Role: Social Media Director

Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

About the role:

As the Social Media Director, you'll lead a team of four to eight — including Social Media Managers, a Community Manager and Content Creators — reporting to the Operations Director. You'll be jointly accountable with brand stakeholders for channel performance, creative quality, risk mitigation and integrated campaign delivery across a multi-category FMCG portfolio.

This isn't a role for someone who wants to own individual channels day-to-day. It's a role for someone who can build the infrastructure, set the standards and develop the people that make great social work possible — consistently, across multiple brands. You'll drive the function forward through people leadership, strategic counsel, senior client partnership and data-informed decision-making.

What you will be doing:

Leadership and people management

• Lead, coach and develop the social team; set clear objectives, run regular 1:1s and conduct performance conversations
• Manage resource planning and recruitment; forecast capacity and onboard new team members and contractors as needed
• Build team capability through training, playbooks and best-practice documentation; institutionalise community management standards across the studio
• Oversee team administrative processes including time-off approvals, feedback cycles and career development planning

Strategy, delivery and governance

• Define and steward social and channel strategy across assigned brands; translate brand strategy into clear social execution frameworks the team can operate against
• Ensure the team delivers high-quality content calendars, moderation, social snapshots and performance reporting to a consistent standard
• Implement and maintain SLAs, moderation policies, escalation flows and approval processes aligned to brand, legal and compliance requirements
• Oversee risk and reputation management; review reactive opportunities, approve responses for sensitive issues and lead escalations with communications and legal where required
• Maintain cross-functional alignment with paid social, creative production, insights, eCommerce and customer care teams

Client and stakeholder partnership

• Act as a trusted strategic partner to brand teams; present social strategy, performance and recommendations at senior level
• Directly manage senior stakeholder relationships for major deliverables and support the social team in client-facing interactions
• Lead the social workstream for new-business pitches and proposals; partner with strategy, project management and creative teams to shape and present compelling responses

Data, insights and continuous improvement

• Own the reporting framework; ensure the team delivers actionable insights consistently tied to business objectives
• Establish benchmarks for community health, engagement performance and campaign contribution
• Use social listening and analytics platforms to identify cultural moments, emerging platform opportunities and performance gaps

Operations, tools and commercial management

• Oversee the use and optimisation of enterprise social tools (Sprinklr preferred; Hootsuite, Sprout, Brandwatch, Meta Business Manager)
• Manage vendor and production partner relationships; maintain accurate documentation and ensure procedural standards are upheld across the team
• Oversee account-level social and content budgets; track and report spend against forecast; present financial performance to OLIVER and client stakeholders

What you need to be great in this role:

• Substantial experience in social media — including organic social strategy, community management and integrated campaign delivery — gained in an agency or brand environment
• A track record of leading social teams, developing capability and managing performance across multiple brands or workstreams
• Experience building and operating community management functions, including moderation processes, escalation protocols and SLA frameworks
• Proficiency with enterprise social management platforms (Sprinklr preferred)
• Strong client and senior stakeholder management skills; experience presenting strategy and performance recommendations at brand leadership level
• Confidence navigating crisis communications and reputation escalation protocols
• A data-driven approach: ability to define measurement frameworks, structure reporting and communicate insights clearly to non-specialist audiences
• Professional proficiency in Arabic and English, written and verbal
• Deep knowledge of social platform features, GCC market dynamics and how culture shapes brand perception and community behaviour
• Strong organisational skills and the ability to manage competing priorities across a multi-brand portfolio

Nice to have

• FMCG experience across beauty, wellness, personal care, home care or refreshments
• Experience with paid social strategy and creator or influencer programmes
• Familiarity with customer care workflows and CRM integrations
• Experience with social listening and brand tracking platforms
• Additional language proficiency relevant to GCC markets
• Background in digital strategy or integrated media planning

Gen AI and agentic thinking

• Sets the approach to AI adoption for the social discipline across the OLIVER UAE studio
• Builds AI capability within the team — identifying relevant tools, integrating workflows and supporting the team in using AI responsibly and critically
• Shares best practice on AI's role in social content, community management and reporting, both internally and with client teams
• Establishes appropriate AI governance and quality standards in the context of brand safety and compliance requirements in the GCC

Req ID: 18703

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