Managing Director, Fenton Advertising

The Opportunity
Fenton Communications is a U.S.-based communications firm founded in 1982. We work primarily with nonprofit organizations, foundations, advocacy organizations, government entities, and mission-aligned companies on issues including social justice, philanthropy, education, and sustainability.

Fenton Advertising is a standalone division created to build a distinctive advertising business at the intersection of strategy, creative, media, and measurable impact. Reporting to Fenton’s CEO, the Managing Director has the opportunity to build and run a division backed by Fenton’s more than four decades of brand equity, an established client and revenue base, and an experienced support team.

This is a hands-on builder role. The Managing Director will personally sell, lead senior client relationships, shape the work, coach the team, and create the commercial and operating engine required for rapid growth. The successful candidate will bring the ambition of an entrepreneur, the credibility of a senior client adviser, and the discipline to scale profitably.

The Mandate
Fenton Advertising is preparing for launch with established goals and a solid foundation. The Managing Director will assess the work completed to date, sharpen the division’s strategic direction, refine priorities and resource requirements, align leadership around a clear path forward, and lead execution.

This is an ambitious, time-sensitive mandate. The Managing Director will move quickly from assessment to action, translating the approved 2027 revenue target into a focused first-year growth plan with clear milestones, accountabilities, and measures of success.

Key ResponsibilitiesLaunch, build, and scale the division

• Own the business plan. Translate Fenton Advertising’s ambition into a differentiated offer, priority markets, growth choices, investment requirements, milestones, and measurable outcomes.
• Build the growth engine. Create the pipeline, positioning, partnerships, talent, capabilities, and operating cadence required to produce rapid, nonlinear growth from a small but solid base.
• Make disciplined build decisions. Determine which creative, media, production, technology, data, and measurement capabilities should be built internally and which should be accessed through partners.

Originate and close new business

• Personally lead priority pursuits. Own qualification, relationship development, pitch strategy, presentation, negotiation, and close for the division’s most important opportunities.
• Turn relationships into revenue. Use an extensive and relevant network of clients, referral partners, talent, and industry leaders to open doors and accelerate a qualified pipeline.
• Build a repeatable sales discipline. Set expectations for prospecting, pipeline management, proposal quality, conversion, and accountability across the leadership team.
• Grow existing relationships. Partner with account leaders and colleagues across Fenton to identify unmet client needs and convert them into valuable, well-scoped work.

Lead clients and champion effective work

• Serve as a senior client partner. Connect organizational objectives to advertising strategy, guide consequential decisions, and build trusted relationships with executive stakeholders.
• Integrate the work. Ensure research, strategy, account leadership, creative, production, media, digital, and measurement operate from one understanding of the client challenge.
• Set a high bar. Partner with functional leaders to produce distinctive, effective work while maintaining accountability for the brief, budget, quality, and intended results.
• Represent the division. Be Fenton Advertising’s most visible external ambassador in client meetings, pitches, industry forums, and market-shaping conversations.

Build the team and leadership structure

• Lead as a player-coach. Work directly in the business while recruiting, developing, and holding accountable leaders across account management and strategy, creative and production, media and digital, and operations.
• Design for the next stage. Clarify roles and decision rights, identify capability gaps, and align hiring and staffing with qualified demand and the approved growth plan.
• Develop people. Create clear expectations, coaching, career pathways, succession plans, and an inclusive culture where people challenge ideas and take responsibility for outcomes.

Own financial and operational performance

• Lead the P& L. Own revenue, profitability, forecasting, staffing economics, utilization, project performance, and corrective action within agreed decision parameters.
• Build commercial discipline. Establish consistent approaches to pricing, scoping, compensation models, change orders, media economics, third-party costs, and vendor relationships.
• Create a scalable operating model. Put practical systems in place for resource planning, delivery oversight, quality control, client reporting, risk management, and escalation.
• Use shared services effectively. Partner with Fenton’s finance, people, legal, marketing, and operational teams on service expectations, cost allocation, and support for the division.
• Connect the division to Fenton. Set clear rules for shared clients, joint pursuits, staffing, and cross-practice collaboration so the division benefits from the broader firm while maintaining clear ownership and accountability.

