Account Director
Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits
Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA
Contract type: Permanent
Business area: Marketing
Closing date: 06 November 2025
Requisition ID: 400031923
We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. We’re one of the biggest supermarkets in the UK with one of the largest websites. So marketing here really happens at scale. We move a lot faster than you’d think too, across Brand Planning, Brand Comms and Creative, Digital Marketing, CRM and Loyalty, Nectar 360, Insights, and Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability. More people shopping with us each week means more interactions. And thanks to data insight, we understand customers in a way that almost nobody else does. We work alongside incredible brand partners and the best agencies around. So if you have a passion to learn, grow and experience new teams, come and explore it all with us.
Why join us
Joining Sainsbury's as an Account Director means leading our zest team to deliver strategic and creative excellence. You'll play a pivotal role in leading client relationships, collaborating with internal stakeholders, and championing creativity as a catalyst for market change. With a deep understanding of our clients' challenges and objectives, you'll have the opportunity to propose innovative solutions, nurture enduring partnerships, and shape brand strategies. As part of a dynamic and collaborative team, you'll be immersed in a diverse range of projects, leading discussions, and inspiring creative work that exceeds expectations. With a focus on growth and development, you'll be part of an agency that values curiosity, resilience, and passion for delivering outstanding results. Join us and contribute to our success while fostering enduring client relationships in a fast-paced, ever-evolving industry.
What you'll do
As the Account Director you will play a crucial role in leading client relationships, driving strategic and creative excellence, and ensuring client satisfaction. Focused on key brands within the Sainsbury's business, you will have a deep understanding of the clients' market challenges and context, their business objectives, and how strategy and creative work can contribute to their success. You will collaborate with Strategic Planners to develop and implement strategic responses, being not only able to understand but also interrogate creative and comms strategy providing meaningful feedback to our planning team. As an expert in creative communications, you will champion creative excellence, ensure creative work fully aligns to our strategic direction, and drive seamless integration of work across multiple channels, understanding the importance of best practice for all our channels. You will develop strong partnerships with external agencies, and facilitate collaboration. As a leader, you will nurture your direct reports through mentoring and coaching, and demonstrate behavioural flexibility, emotional intelligence, influence, and creative problem-solving skills in the way you develop partnerships with the wider zest agency. Your ability to make strong decisions on client leadership, strategy, project scope, and external agency partnerships will drive the success of Sainsbury's.
Who you are
As an Account Director within the Marketing & Loyalty division, you are a highly skilled professional with experience in overseeing similar strategic/creative accounts and gravitas with senior marketing and external agency leaders. Your strategic thinking, creative acumen, and leadership abilities enable you to collaborate seamlessly with internal teams, external agencies, and stakeholders to develop innovative campaigns that exceed client expectations. With a strong focus on client satisfaction, commercial acumen, and creative excellence, you contribute to the success of Zest as the go-to agency for our key brands within the Sainsbury's business.
Essential Criteria
Agency Experience: Experience working in an integrated creative agency.
Channel Experience: Demonstrated ability to manage the full channel ecosystem, driving growth across multi-channel outputs.
Strategic Insight: Expertise in leading and managing account strategy.
Client Experience: Proficiency in managing multiple clients and projects simultaneously within an integrated creative agency.
#LI-SM1
We are committed to being a truly inclusive retailer, so you’ll be welcomed whoever you are and wherever you work. Around here, there’s always the chance to try something new - whether that’s as part of an evolving team or somewhere else across the business - and we take development seriously and promise to support you. We also recognise and celebrate colleagues when they go the extra mile and, where possible, offer flexible working. When you join our team, we’ll also offer you an amazing range of benefits. Here are some of them: Moments that matter are as important to us as they are to you which is why we give up to 26 weeks’ pay for maternity or adoption leave and up to 4 weeks’ pay for paternity leave.
Starting off with colleague discount, you'll be able to get 10% off at Sainsbury's, Argos, TU and Habitat after 4 weeks. This increases to 15% off at Sainsbury’s every Friday and Saturday and 15% off at Argos every pay day. We've also got you covered for your future with our pensions scheme and life cover. You'll also be able to share in our success as you may be eligible for a performance-related bonus of up to 20% of salary, depending on how we perform.
Your wellbeing is important to us too. You'll receive an annual holiday allowance, and you can buy additional holiday. We also offer other benefits that will help your money go further such as season ticket loans, interest free car loan of up to £10k, cycle to work scheme, health cash plans, pay advance (where you can access some of your pay before pay day) as well access to a great range of discounts from hundreds of other retailers. And if you ever need it there is also an Employee Assistance Programme, you will also be eligible for private healthcare too.
Please see www.sainsburys.jobs for a range of our benefits (note, length of service and eligibility criteria may apply).
