There's a test I used to run in my head during client meetings. I'd look at the account director across the table and ask myself: if this client's business was on fire right now, would this person grab a hose or update the status report?
Most of the time, the answer was the status report.
I spent 10+ years in advertising agencies across MENA, working my way up to senior account director. MullenLowe, Leo Burnett, TBWA. Led accounts for Burger King, Hershey's, Vimto, Afia, the UAE Government Media Office. The kind of brands where the stakes are real and the client knows when you're faking it.
And the thing I kept noticing was that client servicing, as an industry discipline, has turned into something embarrassing. It's become scheduling. Translating creative feedback. Softening bad news. Writing recap emails nobody reads. The account director sits in the middle, absorbing pressure from both sides, producing nothing original, and calling it "relationship management."
That's not a partner. That's a buffer.
What actually goes wrong
The gap between a good strategy and a dead campaign is almost never the idea. It's the execution. More specifically, it's the person who's supposed to hold everything together between the brief and the launch.
On the Burger King x Heinz campaign, I was coordinating four stakeholder groups. Two global brands with two sets of brand guidelines. A creative team. A media agency. Minimal budget. Limited time window. If I'd just "managed" that, nothing would have shipped. Instead, both brands posted each other's content with zero explanation, the internet lost its mind, and we revealed the collab at peak confusion. Highest engagement rates of the year for both brands in the region. The three sandwiches became the highest selling limited time products on Burger King's 2024 calendar.
I'm not saying that to brag. I'm saying that's what happens when the account director actually owns the outcome instead of just owning the timeline.
Why I left agencies
I got tired of watching agencies choose client retention over honest counsel. The math is simple: tell the client what they want to hear, keep the retainer. Tell them what they need to hear, risk losing it. Most agencies pick option one. Every time.
That produces mediocre work. And I'd rather walk away than put my name on something I don't believe in.
So now I freelance. As a senior account director, as a strategist, sometimes as both. The freelance model actually works better for account direction than most people assume. Brands get someone senior, fully focused, fully embedded for the length of a campaign. No agency overhead. No internal politics shaping what I recommend. My only incentive is making the work good, because that's what gets me hired again.
What I actually do differently
I don't manage clients. I work with them. There's a difference that sounds subtle but changes everything.
On Vimto's Ramadan campaign, I owned the full project lifecycle across multiple markets. Stakeholder alignment, production timelines, budget management, the entire briefing process from strategic foundation to final creative output. The campaign became one of the most used hashtags on TikTok during Ramadan. 15% sales increase.
Those results didn't happen because the strategy was genius (it was good, but still). They happened because someone held the thread from the first conversation to the last deliverable. One person. One point of accountability. No handoffs where meaning gets lost.
That's what account direction is supposed to be. Not a role. A responsibility.
If you're looking for a freelance account director
Ask them what decisions they've made, not what projects they've been on. Ask them what they pushed back on. Ask them if they've ever killed a brief because it wasn't good enough.
If they just agree with everything you say, they're not a partner. They're a mirror. And you don't need to hire a mirror.
I've worked across FMCG, QSR, government, automotive, hospitality, healthcare, entertainment. Every category, every channel. From Dubai across the GCC and MENA, and now globally.
If you want someone who treats your business like it's theirs, not like it's a retainer to protect, reach out.