WPP Media | (MFG) Senior Vice President - Client Partner, Japan
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Role Title: VP/ SVP - Client Partner
Team: Marketing & Business Development
Location: Tokyo, Japan
About WPP Media
WPP Media, part of WPP, is a leading media agency driven by performance, data, analytics, and creative technology. We excel in multichannel audience planning and strategic media expertise. Our clients include Google, Dell, Uber, Airbnb, Mazda and Hitachi. Our mission: to make advertising more valuable.
The Opportunity
We are seeking a highly experienced, strategic, and operationally excellent Client Partner to lead our relationship with Google in Japan, a top-tier client across WPP Media. WPP Media manages the digital mandate for Google in Japan.
This role sits at the intersection of senior client partnership, planning craft, execution excellence, and operational leadership. You will lead a cross-functional team and be accountable for flawless delivery, clear governance, strong strategic POVs, and executive-level influence-ensuring Google and MFG stakeholders have full visibility, confidence, and industry-leading work.
Key Responsibilities
Trusted Strategic Advisor (Senior Stakeholders)
- Build and maintain trusted relationships with senior Google stakeholders (CMMs / PA Leads and their -1s), providing insights and recommendations that directly map to Google’s business priorities.
- Translate business goals and market realities into media priorities, opportunities, and clear actions.
- Challenge the status quo constructively: improve briefs, strategy, plans, and operations with better, actionable alternatives.
Strategic Planning & Industry-Leading Thinking
- Lead strategic planning across initiatives, ensuring every campaign solves a defined business problem and is designed with measurable outcomes.
- Deliver “outside-in” POVs: bring best practices, competitive intelligence, and emerging platform/consumer trends into actionable recommendations and next steps.
- Drive test-and-learn frameworks and ensure learnings are documented and scaled.
- Incorporate AI and automation to elevate output quality, speed, and decision-making where appropriate.
Operational Excellence: “Run the House Like a Machine”
- Own day-to-day operational leadership with a no-surprises standard: smooth operations, disciplined execution, and proactive issue management.
- Establish and maintain governance mechanisms (e.g., operating cadence, RACI, QA gates, escalation paths, decision logs) to ensure clarity and accountability.
- Maintain full visibility across all initiatives (what’s working, what’s at risk, what’s next), surfacing risks early with mitigation options and decision asks.
- Prioritize and triage workload to ensure focus on the highest-impact work and avoid wasted effort, rework, and last-minute fire drills.
Execution Quality & QA (Zero Dropped Balls)
- Ensure flawless execution through rigorous QA processes, clear ownership, and adherence to Google’s quality standards.
- Drive continuous process improvement without being asked-simplify complexity, increase consistency, and improve speed and precision.
Financial, Scope, and Resource Management
- Manage client budgets effectively while ensuring profitability, ROI, and strong stewardship.
- Lead quarterly resourcing discussions with MFG Regional, feeding into fee/FTE allocations and ensuring the right talent is deployed to the right priorities.
- Own scope control and change management: align deliverables to priorities, secure decisions early, and reduce rework through strong briefing and QA.
Connector Across Google, MFG, and WPP
- Navigate seamlessly across Google local, regional, and global stakeholders, and across the wider WPP network.
- Bring the best of regional/global practices into Japan at consistent quality; export Japan successes as repeatable playbooks where applicable.
- Activate the full WPP ecosystem (not just media) when needed to solve broader business challenges (e.g., data/measurement, creative technology, commerce, analytics).
Executive Influence & Stakeholder Leadership
- Lead Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) and executive readouts with clear narratives: performance, implications, trade-offs, decisions required, and next steps.
- Influence MFG regional/global teams so Japan priorities shape decisions; engage WPP leadership to secure the right investment and talent.
- Ensure compelling storytelling and executive-ready communication (written and verbal).
Team Leadership & Talent Development
- Lead, coach, and motivate a high-performing team; earn trust through clear direction, high standards, and effective collaboration.
- Identify capability and resourcing gaps early; raise talent concerns with concrete proposals (training, role changes, hiring, partner support).
- Retain and grow top talent, create growth opportunities, and manage performance issues thoughtfully and promptly.
- Build a high-performance culture grounded in accountability, learning, and quality.
Key Deliverables
- Industry-leading media strategy and planning frameworks that connect Google business priorities to measurable media outcomes.
- Operational governance that provides full visibility, disciplined execution, and proactive risk management.
- QBRs and “outside-in” engagements with Google Japan, and with Regional/Global stakeholders as applicable.
- Best-of-network activation: case studies, bespoke events, and scalable playbooks that bring the best of WPP to Google in Japan (and export Japan learnings where relevant).
What Success Looks Like
First 30 Days
- Gain deep understanding of WPP Media operations, platforms, tools, and ways of working; understand the digital landscape and Google’s standards.
- Build a clear view of Google Japan priorities (e.g., consumer apps, devices, enterprise, reputation) and how the mandate is governed.
- Establish stakeholder map and operating cadence across WPP Media, MFG, MFG Regional, and Google.
- Create a clear picture of demand, dependencies, risks, and resourcing needs; develop initial POV on financial health, utilization, and optimization opportunities.
In 6 Months
- Earn trust across Planning, Activation, Strategy, Investment, Analytics, Ad Operations, and Business Operations through consistent quality and clarity.
- Deliver actionable outside-in POVs and elevate planning outputs (including use of AI where appropriate).
- Run disciplined governance: clear ownership, QA gates, risk management, and predictable delivery.
- Successfully lead QBRs with strong executive storytelling and clear decision asks.
- Proactively improve campaign performance and operational efficiency; lead quarterly resourcing discussions with MFG Regional.
- Implement talent development plans and address capability gaps with concrete actions.
In 9-12 Months
- Drive measurable improvements in campaign performance, efficiency, and quality; implement scalable processes/tools that reduce errors and rework.
- Strengthen and future-proof the team (retention, capability depth, succession).
- Improve the Google relationship and client satisfaction (e.g., TRRs) through strategic impact, operational excellence, and trusted partnership.
Role Requirements
- 15+ years of experience in media planning, buying, and strategy, with a strong focus on digital.
- Experience leading large, complex clients; technology sector experience strongly preferred.
- Proven senior stakeholder management and cross-functional leadership experience.
- Bachelor’s degree in marketing/advertising or related field; Master’s preferred.
A Bit About Yourself
- Bilingual: English and business-level Japanese.
- Strong executive communication (written and verbal): clear POVs, persuasive recommendations, and crisp narratives.
- Concrete knowledge across digital marketing/media, measurement, operations, and governance.
- Highly organized, detail-oriented, responsive, and deadline-driven; strong quantitative reasoning and QA discipline.
- Excellent program/project management: able to prioritize, triage, and deliver across multiple workstreams.
- Strong business acumen; confident problem-solver who improves the work and challenges constructively.
- A people leader who coaches, develops, and manages performance to build a high-performance culture.
What You Can Expect From WPP Media
WPP Media’s mission is to make advertising more valuable to the world. We do this by employing the world’s best talent to solve some of the toughest challenges of today’s digital marketing space. It is important that we hire people whose values reflect those of our own: genuine, results-focused, daring and insightful.
As a WPP Media employee, we promise you a workplace that invests in your career, cares for you, and is fun and engaging. We believe these factors create a workplace where you can be yourself and do amazing work.
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation.
WPP Media does not accept unsolicited resumes from employment, recruitment, staffing, or related agencies. WPP Media will not pay a placement fee for any unsolicited resumes received and has no obligation to compensate any third-party recruiter/ agency in the absence of a valid written agreement between the parties for the sourcing of a given scope or role.
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