Head of Strategic & Planning at Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN)

Purpose of Job

• The office of the Head, Strategy & Planning has a primary role to advance the cause of the Association Brand building process, by functioning as a strong supporting centre. Primarily, the Head, Strategy & Planning role is to provide thought leadership regarding Strategy & Planning, and translate strategies into actionable and quantifiable plans; while also Mobilizing and managing teams of individuals charged with executing strategies.
• He is responsible for research and coordinating the development of activities and database for the industry.
• The officer is responsible for developing the Association’s Brand Strategy Document and Brand Manual. The Planning function keeps the Association’s eye on vision, mission and the future goals of the organization.
• The Head, Strategy & Planning also demonstrates leadership both within the department and across the Association, as part of the management layer.
• He also serves as secretary to relevant committees

Reporting Relationships

• This role reports directly to the ED. Has responsibility for driving the building of the Association as a Brand, and managing and driving the performance of the entire Strategy & Planning Department.

Working Relationships
Within the Association:

• All Departments
• Association Committees
• Executive Board (where applicable)

Outside the Association:

• Related Agencies
• Sectorial Groups & professional Associations
• Key 3rd party suppliers.

Key Responsibilities

Overall Responsibilities:

• Strategy & Planning function for the Association
• Execution & Implementation (Sole & Joint)
• Association's Database Development & Management
• Leadership & Management plus Succession Planning within the Strategy & Planning department
• Support the Executive Director in Association's Brand Development

Key Task 1 - Strategy & Planning function for the Association:

• Facilitate and drive key strategic initiatives of the Association
• Develop and manage strategy map for the attainment of Association's mission and goals
• Translates strategies into actionable and quantifiable plans
• Develop rolling development plans for the Association 9in conjunction with the ED
• Develop environmental scan and SWOT analysis
• Lead research and development role for the Association,
• Make research materials available to help member business
• Provides strategic oversight on Planners inputs into Association’s accounts
• Sets the pace for thought development and thought leadership
• Develops the department on both technical skills and soft craft skills of Strategic Planners
• Continually lead Planners in marrying linear & lateral thinking in strategic operations
• Inspires and leads the ideation & innovation process both internally, and Association-wide
• Has direct responsibility for overall Project Management of the department
• Ensures that timelines are met while improving the quality of outputs

Key Task 2 – Leadership & Management within the Strategy & Planning Dept:

• Ensures that the strategic direction of the department continually aligns with Association’s global strategic objectives
• Manages the growth & learning curve of Planners
• Responsible to set relevant & actionable strategic direction for the department
• Also has responsibility to drive the overall direction in the daily operations of the department

Key Task 3 - Execution & Implementation (Sole & Joint):

• Encompass effective and timeous completion of all Association strategic Plans, by mobilizing and managing teams of individual charged with executing strategies.
• Ensure Planners have and adhere to their performance contracts and deliver on same.
• Responsible for the implementation & executions of all third party research and strategic contracts.

Key Task 4 - Association's Database Development & Management:

• Responsible for development, maintenance and updating of Association Database.
• Gather through structured and unstructured research, industry and sectorial statistics and adspend.
• Monitor and give periodic reports on the sectorial and industry performance statistics.

Key Task 5 - Support the Executive Director in Association's Brand Development

• Shares the responsibility for growing and managing the strategic reputation of the Association, through the department's output
• Oversees tracking & evaluation of ROI on Association's Creative output
• Utilise Business, Client's & other Stakeholders' perspective on Association, to inform development of strategic input into the Association's brand.

Key Task 6 - Leadership and Succession:

• Manage the performance of team and individuals
• Facilitate Learning and Development
• Develop teams and Individuals to enhance performance
• Able to take initiative, demonstrate self-leadership (setting & achieving personal goals, etc.)
• Proactive to Identify and solve problems
• Able to actively lead cross-functional and cross-departmental teams to achieve optimum effect
• Dynamic passion for learning and strategic thought process
• Exude confidence and a willingness to learn and adapt
• Demonstrate eclectic appreciation of brand building and knowledge base
• Ability to express oneself orally and written
• Excellent work ethics, and confident comportment
• Pride in Association and an unflinching ambassador
• Able to lead a strategic team from beginning to completion
• Able to provide thought leadership & drive ideation process
• Manage and mentor and lead team
• You will be expected develop your team's skills and knowledge to ensure the best possible results at work.
• Will be expected to be able to organize and co-ordinate the work of the team members
• It covers identifying the development needs of your team and its members, planning their development and using a variety of activities to improve team performance.
• It also covers your role in supporting individuals' learning, assessing teams and individuals against agreed development objectives, and continually improving development activities, policies and overall practice
• Will be expected to make the best use of your team and its members so that they can achieve AAAN objectives.
• Will be required to support staff and to ensure that good practice is achieved at all times and you will demonstrate the skills to develop, implement and evaluate service delivery
• It covers allocating work, agreeing objectives, and setting out plans and methods of working.
• It also involves monitoring and evaluating the work of your team and its members and providing feedback to them on their performance

