This role is available to applicants in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra.

Here at Portable...

We are a design and technology company that cares about people and the world. We seek out areas of social need and policy failure and make transformational change using design and technology. Our clients and partners are as passionate as we are and are working in government agencies and nonprofit organisations. Our job is to help them define, design and deliver new products, services and ways of working.

There are currently 50+ of us working as researchers, strategists, designers, developers, producers and visionaries towards our mission from our office in Collingwood and working remotely from home.

Then there's you...

A Senior Account Manager who helps to cultivate, extend and enhance our relationships with our partners and clients. You’ll work within our business affairs unit with five other people to grow and develop strategic opportunities. Working alongside our Head of Account Management you’ll strengthen relationships

You could be one if...

Developing and growing clients with impact is your thing. You love being immersed in problems that are hard to define and hard to solve. You have a robust toolkit across human-centred design and strategic design, which allows you to walk into any number of environments and problem spaces with confidence. And more than anything you enjoy that moment when insights emerge from the research and guide people, even entire organisations, towards new possibilities.

Key Outcomes

• Increase the proportion of work won from existing clients, including repeat work and ongoing contracts
• Healthy client relationships across your portfolio of clients
• Good relationships with direct colleagues and project delivery teams
• Successful onboarding of new clients

If you were here this week, you would have:

• Facilitated a conversation between our mental health team and a client we are working with to ensure a shared understanding of the client’s needs
• Spoken to a State Government department about some of their goals for the next quarter and shared those goals with our wider team in a digestible way
• Developed a proactive proposal with our design strategists for a large account we are seeking to grow
• Shared some news about our new capability with a client in your regular account check-in
• Inspired repeat-business from our clients by taking them through proactive proposal ideas
• Nurtured and developed a new lead in our Death and Ageing impact area by working closely with our research team
• Reported to Business Development Marketing Account Management team on new work proposals and revenue pipeline
• Presented insights on client relationship-building through monitoring, measuring and facilitating client feedback and satisfaction
• Introduced clients to a Discipline leader or partner who can bring value to their strategic objectives
• Told the story through a case study about how our work for clients connects to Portable’s broader impact and purpose
• Met five clients to check in on project work, and offer advice on services and products and insights in their vertical/industry.
• Worked with project delivery teams to meet client requests and resolve a potential problem before it even happened
• Smoothly negotiated a tough conversation with a client about the scope of work or to align expectations
• Supported the project delivery team in their final presentation to a client

Qualities of an ideal candidate:

• 5 years experience in a similar role at a similar level
• Demonstrated success growing client accounts over 3 or more years
• Account/client services experience
• An in-depth knowledge of digital and agency project production, including a broad knowledge of waterfall and agile methodologies
• Experience working in a similar “agency side” environment with a range of client types and sizes
• Experience working in, or for government agencies
• Subject matter expertise in one of our impact areas: justice, mental health, death and ageing, education and environment

Remuneration:

The salary range for this role is between $100,000 - $130,000 plus super, depending on your level of experience. We are committed to building a diverse and equal team and people from traditionally underrepresented groups are encouraged to apply.

How to apply:

To be considered, please send us your resume and a cover letter answering the following questions:

1. Describe how you’ve been able to successfully grow an account over time
2. Tell us about the most difficult client or stakeholder problem you’ve solved. What happened, and what did you do about it? What made it so hard?