Strategic Account Director

Overview Would you like to help enrich the lives of learners around the world?

At RM, we've been pioneers of education technology since 1973. We provide technology and resources to the education sector, supporting over 10 million students worldwide. We work with over 28,000 schools, nurseries, and education trusts in 115 countries to deliver customer centric solutions that improve education outcomes.

What we do helps learners at all stages of their lives, from preschool to higher education and professional qualification; we partner with schools, examination boards, central governments and other professional institutions to enrich the lives of learners.

RM Group operates through three businesses: Technology (Managed Services, Software and Infrastructure for Schools), Assessment (Software and Services) and TTS (Educational Resources).

Within the assessment market we are experts in providing solutions for online exam testing and marking and the management and analysis of educational data. We work with government ministries, exam boards and professional awarding bodies for high stakes assessment such as GCSEs, A Levels, and professional qualifications. Each year, our software is used globally to conduct hundreds of thousands of on screen tests and to mark millions of paper based scripts. For over a decade we have been partnering with the world's leading awarding bodies to deliver intuitive, secure, and reliable e marking solutions.

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Reporting to the Global Head of Strategic Partnerships, the Strategic Account Director role is key to the execution of the RM Results Growth strategy across the assessment sectors for a portfolio of Strategic Growth Accounts, with a focus on driving strong revenue and profitability with their portfolio of customers and across a range of market sectors.

At RM our vision is to grow from our current strong position as the leading provider of high stakes eMarking solutions into an organisation that is a major force in the eAssessment arena, and one that is recognised as a thought leader in the market, bringing ideas such as artificial intelligence and adaptive testing into the eAssessment market in new, valuable and innovative ways. We do not just provide the technology solutions to our customers within the digital assessment arena we also provide a partnership that transforms their current ways of managing paper based examinations within a global setting. To modernised assessments that allow learners to thrive and advance their potential through digital assessment solutions including world leading product solutions and service and support packages.

As Strategic Account Director you own the long term partnership and strategic growth for one of RM's most significant customers. It is essential the role holder can demonstrate thought leadership centred around market trends within assessment and resulting in proactive growth and profitability of the account that meet or exceed the agreed financial targets and manage a range of matrixed and diverse teams supporting the long term success and ambition for your customer.

You will need exceptional commercial and financial acumen, positive and proactive customer focus, leading all the way up to C Suite level engagement both internally to RM and within your customer, commitment to deliver excellence and creativity in order to hunt and develop the strategy and direction for your growth across the customer estate, that align to Business Unit strategy and investments. Working within a matrixed organisation as Strategic Account Director you will be required to lead and develop a highly effective and motivated team with full ownership for the life cycle of a customer partnership with RM. You will work with the wider RM Assessment team always generating a winning mentality and fostering collaborative leadership that demonstrates outstanding teamwork. The Strategic Account Director will formulate strong relationships with Product and Proposition team, bringing market intelligence that shapes strong visions for go to market strategies that align to the long term success of the account's growth strategy.

The digital global assessment landscape is maturing at pace across a range of market sectors including both general led qualifications such as GCSE and A Levels through to professional led qualifications. The Strategic Account Director needs to be operating proactively within the market, speaking at events, engaging in industry forums and total aligned with major customer priorities and growth aspirations. The role holder will influence the investment plans for RM through the knowledge and insight gained in such forums.

Responsibilities

• Accountable for the definition and successful execution of a growth strategy for the Major account and the subsequent achievement of the order, revenue, profitable growth, and customer delivery objectives.
• Exceptional leadership skills demonstrated across a matrix structure developing a winning mentality for growth within your portfolio of strategic accounts. Leading with robust account planning framed with a strong creative narrative that in turn leads to positive sales objectives for the customer. Engaging key stakeholders within RM at all levels (including exec board level).
• Pro actively engage within the assessment industry and supporting events. Gaining market knowledge about advancements in the assessment landscape that help shape up vital investment plans for RM both in product, services and people. Demonstrate through a robust commercial vision for growth that investment will positively accelerate growth for revenue and profit.
• Demonstrate an ability to proactively hunt for and generate new growth pipeline for your account, whilst converting opportunities to generate new revenue and profitability for Assessment. Demonstrating strong and robust short and longer term growth in line with the RM Assessment strategic intent for growth across your major account.
• Understand the Sector and markets, including changing dynamics, to evolve the thinking and strategy within their account/s new business opportunities.
• Lead your strategic account stakeholder engagement strategy and execution, personally own strong relationships with the key customer at C Suite level. Knowing how and when to engage RM SLT and Exec partners to benefit the maturing of the customer relationship and growth plans. Brining a positive energy to both RM internal teams as well as key customer relationships. Proactively informing all parties on growth plans and new concepts that keep RM relevant and evolving as a strong partner.
• Representing the voice of the your customer within RM, ensuring at all times RM is aligned to customer objectives opportunities and therefore drive strong growth. Engage all key internal and external stakeholders to ensure the insight from account plans informs priorities for development that drive growth and profitability.
• Collaborating with members of the Sales and Marketing team for major opportunities as required and as agreed with the Global Head of Global Partnerships.
• Drive the migration of paper based examinations to digital. Constantly promoting the RM Global Accreditation Platform as a leading global solution. Demonstrating that a partnership with RM holds more than just products and services. Leading around thought leadership for innovation and insight into new concepts of assessment that will transform a learners experience and build long terms partnerships with RM for all major accounts.
• Fully accountable for their strategic customer accounts P&Ls, with accountability and responsibility for meeting and exceeding Order, Revenue, Profit and Cash targets set in line with budget. Managing your account each month providing a strong articulation for growth.
• Present to SLT and Exec level on the financial performance of your strategic account. Demonstrating performance against in year target. Demonstrate the thought process and plan for the 3-5 year growth strategy and how that will significantly increase growth for the major account portfolio.
• Lead and own financial & commercial risks and opportunities for their strategic account and how they deliver to the overall business performance for Assessment. Embed provided frameworks for assessing probability and impact and taking proactive management for any matters that require action to improve or deliver upon.
• Leadership for the driving of important level of financial and commercial acumen across the teams that support and deliver for your accounts led by the account director, through mentoring, coaching and support.
• Maintain a clear view of the financial performance (actual and forecast) of all elements of the account and be able to lead discussions confidently with the team and stakeholders across the business as required.
• Contribute to the overall monthly finance presentation to Global Head of Strategic Partnership and Business Growth Director for your accounts performance for revenue and profitability.
• Accountable Customer Satisfaction and retention for your customer partnership, ensuring that RM delivers customer contracts and expectations, across all stages of a customer/contract lifecycle.
• Leadership for the contractual framework for you customer partnership. Clarity on the service levels provided by the Functional Divisions meet the requirements of the existing and new contracts by working closely with the Head of Delivery role and the Customer Relationship Managers. Ensure service does not impact opportunity for growth and where it is at risk own corrective action planning to resolve.
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