Key Task 7: Supporting staff through supervision:

• Make use of supervision to support staff
• You will be expected to make use of supervisory sessions to enable you to develop your staff to work reliably, consistently, effectively, ethically and safely.
• You are expected to be able to demonstrate skills in providing line management supervision

Key Task 8 - Self Management:

• Personal Development
• Personal Safety
• Reflect on and develop your practice
• You will be expected to reflect on evaluate and take action to enhance your own knowledge and practice
• Make use of supervision for self-development
• You will be expected to make use of a supervisor and supervisory sessions to enable you to develop your professional competence and work with individuals reliably, consistently, effectively, ethically and safely.
• Support the health and safety of yourself and individuals
• You will be expected to keep yourself, individuals and others for whom you are responsible, safe and secure

Key Task 9: Ensure AAAN delivers quality services:

• Meet client needs
• Manage change
• Improve systems
• Good practice
• Deliver quality
• Manage activities to meet clients requirement
• You will manage activities and conditions in the workplace to meet customer requirements.
• This involves agreeing requirements with customers, planning work activities and monitoring these activities to ensure that customers' requirements have been met.
• It also involves maintaining a suitable work environment and continuously looking for ways to improve working conditions and processes. Customers include all those to whom you are supplying services or products. They may be internal, such as colleagues or people in other departments to whom you are supplying information or services, or external customers.
• Manage change in organizational activities
• You are required to improve the operational activities under your control and manage the necessary changes effectively.
• It covers identifying possible areas for improvement, considering the feasibility of proposed changes, planning the implementation of change, reaching agreement with those involved and finally implementing the planned changes.
• Assure AAAN delivers quality services
• You are required to develop and use systems and standards to ensure that AAAN delivers the expectations of members and meet the specifications in formal job contracts.
• You will ensure that your department services are delivered in line with contractual and service level agreements
• This covers being able to ensure the maintenance of appropriate record keeping by other staff under your supervision.

Authority

• The post holder will have the authority to carry out these functions, under the supervision of the
• Executive Director. However, he will be given sufficient autonomy, as part of current leadership
• expectations and training for future leadership roles.

Qualification

• A good class of Degree (not less than 2nd Class Lower), in any Degree, coupled with a sound appreciation of Marketing and Integrated Marketing Communications.
• Previous quality experience (in core Strategy & Planning functions) is a pre-requisite, with 10 years working experience in reputable organization (5 years of which must be exposure to management roles).
• The person must also have natural strong drive to innovate and implement change.
• Must also possess elements of entrepreneurial disposition.

Person Specification

• The successful post holder must be able to demonstrate appropriate skills and experience which will enable them to deliver against the main purpose and key responsibilities of the role.

Items:

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills - Essential
• Good analytical skills - Essential
• Creative and Imaginative Thinking - Essential
• Ability to appreciate and interpret data - Desirable
• Presentation skills - Essential
• Team player - Essential
• Good collaboration skills - Essential
• Innovative approach to problem-solving - Essential
• Good appreciation of Marketing - Essential
• PowerPoint skills - Essential
• Good Word processing skills - Essential
• Eclectic knowledge consumer - Essential
• Ability to workshop ideas and presentations - Essential
• Exhibit logical flow of thought - Essential
• Ability to lead teams/supervisory skills - Essential

Core Competencies

• Conceptual Thinking
• Courage/Confidence
• Written & Oral Communications (Editing, Technical Reports, Presentation, etc.)
• Proactivity/Initiative
• Project/Workflow Management
• Problem Solving & Negotiation
• Strategy Development (i.e. Document, Input etc.)
• Sound & Independent Judgement
• Leadership