Vice President, Commercial Operations, North America

The Vice President, Commercial Operations, North America will be a highly visible tactician in this hands-on role that reports into directly into VML's North American CFO as well as the Senior Vice PresidentCommercial Operations, NA, with a dotted line into the Global Chief Commercial Officer. They will work closely with *portfolio owners as a trusted business partner, along with respective North American and Global Client Leads, fellow commercial teams in other regions, with the WPP Commercial Operations team, and with major client's (existing and prospective) external client/account marketing and procurement teams. This function will be the executive level connective tissue between finance, client services and executive leadership and the ideal candidate will activate the global commercial strategy and direct North American Commercial Operations, including: oversite on pitch processes and operations, build and execute negotiation roadmaps and strategies, maintain ownership of all pricing models, and management of the procurement process.

*Portfolio = cities/locations as well as capabilities and executives, including Chief Success, Chief Growth and Chief Client officers, as well as Global, North American and Regional Finance teams 

Responsibilities

Growth and Margin Optimization

• Will work closely with portfolio owners on their strategic pitches and provides in depth commercial advice on pricing strategies, commercial models, remuneration including tax and FX, procurement engagement and negotiation roadmaps, to ensure financial targets are met and value is realized.
• Serves as the lead guide and steers finance teams on costing, works with the portfolio owners to align the commercial storytelling, and provides input and guidance on Commercial Operations slides, MSA's and all related documents.
• Ensures that risk is adequately managed via contracting (MSA) with appropriate commercial terms and compliant legal terms; ensures that the types of contracts entered are proportionate to the opportunity and its scope.
• Protects projected revenues and ensures realization of target margins, by centralizing and managing category management initiatives led by procurement such as efficiency program requests, volume and/growth rebates, (re)negotiation of commercial terms, following a pre-established value and escalation matrix; these discussions might be channeled either via the regional team, the North American team, the global team, and/or WPP executive leadership.

Top 30 Commercial Management

• Coordinates and ensures process adherence and timely delivery from the commercial partners for all inputs required (budget, RF, growth plans etc.); leads the North American based commercial partners community.
• Personally, will lead several T30 client businesses when they are either in a phase of steep growth or when requiring a mature and sophisticated commercial partner or when managing the Commercial Operations of a matrixed client solution operating across several WT and/or WPP North American offices.

Commercial Strategy Activation

• Ensures delivery of market rates to portfolio owners, using the Vault (WT's proprietary global rate card & pricing framework repository); provides input and data for updates for North American leadership.
• Responsible for rolling out initiatives which activate their Commercial Operations Strategy, ranging from transformation, efficiencies, libraries, and trainings, all related to establishing and maintaining commercial excellence while building a seamless process for revenue realization and growth.
• Upskills teams' commercial acumen, maintains expertise, raises confidence, provides mentorship and acts as the lead advisor to commercial and non-commercial teams.
• Runs regular commercial negotiation "best practice" trainings to all staff, using existing materials or, whenever needed, building new roadmaps.

Skills/profile

• Previous experience in a Commercial Operations role, with robust expertise in negotiating and engaging within the Fortune 500 procurement arena, crafting commercial strategies, deal shaping and execution, contract creation with an eye on safeguarding the company's best interests and risk management is essential.
• Experience working in a commercial role in a large global advertising/creative network a pre-requisite.
• Must have extensive hands-on experience crafting commercial models and negotiating MSA's while being well versed to key negotiation concepts and proficient in managing value claiming and value creation.
• Experience working on multi discipline pitches in a matrixed network is also required.
• Experience supporting commercial strategy activation in market is highly desirable.
• Must demonstrate excellent writing and presentation skills.
• Possesses the ability to work well under pressure, while balancing and integrating interests and incentives from multiple parties.
• Must be comfortable dealing with ambiguity at times.
• Personable and approachable; enjoys developing others, training, coaching, and mentoring while establishing credibility promptly, both internally and with clients
• The ideal candidate will possess a High level of cultural fluency.
• Values simplicity and likes to decomplexify.
• Demonstrates resilience in the face of feedback, setbacks, or changes