During a recent JAM session, agency leaders and senior team members compared notes on what is working, what’s not, and where agencies need to rethink how the work gets done. One topic stood out: helping execution-focused account executives move beyond task management to become strategic client advisors.
This challenge affects agencies of all sizes. Many account executives are organized and capable, yet struggle to connect daily work to larger business objectives. The result is solid delivery without clear leadership. Agencies want their teams to guide clients with confidence and perspective. Over time, the same patterns appear in agencies that succeed at developing strategic account executives.
Mentorship That Builds Judgment
Strong account leaders emerge from intentional mentorship. In smaller agencies, there may only be one or two senior people with deep strategic experience. Involving junior AEs in planning conversations, client discussions, and internal decision-making accelerates learning and builds lasting judgment.
Mentorship is not about hand-holding. It’s about modeling how decisions are made, how tradeoffs are evaluated, and how client challenges are framed before solutions are proposed. This exposure develops judgment—the quality that separates a capable account manager from a trusted advisor.
Training That Sets a Clear Path
Experience alone is not enough. Without shared frameworks and a common understanding of strong account service, results are uneven.
Agencies that make progress invest in account service training. This goes beyond onboarding or tools and focuses on how account executives are expected to think, lead conversations, and make decisions for both the client and the agency.
Practical guidance is critical. Teams often seek help on running meetings, framing recommendations, escalating issues, and connecting daily activity to client outcomes. When expectations are made explicit and reinforced through training, account executives gain confidence faster, and leaders spend less time course-correcting. The goal is not to script behavior. It is to establish a shared understanding of what effective account leadership looks like.
Expecting AEs to Know the Client’s Business
Strategic account leadership starts with context. Strong AEs understand how clients make money, where pressure shows up, and what external forces shape decisions. They read industry news, track competitors, and pay attention to signals beyond individual projects.
Agencies can accelerate this by making business understanding a clear expectation. Knowing the client’s business is foundational. When AEs build this habit early, strategy becomes less abstract and more practical.
Letting AEs Lead
Development stalls without responsibility. After training and mentorship, AEs need ownership of defined pieces of work—leading a small initiative, managing a program end to end, or serving as the primary point of contact for a client objective.
Senior leaders oversee without intervening too quickly. Giving AEs freedom to make decisions and learn from mistakes fosters confidence and accountability. Ownership turns theory into experience, and experience into leadership.
Strategy Is Built, Not Assigned
Across agencies, the same truth holds: strategic account executives are developed through intention, not titles. Agencies that invest in mentorship, shared learning, client understanding, and real ownership create teams that think clearly and lead effectively.
As client expectations rise, agencies that rely on a small group of strategic thinkers will feel the strain. The best-performing agencies treat strategy as a capability distributed across the organization, not a function reserved for senior voices.
