Account Director – Trailblaze

Acceleration Community of Companies (ACC) • Los Angeles, CA

11h • Remote

About The Position

Trailblaze is a modern communications agency built for brands that want to stand out. We specialize in creative marketing communications, earned media, and influencer campaigns that drive cultural relevance and real impact. Our clients partner with us because they’re done with predictable, “check-the-box” PR and want bold thinking, sharp strategy, and standout execution. We bring mainstream CPG rigor to the weirdest, fastest-moving, most regulated categories in marketing.

This is a senior, client-facing role for a communications leader who thrives in categories other agencies find too complicated, too regulated, or too unconventional. If you know the difference between Delta-8 and Delta-9, understand why the World’s Largest Pot Brownie wasn’t a stunt but a stock-moving event, and have an opinion about where cannabis, wellness, and functional beverages go next — keep reading.

Requirements

• 9–12 years in PR, communications, or integrated marketing, with agency experience strongly preferred.
• Category fluency: Experience in cannabis, CBD, psychedelics, health and wellness, functional beverage, beverage alcohol, or an equivalently regulated CPG category. Understanding of marketing constraints and cultural opportunities within these categories.
• Cultural fluency: Plugged into music, fashion, food, internet culture, and Gen Z behavior, with the ability to translate this into compelling pitch angles.
• Creative brain: Ability to generate ideas (stunts, data stories, partnerships, moments) beyond press releases and identify viral potential.
• Trend-forward: Awareness of current trends in relevant industries and cultural undercurrents.
• Media relationships: Built relationships with top-tier consumer, business, trade, and lifestyle media.
• Sharp writing skills for decks, messaging platforms, press releases, bylines, crisis statements, and executive communications.
• Presence: Ability to present to a boardroom and handle feedback effectively.
• Operating style: Entrepreneurial, comfortable with ambiguity, fast decisions, and demanding clients.
• Humor: Required.

Nice To Haves

• Knowledge of Delta-8 and Delta-9.
• Understanding of the significance of events like the World's Largest Pot Brownie as a stock-moving event.
• Opinions on the future of cannabis, wellness, and functional beverages.

Responsibilities

• Lead integrated communications strategy across earned media, influencer, creative, and executive visibility for a tight roster of cannabis, CBD, wellness, and adjacent regulated-category clients.
• Build annual comms plans, editorial calendars, messaging platforms, and campaign frameworks with KPIs that actually tie to client business.
• Navigate platform restrictions, ad bans, state-by-state regulatory complexity, and category-specific legal guardrails with confidence.
• Invent moments and generate ideas such as stunts, data stories, partnerships, and events.
• Identify what's landing in media from Forbes and Bloomberg to High Times, The Fresh Toast, and Rolling Stone and predict what will land next.
• Anticipate trend cycles, cultural tentpoles, and subculture shifts before they are mainstream, and turn that instinct into pitch angles, PR stunts, and survey-led news hooks.
• Operate with Gen Z fluency, understanding platforms (TikTok, Reels, Substack, Discord, Reddit), tone, pacing, and the creator ecosystem to pitch resonant campaigns.
• Serve as a trusted advisor for CMOs, CEOs, and founders.
• Lead client meetings with authority.
• Provide proactive counsel on issues management, crisis, and high-stakes moments.
• Spot organic growth inside accounts and help shape new business pitches.
• Oversee press materials, messaging, pitch angles, thought leadership, bylines, and story arcs.
• Leverage and expand relationships with media, cannabis and wellness influencers, and cultural tastemakers.
• Partner with creator and influencer networks to extend earned work into social and community spaces.
• Mentor publicists and account staff, reviewing all deliverables with care.
• Manage resources across a capped book of business.
• Foster a collaborative, high-performing, fully remote team environment across time zones.

Benefits

• Equal employment opportunity for all applicants and employees.
• No discrimination based on race, color, religion, creed, gender or sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), national origin, ancestry, age, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, family and medical care leave status, military or veteran status, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
• Reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities.
• Assistance with completing forms or participating in the application process.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees