VP, Client Leadership

Darkroom • California City, CA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

Darkroom is hiring a senior client leader to serve as its on-the-ground lead for a strategic, founder-led consumer technology client. The client is scaling paid media to eight figures annually and has an aggressive product roadmap. The role is based at the client's office in the San Francisco Bay Area four to five days per week and involves working directly with its founders and product leadership. The VP owns the client's day-to-day experience with Darkroom and translates fast-changing direction into clear priorities for a large cross-functional team. The role works alongside the Director of Growth, who leads account strategy, and the VP of Paid Media, who serves as executive sponsor.

The VP leads the client relationship and operating rhythm, communicates client priorities within Darkroom, and resolves escalations. The role requires making informed decisions on budget, pacing, channel mix, and priorities; diagnosing performance and delivery problems; managing scope and expectations; and identifying additional opportunities as the client's roadmap expands. The VP also works with the client's engineers to pressure-test measurement and clarify ownership, while bringing a point of view on consumer technology growth. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who combines media expertise with executive-level client leadership and can protect both client outcomes and the delivery team's capacity.

Darkroom describes itself as an independent, 150-person agency and a human services company powered by Shadow, its AI commerce layer. Its culture emphasizes speed, rigor, ownership, autonomy with accountability, truth over comfort, and outcomes over optics.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in growth marketing or client leadership for marketing services.
• Experience leading a large, fast-moving account for a founder-led or venture-backed consumer company, either in-house or at an agency.
• Strong media fluency, including the ability to defend a media plan line by line, interpret platform data, and challenge a media team when needed.
• Working knowledge of mobile app growth and app measurement, including MMPs, SKAN, and event tracking, and confidence working with engineers.
• Executive presence with founders, including the ability to disagree and say no while maintaining their trust.
• Proven ability to lead a cross-functional team's priorities for a demanding client without burning out the team or damaging the relationship.
• Ability to work onsite at the client's Bay Area office four to five days a week.

Nice To Haves

• Career beginnings in media planning or performance media followed by growth into client or account leadership.
• Growth experience in consumer AI, consumer subscription, or another high-velocity consumer technology product.
• Experience scaling an app through a major launch or hypergrowth period.
• Direct ownership of paid media budgets at eight-figure annual scale.
• Exposure to incrementality testing or marketing mix modeling (MMM).
• Experience across creative, creator, organic social, and lifecycle programs in addition to media.

Responsibilities

• Own the relationship with the client's founders and product leadership and their day-to-day experience of Darkroom.
• Represent the client's priorities, feedback, and concerns within Darkroom and communicate them to leadership and teams.
• Run the operating rhythm, including weekly onsite plans, structured decision windows with founders, and a unified set of team priorities.
• Translate founder direction and changing product priorities into clear briefs and tradeoffs for media, creative, creator, social, and lifecycle teams.
• Own and resolve escalations, closing the loop with both the client and Darkroom.
• Manage scope and expectations directly and constructively; shape additional client needs into scoped work rather than scope creep.
• Make decisions on budget, pacing, channel mix, and priorities, and determine when to involve the SVP of Strategy or VP of Paid Media.
• Diagnose performance and delivery issues in real time and coordinate fixes across teams.
• Review the client's measurement setup with engineers and clarify ownership between the client and Darkroom.
• Bring a point of view on consumer technology growth and set the agenda for the client relationship.
• Push back on the client when needed to protect performance and on Darkroom when needed to protect the client.

Benefits

• Unlimited PTO and US holidays.
• Company-sponsored medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• 401(k) program with company match.
• Profit-sharing opportunities.
• Flexible parental leave.
• Interdisciplinary growth and development opportunities, including exposure beyond one's core role.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed