Director of Planning

Note:  This role has a hybrid work schedule in NYC.

The Director leads the creation and activation of audience-first media strategies that drive business outcomes for clients. This role requires both creativity and rigor, translating business challenges into data-informed strategies and compelling recommendations. The Director earns trust quickly with clients and colleagues alike, because they sweat the details but also understand what’s most important to clients overall.

This is a high-visibility role requiring strong storytelling, deep planning expertise, and the ability to keep up with the media industry’s breakneck speed of evolution.

Strategic Leadership & Client Impact

• Serve as the strategic lead across multiple client accounts, crafting media strategies that reflect both client objectives and AMS’s proprietary offerings.
• Translate complex media data into clear, actionable narratives that clients trust and act on.
• Lead client conversations with confidence, insight, and credibility—representing SRP in new business, strategic reviews, and key pitches.
• Work effectively with multiple stakeholders across the organization. Constructively handle feedback and stay focused on long term goals and objectives set by client or SRP team.

Team Development & Internal Influence

• Mentor and manage planners and analysts to raise the quality and confidence of planning output across the team.
• Model strategic thinking and planning hygiene; codify best practices and frameworks that scale.
• Collaborate across Media, Analytics, and Sales to ensure cohesive activation of strategy.

Planning Innovation & Productization

• Push clients and internal teams beyond comfort zones, introducing emerging media opportunities and proving their impact with thoughtful tests and measurement plans.
• Develop and refine proprietary planning tools, forecasting frameworks, and channel strategies in collaboration with Product and Insights.
• Contribute to the elevation of AMS’s planning reputation through thought leadership and industry involvement.
• Adapt to changing media landscape and stay up to date on the latest developments. Apply those to client or internal work.

Experience & Expertise

• 8+ years of experience in agency media planning with increasing leadership responsibility required; must include hands-on digital planning. Equivalencies considered in creative yet detail-oriented roles in comms planning, financial analysis, creative, and client-side marketing.
• Proven track record of owning strategic plans and client relationships at a senior level, a must-have.
• Deep fluency in media measurement across channels (TV, digital, programmatic, OOH, audio), required.
• Essential comfort level navigating both traditional IO and audience-first/digital-forward planning approaches.

Technical Acumen

• Advanced skills in Excel, PowerPoint, and at least one BI or data visualization platform (e.g., Power BI, Tableau, Domo), required.
• Familiarity with planning and research tools such as MRI, Nielsen, Resonate, YouGov, Scarborough, and syndicated consumer datasets.
• Familiarity with Asana or similar project management software.
• Working knowledge of statistics and data science, must be able to manipulate and interpret large datasets and present insights clearly.

We’re excited about you because:

• You’re a strategic thinker who can balance creativity with budget efficiency.
• You’re a storyteller at heart who understands how to distill complexity.
• You’re a problem solver who thrives in fast-paced, high-pressure environments.
• You’re comfortable navigating budgets from scrappy to premium while ensuring the highest quality media output.
• You’re so curious that if you were a cat, you wouldn’t have made it this far...

Travel

This role requires some domestic travel, up to 10%, for client meetings in other cities, new business, and industry conferences/speaking engagements. Some international travel may be required for visits to AMS offices (CAN or UK).

Some night/weekend work will be required.

Unfortunately, we are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment Visa at this time.

The salary range for this position is $110,000 - $130,000. The successful candidate’s salary will depend on actual ranges of current employees in the subject position, market considerations, budgetary considerations, geography, as well as the candidate’s skill set, level of experience, and qualifications. AMS offers a very competitive benefits package inclusive of medical coverage, dental, vision, disability, 401k, paid time off, community engagement opportunities, great colleagues, and great learning opportunities.