Candidate Profile

We are seeking a high-trajectory advertising executive who has already built something meaningful and is ready to take full ownership of a standalone division. The strongest candidates will bring:

• Division-building experience. A record of building or rapidly scaling an advertising division, practice, office, agency capability, or new service line, including defining the offer, assembling the team, winning clients, and establishing an engine for growth.
• Proven rainmaker results. A measurable record of originating and closing significant new business, expanding client relationships, and converting pipeline into profitable revenue.
• Broad agency fluency. Hands-on experience across most core agency functions, including account and client leadership, strategy, creative, media and paid, production, operations, and new business.
• Player-coach leadership. The willingness and ability to sell personally, lead pitches, advise clients, shape the work, solve problems in real time, and coach others to perform at a high level.
• Senior client presence. Comfort in front of clients and the ability to diagnose needs, frame a persuasive recommendation, navigate competing interests, and address difficult issues directly.
• Network strength. Relevant relationships with prospective clients, partners, talent, and industry leaders that can be mobilized to support growth.
• Financial and operating fluency. Practical command of agency pricing, P&L management, staffing economics, utilization, scope management, media compensation, and the distinction between media billings and agency revenue.
• People leadership. A record of attracting, developing, and retaining strong talent; setting high standards; creating inclusive teams; and leading through change.
• Mission alignment. A genuine commitment to Fenton’s mission-driven work. Experience with nonprofits, advocacy organizations, public-sector entities, foundations, or mission-aligned companies is preferred.

Experience

• Significant agency leadership experience with an exceptional record of growth. Typically 10 or more years in advertising agencies, or equivalent depth, with meaningful responsibility for growth, clients, teams, financial performance, and delivery.
• Integrated advertising command. Strong working knowledge of strategy, creative development, production, media planning and buying, digital marketing, data, and measurement, with the judgment to lead expert practitioners across disciplines.

About Fenton Fenton is a communications firm for organizations working to advance social change. For more than four decades, Fenton has helped nonprofits, foundations, advocates, public institutions, and mission-aligned companies communicate with clarity, creativity, and purpose. Fenton Advertising extends that legacy through an integrated advertising offer designed to reach audiences, move people, and deliver measurable results.

Fenton Offers

• Commitment to pay equity practices.
• Salary band for this position is $300,000 – 325,000
• Year-end discretionary bonus (25-35%)
• New business commission incentive.
• Comprehensive healthcare plans with generous employer premium contributions.
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA).
• 401K with employer match (50% up to 6% of your salary, eligible at 90 days of employment);
• Profit sharing plan (2% of total W2 earnings, entry date in the succeeding year after completing a year of employment).
• Flexible PTO for exempt staff and a generous accrual policy for non-exempt staff.
• 12 paid company holidays.
• Discretionary company closing between Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
• Pre-tax commuter benefits via WageWorks.
• Mobile phone allowance $100/month.
• We have adopted a hybrid remote/in-office worksite model.  You have the option to work remotely from home and travel to Company meetings/events as needed, or work from any of our shared workspaces in NY, DC, LA & SF.
• Team retreats and events to connect with fun, talented co-workers.
• Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or assume sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

Fenton is an anti-racist and intersectional organization that prioritizes the needs of those who have been historically marginalized or oppressed.  We do the work of creating positive social change as an act of repairing the harm done to those who have been and are currently disenfranchised across racial, gender, sexual orientation and preference, religious, and other marginalized backgrounds.  We are committed to doing work rooted in justice and equity and to continuing to learn how to do this work better. 
   
People of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities, and women are strongly encouraged to apply. As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we are committed to building and nurturing a diverse and inclusive staff. We believe that our firm’s continued success is driven by hiring and retaining high-caliber staff from all backgrounds, experiences, identities, and orientations. We are committed to supporting our staff in growing their careers. 

We are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please email Human Resources (lgomez@fenton.com) and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.
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