Sr Manager Implementation Planning & Activation

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.

• Review incoming briefs from the client servicing team, ensure all gaps and questions are addressed, and confirm the brief is ready for planning.
• Lead the end-to-end implementation planning process across the portfolio — overseeing Senior Executive output, reviewing plans at each stage, and ensuring strategic alignment throughout.
• Serve as the quality gate on implementation plans before they are shared with client servicing for client distribution — ensuring accuracy, strategic cohesion, and consistency with agreed objectives.
• Receive consolidated client feedback, direct plan revisions with the Senior Executive, and ensure updated plans are returned promptly to client servicing.
• Communicate plan approvals from client servicing to the Senior Executive and ensure the team is ready to move to build.
• Set and continuously refine implementation planning standards and frameworks across the pod, ensuring a consistently high-quality approach.

• Receive campaign structure from client servicing, ensure the team is fully briefed, and confirm SLA timelines are in place and achievable.
• Maintain oversight of campaign build progress, staying informed of any risks to delivery or timelines and acting swiftly to resolve them.
• Check budgets across all active campaigns to ensure full alignment with the approved media plan before going live.
• Conduct final QA review and sign-off on all campaign builds before previews are passed to client servicing for client review.
• Receive client approval or feedback from client servicing, coordinate all required changes with the team, and confirm final campaign activation.
• Serve as the escalation point for complex QA issues, activation discrepancies, or delivery challenges within the pod.

• Maintain a portfolio-level view of campaign pacing, performance, and delivery risks — proactively identifying issues and directing the team to address them.
• Lead in-flight optimisation decisions across accounts, ensuring campaigns are consistently delivering against client KPIs.
• Drive a structured testing culture within the pod — championing experimentation across channels, formats, audiences, and bidding strategies, and ensuring learnings inform future planning.
• Conduct the final review and sign-off on all performance and post-campaign reports before they are shared with client servicing, ensuring reports are insightful, accurate, and go beyond surface-level metrics.

• Maintain expert-level knowledge across key platforms — programmatic, paid social, paid search, and emerging channels — and act as the senior platform authority within the pod.
• Lead engagement with media partners, platform representatives, and WPP Media's internal product teams to identify innovations and new capabilities relevant to client needs.
• Drive the adoption of new platforms, betas, and activation approaches across the pod, keeping the agency ahead of the curve.

• Engage with clients on escalated delivery matters, complex planning questions, and senior performance conversations — providing clear direction and senior-level assurance.
• Partner with client servicing leads to ensure the pod is well-aligned with client expectations across all accounts.
• Contribute to QBRs, planning presentations, and senior client meetings where implementation expertise and campaign performance insight is required.

• Provide day-to-day direction and guidance to the Senior Executive within the pod, supporting their development through clear feedback and coaching in the flow of work.
• Collaborate closely with client servicing, planning, data, and specialist teams to ensure seamless delivery across the full campaign lifecycle.
• Contribute positively to broader team initiatives, best practice sharing, and ways of working improvements across the implementation and activation function.

• Ensure all bookings, loadings, budget reconciliations, proforma checks, and billing processes across the pod are completed accurately and on time.
• Maintain full financial compliance across active accounts and escalate discrepancies promptly.

• 6–8 years of media agency experience with a strong background in implementation planning and campaign activation.
• Proven ability to independently own and elevate implementation planning and activation output across a broader client portfolio.
• Expert-level platform knowledge across multiple channels — programmatic (DV360, The Trade Desk), paid social (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat), paid search (Google Ads, SA360), and ad serving (CM360, Flashtalking).
• Track record of setting implementation standards and driving consistent quality across a team or portfolio.
• Comfortable engaging with senior clients and internal stakeholders on complex delivery, planning, and performance matters.
• Strong commercial awareness — able to connect campaign performance to client business outcomes.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills — comfortable operating at portfolio level and diving into detail when required.
• Strong communicator — able to represent the pod credibly in senior forums and client settings.
• A balance of strategic thinking and hands-on delivery — equally at home shaping a planning framework as resolving an in-flight issue.
• Genuine passion for platforms, innovation, and staying ahead of the media landscape.