Media Director

The Shipyard is a leading, independent marketing and communication agency headquartered in Columbus, OH and San Diego, CA that brings together talented individuals across the creative, communications, media and digital landscape. Uniquely designed to Engineer Brand Love through a unifying approach of paid, owned and earned channels, we work together to grow brands that audiences can't help but love.

Our family of brands, Fahlgren Mortine, TURNER and Tiny Wins, span integrated communications, travel and lifestyle, and digital innovation, giving us the range and depth to deliver for clients locally, regionally and nationally.

Momentum is nothing without the people driving it. See who we are at  before you hit apply!

We are looking for a smart, experienced, and motivated Media Director to join our San Diego team.

The Media Director is the planning team's standard-bearer for executional excellence and talent development. This role exists to ensure the media plans we deliver for clients are best-in-class in their rigor, their insight, and their outcomes — and that the planners delivering that work are growing, challenged, and supported every step of the way.

A great Media Director is a master of the craft, a trusted client partner, a sharp strategic thinker, and a leader who makes the people around them better. You don't just oversee the work — you elevate it, and you build the team capable of delivering it consistently.

This is a hybrid work from home/office position (in-office attendance is required on Tuesdays & Thursdays) and the candidate must live near San Diego, CA
.

At The Shipyard, we know that it's your unique talents, backgrounds, and perspectives that make you who you are, just like our team, who come from various career paths and experiences. We believe we can't be truly diverse without you bringing your most authentic self to the agency.

Studies show that people from marginalized communities may not always apply for positions if they don't meet every single requirement in a job posting. At The Shipyard, we encourage you to apply even if you don't meet all the requirements. We believe that your passion for what we stand for — our values and purpose — is just as important as meeting every checkbox.

The Media Director is one of the agency's foremost media planning experts. Your knowledge is deep, current, and actively applied to raise the quality of work across your accounts and your team.

• Demonstrate expert, current knowledge of the full media ecosystem — digital and traditional — and apply it to direct, review, and elevate full-funnel media strategies across assigned accounts
• Set and enforce the standard for how research and planning tools are applied by the team: MRI/Simmons, You Gov, Commspoint, Similar Web, and Media Radar should be used with expert-level rigor and consistently translated into sharp, differentiated strategic insights
• Lead complex budget scenario modeling, financial analysis, and investment strategy across assigned accounts, ensuring plans are both strategically ambitious and financially sound
• Stay current on the media landscape — proactively bringing forward emerging opportunities, platform evolutions, and industry shifts that create value for clients and strengthen the team's knowledge base
• Partner closely with the data and analytics team to ensure measurement frameworks and audience intelligence are embedded in how plans are built and evaluated — bringing an analytically rigorous lens to every stage of the planning process
• Use your expertise to identify gaps in the team's work, raise the bar on quality, and coach planners toward greater strategic sophistication on a consistent basis

The Media Director…