Festivals & Activations Account Director

ABOUT US

Verve is a Live Event, Sponsorship and Brand Experience Agency that uses the power of live experience to win the hearts and minds of consumer and business audiences. Established in 1991, Verve is headquartered in Dublin with offices in London and Amsterdam. We have a team of over 120 full time award winning professionals spanning creative, events, sponsorship, activation, entertainment and digital departments.

We are a multidisciplinary experience agency recognised for creating and delivering world class experiences for global brands portfolios such as Diageo, Google, LinkedIn, Amazon, Coke Cola & TikTok and Lululemon. We believe in building long term partnerships with our clients, many of whom have been with us for well over a decade. You will get the opportunity to work across these brands developing high profile, big budget experiential campaigns. You will then have the chance to bring these brands and campaigns to major events, experiences, and festivals.

We're a professional, dynamic and ambitious company who are number one in our field. We operate in a creative, nimble and robust business sector, and we are searching for people who are of a similar nature.

The Role: Your Strategic Leadership

We are seeking a highly accomplished and dynamic Account Director to act as a lead within the Activations team working on our Festival portfolio of accounts along side our Festival and Events Director and Head of activations. This senior role is the fusion point of strategic account growth, robust financial management, and world-class live production delivery.

You will be responsible for creating and delivering the vision for client accounts, ensuring commercial targets are met, and personally overseeing the flawless execution of our largest, most complex projects on-site. The ideal candidate has significant, proven experience within the festival ecosystem and excels at navigating executive-level client relationships and complex production logistics.

Key Responsibilities

Account Strategy & Commercial Growth

• Executive Client Management: Act as a senior point of contact for key client stakeholders (Brand Managers, Marketing Directors and brand managers) you need to love building and maintaining long-term, profitable relationships. Along with the Head of Activations, you will drive annual planning and identify opportunities within the Activations team for account expansion. You will pull together new business pitches from end to end along side the Head of Activations 
• Commercial Leadership & Budgeting: Shared responsibility of the festival's portfolio profitability with the Festivals & Events Director. This includes overseeing all agency budgets, ensuring exceptional cost control, managing large-scale procurement processes, and driving maximum profitability without compromising quality.
• Procurement and Supplier Excellence: Lead the strategic procurement of major production elements and oversee juniors on smaller production requirements. Maintain and leverage an extensive network of existing festival and supplier contacts to secure preferred rates, reliable service, and innovative solutions.

Live Production & Delivery Oversight

• Production & Technical Knowledge: Apply strong production knowledge to sign off on technical briefs, risk assessments, and site plans. Ensure the agency's output is creatively ambitious, technically sound, and fully compliant with all UK health & safety regulations. You need to have a strong network of production suppliers as well as a great understanding of the end to end process of experiential builds from design to derig, technical drawings, materials and roadshow logistics. Basic knowledge of CAD desirable 
• On-Site Leadership & Presence: Be a confident, visible leader on-site for flagship events. You will manage the overall command structure within your designated brands and projects , oversee the build/live/de-rig phases, and make critical, high-pressure decisions that safeguard the client's brand and the agency's reputation working closely with the Festival and Events Director 
• Quality Control: Ensure all activations are delivered to the highest possible standard, delivering brilliant creative execution and client experience.
• Rights Management:
•  Strong knowledge of rights management is essential, with the ability to leverage contractual entitlements into tangible and impactful experiential executions
• Sustainability: Experience in delivering projects sustainably using the most sustainable materials, logistics, processes and solutions to our clients

Team Management & Development

• People Management: Work closely with the Festival & Events Director and Head of Activations to lead, mentor, and motivate a team of Account Managers and Junior staff. Foster a high-performing, resilient team culture where meticulous detail and positive energy are standard, particularly during the intense festival season.
• Inter-Agency Collaboration: Seamlessly manage internal agency resources, coordinating with Creative, Strategy, and Finance teams to ensure a unified approach to client delivery.
  

Experience & Attributes

• Significant Festival & Experiential Expertise: A minimum of 5+ years' experience in a senior account or production role within an experiential or live events agency, with extensive, verifiable experience working on UK music and culture festivals.
• A basic understanding of large-scale sampling events, including the logistics, documentation and public liability requirements involved, is desirable.
• Executive Relationships: Proven history of developing and maintaining strong stakeholder relationships at the director/C-suite level.
• Financial Mastery: Expert-level ability to manage seven-figure budgets, execute procurement strategy, negotiate high-value contracts, and deliver strong profit margins.
• Operational Resilience: A love for being on-site and the demonstrated ability to remain calm, decisive, and authoritative when facing complex logistical challenges under extreme pressure.
• Network: Possesses great existing festival contacts (promoters, operations teams) and a deep network of trusted, high-quality production suppliers.
• A True Leader: Exceptional ability to work with and inspire people, leading by example and fostering a positive, solution-oriented atmosphere regardless of the demands.

This is not a purely office-based role, you need to love working on site at Festivals. The role requires extensive travel, highly flexible working hours, and a commitment to being a senior Verve presence across the UK summer festival season.

If you are a proven leader ready to take commercial and strategic ownership of our most exciting client portfolio, please apply. We are looking forward to connecting with you

Benefits of working at Verve: 

• Working with the best in the business
• Great company culture (really) and fantastic office environment
• Year round CSR programmes and opportunity, Diversity and Inclusion programmes
• Sustainability Mandate (Verve is IS02012 certified), Volunteering projects, Give Back mentoring experiences
• Active Social activities
• Health Insurance after 1 years service
• Phone bill paid (up to £60 per month)
• Fully paid loyalty month off after three years of service within the company
• Access to Employee Assistance Programme with free access to mental health resources
• Hybrid working. Minimum 3 days from the office
• New Business Incentive Scheme from day one
• Employee Referral Incentive Policy
• Season ticket loans offered.
• Cycle to work scheme.

Sustainability

Verve is proudly B Corp, ISO 20121 and ISO 14001 certified, and is one of the only agencies to hold these certifications. We work hard to retain this certification and are always looking for new ways to be more sustainable in our workplace and in our events. 

Diversity 

We are committed to an active Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities Policy. Celebrating our inclusive and diverse culture is integral to Verve. We know that for our business to thrive and to realize its ambition, we depend on having diverse talent with a range of backgrounds, skills and capabilities. Together, we continue to build a culture that encourages, supports and empowers our employees.