Global Media Planning Lead H/F - CDI

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships – all united by our pioneering agentic marketing platform, WPP Open – we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth. 

WPP Media is WPP's AI-driven media operating unit, bringing together media, data, and partnerships to deliver creative personalisation at scale. Connected through WPP Open and powered by Open Intelligence, clients see exactly where, how, and why their media investment is working.

For more information, visit wppmedia.com.

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WPP is the trusted partner for growth to the world’s leading brands. We combine cutting-edge media intelligence, world-class creativity, next-generation production, solutions to transform marketing in the AI era, and expert strategic consultancy within a single company.

Powered by exceptional talent and WPP Open, our agentic marketing platform, we deploy AI at scale to help our clients navigate a rapidly changing world and optimize their marketing investments.

For more information, visit www.wpp.com.

WPP Media is WPP’s global media collective. In a world where media is everywhere, we bring together the best platform, top talent, and leading partners to develop the most innovative solutions, delivering unparalleled growth to our clients. For more information, visit wppmedia.com.  

At WPP Media, we believe in the power of our culture and our people. It is through this synergy that we create truly exceptional experiences, both for our clients and for our internal teams.

To succeed in this role, it is essential to embody the core values that unite WPP and WPP Media:

• Be Extraordinary by fostering collective leadership that inspires truly transformational creativity.
• Be Open by finding the perfect balance between employee fulfillment and client satisfaction, all grounded in mutual trust.
• Lead with Optimism by actively driving growth and development to mobilize our entire organization.

The Global Media Planning Lead is a senior leader within a Global Financial Services/Insurance account team reporting to the Client Lead, responsible for driving media excellence, communications-planning excellence, and operational quality across B2C and B2B activity. 

Working in close partnership with the Global Strategy Lead, the role translates overarching global media and business strategy into clear, effective, and actionable communications-planning frameworks, campaign approaches, channel plans, and market guidance. 

The Global Planning Lead will lead the strategic media planning across global brand and regional campaigns for B2C/B2B, ensuring that communications plans are insight-led, integrated, innovative, measurable, and executable across markets. 

The role manages and develops a planning team comprising two Account Directors, two Account Managers, an Account Executive, and an Intern, spanning both B2C and B2B remits. The successful candidate will create the conditions for the team to grow: providing strategic direction, coaching and quality assurance while empowering team members to lead their workstreams and maintaining high operational standards without micromanagement. 

This role is a key senior client-facing position and a critical link between the client’s global media and brand teams, Wavemaker’s strategy, planning, data, investment and activation functions, and the client’s external agency partners. 

• Work as a seamless strategic partnership with the Global Media Strategy Lead and external Creative Agency, with clear and complementary responsibilities: 
• The Global Media Strategy Lead defines the overarching global media strategy, strategic direction, innovation agenda, and senior strategic counsel. 
• The Global Communications Planning Director turns this direction into excellent communications-planning outputs, campaign frameworks, market guidance, and consistently strong execution. 
• Bring market, campaign, audience, and implementation learnings into the strategic agenda, helping to refine future global strategy and identify new growth opportunities. 
• Support the development of senior client recommendations, ensuring strategic thinking is grounded in practical, deployable planning solutions. 
• Partner with Creative Agency to ensure strategic alignment during strategy development and creative development to deliver a seamless integrated campaign. 

• Lead the planning relationship with the regional and local market teams across Europe, Asia, Latin America. 
• Partner with Market Excellence team to ensure best in practice is cascaded.  

• Be a champion of media effectiveness across the account, ensuring measurement is built into planning from the outset. 
• Partner with data, analytics, econometrics, brand-tracking to follow relevant KPIs, learning agendas, and measurement frameworks. 
• Translate campaign results, brand studies, econometric findings, audience insights, and market intelligence into clear recommendations for optimisation and future planning. 
• Create a culture of continuous learning by capturing, sharing, and scaling best practices across markets and business lines. 
• Ensure that both B2C and B2B planning approaches reflect the different customer journeys, decision-making dynamics, consideration cycles, and measurement requirements of each audience. 

• Act as a trusted senior partner to client’s global media stakeholders. 
• Lead planning conversations with confidence and clarity, balancing strategic ambition with operational realism. 
• Build productive working relationships with creative agency partners, contributing audience insight, customer journeys, communications strategy, media creativity, and channel expertise throughout the campaign-development process. 
• Collaborate effectively with all relevant agency and client partners, including creative, research, analytics, brand-tracking, technology, and media-owner teams. 
• Ensure all client deliverables are of a consistently high standard, delivered on time, and aligned with agreed objectives and expectations. 

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of two Account Directors, two Account Managers, an Executive, and an Intern across B2C and B2B workstreams. 
• Set clear priorities, roles, responsibilities, and standards, ensuring the team understands both the strategic purpose and expected quality of its work. 
• Provide active senior guidance at key strategic moments—such as briefing, campaign architecture, client recommendations, major presentations, and issue resolution—while avoiding unnecessary involvement in day-to-day detail.  
• Delegate ownership appropriately and empower Account Directors and Account Managers to lead their respective workstreams, client relationships, and team members. 
• Maintain strong operational oversight across workload, resourcing, timelines, deliverables, governance, and financial processes, identifying risks early and resolving them constructively. 
• Foster a collaborative, curious, accountable, and supportive team culture. 

• 12-15+ years’ experience in media planning, communications planning, integrated media strategy, or related disciplines. 
• Significant experience working with global, regional, or multi-market clients; experience across both global and local market environments is preferred. 
• Strong B2C experience, with proven ability to lead or adapt planning approaches for B2B audiences and complex decision-making journeys. 
• Demonstrated expertise in modern media planning, integrated channel strategy, audience planning, full-funnel communications, and media effectiveness. 
• A strong understanding of digital media ecosystems, data and audience capabilities, measurement, performance analytics, and emerging media opportunities. 
• Proven experience translating high-level business and media strategy into clear, practical, and effective campaign-planning outputs. 
• Strong senior client-leadership skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders with varying levels of media knowledge and across complex organisational dynamics. 
• Experience leading and developing teams, with a coaching-led leadership style that combines empowerment with accountability. 
• Excellent presentation, storytelling, written communication, and facilitation skills. 
• Ability to navigate cultural differences and collaborate effectively across international markets. 
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, matrixed environment involving multiple agency, client, and specialist partners. 
• Fluent English and French required. 

• Success in this role will mean: 
• Client receives consistently high-quality, strategically robust, and operationally excellent communications planning across B2C and B2B activity. 
• The Global Media Strategy Lead’s strategic vision is translated into practical, scalable, and impactful plans across markets. 
• Media effectiveness, learning, innovation, and planning best practice are embedded in the account’s ways of working. 
• The planning team is empowered, well-managed, and visibly developing in strategic capability and confidence. 
• The client and its agency partners view Wavemaker as a proactive, trusted, and commercially valuable strategic partner. 

We are committed to making this process as fast and efficient as possible, and to maintaining open and transparent communication throughout.

1. Interview with the Recruitment Team: An initial telephone or video interview with Soukaina from the Talent Acquisition team. This will allow us to learn more about your skills and experience, and give you the opportunity to ask questions about the role and the company.
2. Operational Interviews: A meeting with your future managers. At least one in-person interview is mandatory.
3. Case Study: Completion of a business case to assess your analytical skills, thoroughness, problem-solving abilities, and tool proficiency.
4. Final Interview: Potential final interview with the client.

WPP Media is an equal opportunity employer and considers all applicants without discrimination or regard to specific personal characteristics. We are committed to cultivating a respectful environment where everyone feels they belong and enjoys equal opportunities for professional growth.

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