Senior Account Executive (SAE)

Client Management

• Proactively support planning initiatives by providing input, helping gather and organize information, contributing to draft content, and overseeing internal team contributions.
• Support thought leadership initiatives through research, insights, and/or content development that helps identify opportunities or issues affecting the Client or industry.
• Identify, navigate, and propose resolutions to problems across Clients, departments, and/or teams. Escalate issues appropriately with recommended solutions when required.
• Develop a thorough understanding of each Client’s business, contract, deliverables, challenges, and industry landscape in order to better guide internal teams.
• Recognize when creative is off strategy and confidently voice concerns while contributing fresh thinking during brainstorms and reviews.
• Demonstrate a consistent approach to collaboration with department counterparts that enhances efficiency, productivity, and collective success.
• Actively listen and provide clear, concise communication with context and confidence to influence outcomes credibly and effectively.
• Provide and receive constructive feedback in a way that inspires and motivates positive change while helping elevate team performance.
• Maintain fluency across all agency department deliverables — creative, media, PR, strategy, and digital — and understand how they work together within integrated campaigns while identifying opportunities for cross-department collaboration.

Account Management

• Draft new scopes of work for review and feedback while managing internal and Client approval processes.
• Partner with Strategy in the development of briefs for Supervisor review. Lead development and execution of projects while ensuring strategic alignment, quality control, and timing and budget parameters are met.
• Provide counsel, input, and insight on campaign performance, reporting, and optimization opportunities.
• Support events, sponsorships, and experiential activations as assigned, including vendor coordination, on-site management, and post-event reporting.
• Facilitate and lead Client presentation meetings for minor projects while actively participating in Client and internal status meetings.
• Where appropriate and under supervisor guidance, lead client presentations ensuring work is framed strategically with a clear agency recommendation and POV.

Financial Management

• Share ownership with Supervisor for forecasting responsibilities while proactively raising concerns and participating in finance reviews.
• Provide first review and feedback on all aspects of Client billing and budget management, ensuring timely and accurate invoicing, tracking, issue resolution, and escalation as needed.
• Work in partnership with Project Management to actively monitor Client profitability and margin goals while providing context for pacing and escalating concerns as needed.
• Surface unmet client needs and emerging opportunities within existing accounts to the account lead, supporting organic revenue growth.

• 4-6 years of experience in an advertising agency setting OR working on multiple projects in a fast-paced environment
• Bachelor’s degree required
• Mastery of advertising agency disciplines, departments, and outputs (especially media); how they work together in an integrated way; and how to sell services
• Outstanding written and verbal communication skills; capable of writing and speaking with a clear, concise point-of-view and should be comfortable presenting internally/ externally if necessary
• Experience and mastery with MS office and Google Docs/Charts/Sheets and ability to create clear, client-worthy presentations if necessary
• Strong communication and presentation skills, with the ability to relate to, persuade, and build consensus with clients
• Impeccable organizational and project management skills

Civilian expects every employee, regardless of role or responsibility, to uphold its core values. The agency’s core values—and the behaviors that support those core values—are as follows:  

Seek First to Understand

• Communicate with people directly. Listen to other people’s ideas and concerns with genuine curiosity and an open mind. Try to understand where people are coming from and give them the benefit of the doubt. Practice kindness and treat one another with respect.

Practice We Over Me

• Think of the entire agency as your team. Collaborate with, contribute to, and elevate the people around you. Solve problems quickly and constructively and in all things work for the greater good.

Operate with Integrity

• Be trustworthy and reliable. Demonstrate sound judgment. Take responsibility for your actions. Always do the right thing.

Rise to the Challenge

• Greet challenges as opportunities. Work with determination and tenacity to find a way through obstacles (without compromising integrity, boundaries, or protocols). Bring the full breadth of your creativity and ingenuity to the challenge at hand.

Make Things Better

• Every day, make something better for your team, your work, or the world. Embrace steady improvement. Demonstrate passion for the agency’s success and a commitment to producing great work and measurable results.

Civilian is committed to an ongoing journey in becoming an actively anti-racist, inclusive organization where everyone can feel a sense of belonging and know that their diverse experiences, voices, backgrounds, and contributions matter. Through an intentional focus on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in our agency, we harness the unique contributions and lived experiences of our team to create innovative work in response to some of our society’s most pressing challenges.

How We Put This Into Practice At Civilian:

• We actively work to create a safe and welcoming environment where all employees and partners feel like they belong, are valued, and can bring their whole selves to work.
• We consistently assess how BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other diverse individuals can thrive in a predominantly white industry and organization, and are continually working to build a more equitable workplace.
• We hire and promote the most qualified individuals regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, ability, age, parental status, national origin, religion, color, or creed. We only get better when diverse ideas, perspectives, and identities come together, and therefore actively seek out candidates with non-traditional backgrounds, education, experiences, and skills who bring new viewpoints to our agency.
• We also know that inclusion doesn’t stop at hiring, which is why we actively incorporate staff voices into decision-making, policy development, and agency practices.

This position is a hybrid role based in San Diego, California. Remote working options with in-office Wednesdays and every other Friday morning for collaboration and team building.

This is a full-time salaried position with a comprehensive benefits package. Salary Range: $70,000 – $95,000, depending on experience.

• Health coverage: Tiered medical plans with a fully employer-paid option, plus expanded employer-paid coverage after four years. Employer-paid dental and vision included.
• Insurance and protection: Company-paid life insurance, AD&D, and legal support, with optional supplemental coverage.
• Time off and flexibility: Generous PTO, flexible schedules, paid holidays, parental leave, and volunteer time off.
• Retirement: A Safe Harbor 401(k) with employer contributions.
• Wellbeing support: An Employee Assistance Program.
• Growth: Ongoing professional development support.
• Office experience: Ergonomic, dog-friendly offices designed to support focus and collaboration, with on-site parking and access to a fitness center.