions and funds a departmental learning culture. Defines the long-term talent strategy, creates career pathways for all levels, and builds a best-in-class team through senior hiring and mentorship.
• Ogilvy Values & Behaviours: Acts as the ultimate custodian of the agency's values within the department. Embeds these values into the practice's core processes, from recruitment and client management to performance recognition.
  
  
  

Skills for Your Growth to Client Partner:
To support your progression, you will be expected to develop capabilities in the following areas:

• C-Suite Partnership & Business Acumen: Transition from a practice leader to a C-suite strategic advisor. Develop a deep, holistic understanding of the client's entire business model, competitive landscape, and financial drivers to become an indispensable partner to their most senior leaders.
• Integrated Solution Leadership: Evolve from leading a single capability to orchestrating the agency's full suite of services. Master the art of integrating diverse crafts—from brand advertising and PR to consulting and data—to solve the client's most complex business problems.
• Enterprise Commercial Strategy: Shift focus from departmental P&L management to owning the entire client commercial relationship. Drive enterprise-level growth by identifying strategic opportunities across the client's organization and negotiating large-scale, multi-year partnerships.
• Relationship as the Core Product: Move from a role where the craft is the primary product to one where the strategic client relationship itself is the core deliverable. Your success will be measured by your ability to build unwavering trust and long-term loyalty at the highest levels.
  
  

Personal Qualities:

• Extensive and proven experience in a senior leadership role (e.g., Senior Account Director or Business Director) within a top-tier agency.

• Strategic yet pragmatic
• Culturally curious and globally minded
• Confident, collaborative and calm under pressure
• Energised by complexity, scale and partnership-driven work

• Demonstrated track record of P&L ownership and delivering significant, year-on-year business growth.
• Proven success in leading and winning multi-million-pound new business pitches.
• Exceptional leadership skills with experience in shaping departmental culture and developing senior talent.
• Strategic visionary with the ability to anticipate market trends and define a clear, forward-looking path for the business.
• Outstanding commercial acumen and sophisticated negotiation skills.

 

How we help you Thrive:

• 25 days annual leave + 1 Volunteer Day
• Bupa Healthcare
• Enhanced Maternity, Adoption and Shared Parental Leave
• Flexible Working Model with core working hours: 10am – 4pm
• A 1.5:1 Matching Pension Structure
• Wellbeing and Health: Up to £25.00 per month towards physical or online exercise class membership, Unmind membership, LifeWorks tool and annual eye tests.
• Season Ticket Loan and Cycle to Work Scheme
• Life Assurance

• 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. 

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.