Director, Engagement

Our Engagement team plays a pivotal and strategic role in our consultancy’s operations to deliver great work, build long-term client relationships, and drive business results. This team creates the conditions for success by inventing new processes and systems, bringing operational rigor, and architecting relationships built on trust. They understand the unique needs and motivations of our clients and our internal teams and continuously identify ways to advocate for both, ensuring projects are successful, on time and of unrivaled quality.

As a Director, Engagement, you are a senior client and delivery leader responsible for overseeing complex engagements and building trusted client relationships. You balance the big picture with day-to-day delivery, ensuring teams are set up for success while identifying opportunities to deepen relationships and grow our impact. You bring strong commercial judgment and operational rigor, anticipating the needs of clients and teams while providing leadership and guidance to more junior members of the Engagement team.

A key focus of this role will be supporting and growing relationships with private equity firms and their portfolio companies. You understand how PE clients operate, can quickly get up to speed on their investment priorities and value-creation goals, and know how to translate those priorities into meaningful opportunities for Proto.

What you will do:

• Lead complex, multidisciplinary client engagements, overseeing the overall approach, delivery, financial health, team needs and dynamics and client relationship from start to finish.
• Build trusted relationships with senior client stakeholders, becoming a strategic partner who understands their business, identifies and anticipates needs and helps connect those needs to opportunities for Proto.
• Build strong relationships with private equity clients and portfolio company leaders, developing an understanding of their investment thesis, business priorities and value-creation goals.
• Partner with PE clients to identify opportunities across their portfolio where Proto’s capabilities can help accelerate growth, transformation, or innovation opportunities.
• Translate complex client challenges into thoughtful engagement approaches, scopes of work, proposals, timelines and budgets that set teams up for successful delivery.
• Oversee multiple projects or workstreams, ensuring teams are appropriately staffed, risks are anticipated and the quality of the work remains consistently high.
• Partner closely with discipline leads and Partners to make casting, process, financial and delivery recommendations across engagements.
• Serve as a senior escalation point for clients and internal teams, navigating ambiguity and difficult situations with sound judgment, clarity and calm.
• Identify opportunities to deepen and grow existing client relationships, partnering with senior leadership to shape follow-on work and new opportunities.
• Look beyond individual engagements to identify broader opportunities within PE relationships and across portfolio companies, helping turn successful work into longer-term partnerships.
• Maintain a strong understanding of the commercial health of engagements, including scope, budgets, resourcing, profitability and potential risks.
• Negotiate scopes, proposals, timelines and budgets with senior internal and external stakeholders.
• Provide leadership, coaching and guidance to members of the Engagement team, helping strengthen their client management, commercial and delivery capabilities.
• Continuously improve the systems, processes and ways of working that support successful engagements across Proto.
• Represent Proto confidently with senior clients and demonstrate curiosity about their businesses, industries, and evolving challenges.

Qualifications:

• 8–12 years of experience leading complex digital, brand, product, service, innovation and/or transformation engagements, preferably within a consultancy, branding, innovation or corporate strategy environment.
• Experience working with private equity firms and PE-backed portfolio companies is strongly preferred, with an understanding of the pace, commercial priorities, value-creation mindset, and complex stakeholder management required of these engagements.
• High EQ and strong situational awareness, with the ability to navigate challenging situations with tact and sound judgment.
• Sets and maintains a high bar for engagement craft and quality, never settling for the status quo.
• Skilled at managing up, anticipating needs and bringing a calm, pragmatic and solutions-oriented approach under pressure.
• Strong executive communication skills, with the ability to distill complexity and communicate with clarity and confidence.
• Experience building, managing and growing relationships with senior stakeholders and C-level executives.
• Proven ability to navigate ambiguity, anticipate risk, and lead both clients and internal teams through complex engagements.
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with experience mentoring and developing others, directly on the engagement team and supporting craft and growth outside of immediate discipline..
• Comfortable working with collaboration tools and communication platforms (Slack, Google Suite, Figma, Teams, etc.);
• Must be willing to travel at least 25%.

In New York City, the base salary for this position is $165-180K. Individual compensation varies based on job-related factors including years of relevant skills and experience, level of responsibility, and qualifications. This position reports into our Partner, Head of Engagement.

Proto is a New York based company with offices at 120 Broadway. Our staff is encouraged to work-from-office on days of their choosing based on personal preferences, collaboration moments, client meetings, and all-company gatherings. Our core business hours are generally 9:30am-6:00pm EST; however, due to our client service model and collaborative working culture, individual working hours fluctuate to reflect client deadlines and deliverables.

Interested in applying? Right this way.

Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion [JEDI] at Proto

We believe that fostering a just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive organization that works for us, will ultimately advance positive futures for all. Our people are our greatest investment, and it is through them that we continually incorporate a variety of lived and professional experiences that expand, evolve and amend our approaches. Only by combining unique experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds can we unlock the most creative ideas and innovative approaches for our clients to shape a world that works for everyone.

This Proto post has been written in 12-point font and includes extra space around headings and between paragraphs for easier reading amongst people with dyslexia. We are continuously working towards making our job postings more inclusive. If you have feedback for our intersectional JEDI team, please send an email to [email protected].