Director of Brand Media

About FINN Partners

FINN Partners is a fast-growing, global independent marketing agency recognized for its bold ideas and collaborative spirit. Our expertise spans integrated marketing, media, and creative services, offering clients a unified team focused on business and brand growth. The Performance Media team leads performance strategy across paid search, social, programmatic, and audience insights, while the Brand Media team leads brand strategy across narrative and channel selection. The two teams build every media plan together, aligned to a single business outcome. Media joins client engagements at the earliest stages, working alongside strategy and creative to develop one integrated campaign.

Position Summary
As Director of Brand Media, you will own brand media strategy across the agency's client roster, leading upper-funnel channel selection, narrative development, and innovation partnerships. You will build every media plan in lockstep with the Performance Media team, ensuring brand and performance are planned as one connected, interdependent system.
You will manage and develop the Brand Media team, own new business planning for brand media, and represent FINN's media perspective and point of view externally. You will surface media landscape insights and media channel context in the strategy brief, shaping how campaigns come to life from the outset.

What You'll Do
- Lead brand media strategy and channel selection across multiple client accounts, ensuring narrative and channel choices connect directly to business objectives

- Partner with the Performance Media team to build every plan as one integrated system, aligned to a single business outcome

- Champion integration between Brand Media, Account, Strategy, and Creative teams throughout client planning and development

- Interrogate the client brief, evaluating whether it's asking the right questions and grounded in the right audiences and objectives

- Lead relationships and negotiations for custom media vehicles, sponsorships, franchise opportunities, and emerging partnership formats

- Develop thought leadership and market perspective applicable across clients, establishing a distinct FINN point of view

- Represent FINN's media expertise externally, including client presentations, new business pitches, panels, and industry platforms

- Lead new business planning for brand media, partnering with senior media colleagues on client retention

- Champion the use of AI and automation across planning, strategy development, and reporting

- Manage and develop the Brand Media team: interview, hire, delegate, mentor, conduct performance reviews, and recommend compensation decisions

- Evaluate staff development needs in terms of rotation and promotion, ensuring role definition keeps pace with the team's growth

- Coordinate with Account leads on day-to-day client direction, while retaining ownership of your team's development, performance management, and discipline standards

What You'll Bring
- Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

- 7+ years of media, brand strategy, advertising agency, client-side, or publisher-side experience

- Proven experience leading brand media strategy and channel planning across multiple accounts

- Experience across brand channel formats: premium video (linear/CTV/streaming), programmatic video and display (DSP), audio, OOH, brand partnerships, integrations, sponsorships, brand social, emerging media, and custom activations

- Experience managing significant client budgets and investment decisions

- Strong leadership experience, including hiring, mentoring, performance management, and career pathing for a growing team

- A track record of gaining trust through sound judgment, including under pressure or ambiguity

- Experience partnering with performance media counterparts to build genuinely integrated plans across brand and performance

- Experience collaborating across multiple disciplines, such as creative, strategy, SEO/