PR & Influence Freelance Senior Account Manager (6 months)

Role summary

PR & Influence Freelance Senior Account Manager (6 months) is a contract role at Ogilvy South Africa in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa (on-site). Posted 2026-10-09. Experience level: 5-10.

Job title

PR & Influence Freelance Senior Account Manager (6 months)

Company

Ogilvy South Africa

Location

Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

Work arrangement

on-site

Employment type

contract

Category

Sales

Experience level

5-10

Date posted

2026-10-09

Job description

A PR & Influence Senior Account Manager is an essential part of our team, covering the full range of PR and Influencer work. You play a critical role in contributing to the PR and Influencer strategy, recommending objectives, targets, action plans, timelines and budgets. Your strategic thinking and creativity will help develop best-in-class ongoing PR and Influencer campaigns for your clients, integrating earned media, press office and talent activity into the overall strategy for seeding, paid love, and paid media activations.

In this role, you will be responsible for the execution of the end to end running of PR and Influencer campaigns, from overseeing identification and implementation through to press office, events and reporting. You will work collaboratively with other senior members within the business – internal and external, to deliver exceptional campaigns for your clients. Your key responsibilities will include managing your PR & Influence Executives and Coordinators, supporting your team in a wellbeing and professional progression capacity, overseeing media lists and Influencer paid and seeding databases, ensuring they are constantly up-to-date, plus staying on top of cultural/social trends, customers' views and attitudes.

Key Responsibilities:

Actively contribute to the PR and Influencer strategy by recommending campaign objectives, targets, action plans, calendars, and managing campaign budgets.

Align and collaborate with senior account leads and client brand teams, internal and external, to deliver best-in-class PR and Influencer campaigns

Identify and nurture client-high stake talent and media opportunities and relationships to help deliver the PR and influencer campaign.

Manage the day-to-day running of PR and influencer campaigns, from identification and implementation to overseeing press office, seeding campaigns and delivering all campaign reporting

Oversee the day-to-day press office, managing media enquiries, proactive sell-ins and reactive requests across your client portfolio.

Build, maintain and grow strong relationships with journalists, editors and key media contacts across consumer, lifestyle and trade press.

Oversee press launches, press days, events and product mailers, from initial concept through to delivery and coverage reporting.

Maintain and build successful client relationships, selling in ideas and content streams in quick turnaround and high-pressure situations.

Present creative content and PR solutions to internal and external stakeholders, senior account leads and client brand teams for new and existing campaigns.

Set clear roles and responsibilities at the start of each project and prioritise the work-load to manage tasks to achieve deadlines.

Oversee your teams media lists and influencer database and ensure they are kept up-to-date by the account PR & Influence Executives and Coordinators.

Support additional projects within the team as required, such as new business requests, PR and Influencer Marketing research and competitive trend analysis.

Constantly exceed client expectations and ensure campaign KPI's & key campaign milestones are met, across both earned coverage and influencer performance.

Actively contribute to the internal and external PR and Influencer campaigns by recommending action plans, keeping on top of timelines and budgets.

Confidently leading client calls, whilst supporting Senior PR & Influence Executives and PR & Influence Executives with additional client updates.

Reviewing press releases, media materials, Influencer paid and seeding shortlists, campaign briefs and reports, ensuring they are client ready, before presenting these to the Account Director.

Track, evaluate and report on earned coverage, ensuring PR results are measured against agreed KPIs alongside influencer performance.

Holding daily catch ups with your Senior PR & Influence Executives, PR & Influence Executives and Coordinators, planning campaign workload, capacity and priorities.

Holding weekly 1o1's with your team members, responsible for tracking and planning career progression, KPI's and objectives.

Ensuring both internal and external deadlines are met and delivered to an outstanding level.

Responsible for escalating account challenges to senior leadership when required and responding to clients in a timely manner.

Requirements:

Very strong understanding of PR and Influencer Marketing across all major consumer media and social media platforms.

Proven experience in consumer PR, including press office management, media relations and securing high-profile earned coverage.

An established network of contacts across consumer, lifestyle and trade media, with the confidence to pitch and sell in stories.

A passion for PR and Influencer Marketing and an expert on cultural/social/digital trends and consumers' views and attitudes.

Excellent writing and editing skills, with the ability to craft compelling press releases, pitches and briefing documents.

Experience of integrated campaigns where PR and influencer activity work together to deliver one consistent brand story.

Being a trusted escalation point for high stake talent and media communication, handling any creative roadblocks with a solution based attitude.

Excellent communication, project management, team building and organisational skills.

A team player, always striving for the best outcome for their team internally and externally.

Ability to make high pressure decisions and handle tight deadlines in a fast-paced agency environment.

Demonstrated experience in consistently building productive client, agent and media relationships.

Enriching client relationships by continuously going the extra mile when putting forward ideas and thinking outside of the box.

The ability to remain optimistic and calm under pressure, with strong experience in senior management communication.

A creative outlook with the ability to achieve the full potential from PR and Influencer camp