Implementation & Activation Lead (SEM)

WPP Media · Sydney

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About Open Era

Open Era is a world-class, bespoke partnership between WPP Media and Suncorp, one of Australia’s largest and most iconic insurance groups.

This custom agency model brings together the best minds, tools, and technologies to shape the next chapter of growth—powered by openness, intelligence, and orchestration. We flex with Suncorp’s diverse brand portfolio, including household names like AAMI, GIO, Suncorp, Shannons, Apia, and Vero. These brands are not only leaders in insurance—they are leaders in creativity, ingenuity, and customer connection.

We are building a team that thrives on:

• Openness: To change, to collaboration, to accountability.
• World-Class Standards: Delivering the best work from Australia, for Suncorp.
• True Partnership: Working with transparency and healthy tension—we challenge for better every time.
• Growth Mindset: Focused on outcomes, performance, and policy impact.
• Future Focus: Never complacent, always evolving to meet what’s next.

Role Summary and Impact

The Performance Lead is the senior performance leader for Suncorp within Open Era and reports directly to the Open Era Head of I&A. It is a critical leadership role, ensuring we are setting our clients, our people, and our agency up for success now and in the future. You will collaborate closely with other product and client leaders to shape an agency our people are proud to work at and our client and media partners are proud to work with.

This role is accountable for leading performance-led implementation planning, activation, optimisation, and measurement across the Suncorp portfolio. You will ensure every dollar of performance investment is directly connected to measurable business outcomes, policy growth, portfolio priorities, and long-term customer value.

Core Responsibilities

Client Advisory & Strategic Leadership

• Senior Performance Advisor: Act as the senior performance media advisor across the Suncorp portfolio, providing strategic direction on Search and broader performance channels.
• Drive System Connectivity: Build deep partnerships with the Suncorp Performance team to ensure media, customer experience (CX), conversion rate optimisation (CRO), and digital priorities work as one integrated system.
• Translate Data to Insights: Translate complex performance data and industry developments into clear, actionable business recommendations for senior clients.
• Portfolio-First Stewardship: Champion a portfolio-first approach that balances brand growth, performance outcomes, and commercial objectives across all Suncorp brands.
• Secure Strategic Alignment: Ensure performance recommendations are aligned to Suncorp's objectives, budget priorities, and future growth ambitions.
• Proactive Optimisation: Provide ongoing proactive recommendations that improve campaign effectiveness, efficiency, and competitive advantage.

Product, Technology & Innovation

• Lead the Performance Product: Own and elevate the performance media product across Search, Social, Programmatic, emerging AI-driven channels, and future performance capabilities.
• Omnichannel Integration: Partner closely with the Head of I&A to ensure performance media is fully integrated into Open Era's omnichannel planning, activation, reporting, and optimisation frameworks.
• Break Down Silos: Drive collaboration between Search specialists and omnichannel activation teams to reduce silos and increase effectiveness.
• Champion Agentic Marketing: Act as a pioneer for the future of Search, AI-powered discovery, automation, and agentic marketing solutions.
• Lead Experimentation: Direct experimentation frameworks, innovation programs, and test-and-learn initiatives across performance channels.
• Leverage AI Platforms: Identify opportunities to leverage Open Media Studio, AI, and automation to improve performance outcomes and operational efficiency.
• Foster Partner-Led Innovation: Build senior publisher and platform relationships to bring first-to-market insights and creative solutions to the portfolio.

People, Leadership & Capability

• Inspire High Performance: Lead, coach, and inspire a high-performing performance team that consistently delivers world-class work.
• Provide Career Clarity: Create an environment where people have clarity on expectations, development pathways, and performance standards. Conduct regular coaching, career conversations, and performance reviews.
• Build Future Skills: Actively build capability across strategic thinking, performance craft, data literacy, client leadership, and commercial acumen.
• Nurture Talent & Succession: Attract, retain, and develop future performance leaders, establishing clear succession plans and capability roadmaps.
• Promote Safety & Wellbeing: Partner with the People Team to resolve team disputes, ensuring a safe, supportive, and productive team environment.

Growth, Marketing & Thought Leadership

• Position Brand Leadership: Establish Open Era and Suncorp as market leaders in performance media, search innovation, and AI-enabled marketing.
• Deliver Thought Leadership: Drive the development of industry thought leadership, case studies, awards entries, and strategic POVs.
• Industry Spokesperson: Act as a recognised spokesperson internally and externally on performance media trends and opportunities.
• Expand Service Offerings: Identify opportunities to grow client outcomes and expand WPP Media’s service footprints across performance, digital, and transformation.

Skills and Experience

What Makes You Great

• Multifaceted Senior Leader: You are a senior performance leader who can move confidently between high-level strategy, technical execution, deep data analytics, people leadership, and client influence.
• Commercially & Technically Fluent: You are commercially minded, technically fluent, and collaborative. You know that great performance media is not just about channel efficiency; it is about connecting media, data, digital experience, customer behaviour, and business outcomes.
• Trust Builder through Clarity: You challenge status-quos because you care about the work. You can lead technical specialists while seamlessly integrating into a broader, multi-discipline leadership team. You are comfortable operating in ambiguity but excel at creating structure for others.
• Authentic Collaborator: You feel empowered to bring your authentic self to work and contribute to great teamwork, knowing your individual ideas and thoughts are valued.
• Inspiring Communicator: You are an exceptional presenter with outstanding analytical and problem-solving skills. You possess the patience to examine deep technical details and translate them into simple, creative client solutions.
• Network Influencer: You are collaborative and astute—able to build trust and respect within a matrixed network and capable of influencing senior stakeholders through persuasion and clear leadership.

Life at WPP Media & Benefits

Our passion for shaping the next era of media includes investing in our employees to help them do their best work, and we’re just as committed to employee growth as we are to responsible media investment. WPP Media employees can tap into the global WPP Media & WPP networks to pursue their passions, grow their networks, and learn at the cutting edge of marketing and advertising. We have a variety of employee resource groups and host frequent in-office events showcasing team wins, sharing thought leadership, and celebrating holidays and milestone events.

WPP Media is an equal opportunity employer and considers applicants for all positions without discrimination or regard to characteristics. We are committed to fostering a culture of respect in which everyone feels they belong and has the same opportunities to progress in their careers.

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