PR & Partnerships Account Director

PR & Partnerships Account Director- 12 month FTC

London | Hybrid

This is a maternity cover position.

IRIS is a global integrated agency driven by one simple philosophy: Participate or Perish. We create ideas that earn attention and inspire people to interact with brands in meaningful ways. Working with some of the world’s most ambitious brands, we combine strategy, creativity, technology, and media to deliver impactful campaigns.

We’re looking for a PR & Partnerships Account Director to join our team: someone who can combine senior PR expertise with a deep understanding of culture, influence and partnerships to create work that earns attention and drives meaningful participation.

The role

As a PR & Partnerships Account Director, you’ll be a senior specialist responsible for the quality and success of PR, Partnerships and Influencer work across your accounts. You’ll provide confident senior counsel to clients, lead specialist teams and ensure we deliver ambitious, culturally relevant work that creates genuine real-world impact.

Participate or Perish will sit at the heart of how you approach the role. You’ll help brands identify where and how they can participate meaningfully in the lives of their audiences, using earned media, influence and partnerships to build genuine cultural relevance rather than simply communicate messages.

You’ll also play an important role within IRIS's integrated teams, championing an earned-first mindset and ensuring PR, Partnerships and Influencer thinking is considered early and meaningfully within every opportunity.

This is a role for someone who combines specialist expertise, cultural curiosity, creative ambition and commercial confidence and wants to help shape both the work we produce and the future of our PR & Partnerships offering.

What you’ll be doing

• Provide senior client counsel: offer confident specialist advice across PR strategy, earned media, Influencer and Partnerships, presenting clear recommendations and helping clients understand how their brands can participate meaningfully
• Lead the PR & Partnerships product: oversee the delivery of high-quality PR, Partnerships and Influencer work across key clients and briefs, providing senior specialist direction across strategies, earned campaigns, media approaches and partnership programmes
• Champion earned-first thinking: ensure PR, Influencer and Partnerships are considered early and meaningfully within integrated briefs as powerful ways for brands to participate, not simply communicate
• Develop culturally relevant partnerships: identify and develop credible opportunities across talent, entertainment, sport, media, brands and wider culture that connect brands with the things their audiences genuinely care about
• Set the standard for great work: review and challenge thinking throughout development, ensuring every output is strategically rigorous, creatively ambitious, client-ready and has a clear reason for people to care
• Lead through culture and media: stay close to the conversations, behaviours and cultural shifts shaping consumers’ lives, proactively identifying opportunities for brands to participate meaningfully
• Work across disciplines: collaborate closely with Social, Influencer, Creative, Strategy and Data/Performance teams, bringing PR & Partnerships expertise into integrated teams to create stronger and more effective work
• Drive proactive growth: look beyond the immediate brief to identify new opportunities across PR, Partnerships and Influencer, bringing forward ideas that add value to clients and grow IRIS's remit
• Lead and develop your team: motivate, coach and develop PR & Partnerships specialists, setting high expectations and creating an ambitious, collaborative and positive team culture
• Raise the standard…