Account executive

The job role account executive covers various descriptions depending on the specific industry covering mainly marketing role.

In IT organizations, an account executives (AE) is a senior management role, responsible for executing large (50 mln +) contracts. Control of the Profit & Loss (P&L) is one of the main activities, together with customer alignment on a senior level. Usually an AE has one or more Account Managers (AM) in his/her staff, to cover the various towers a large contract is mainly built of. These AM's directly or indirectly control the program and project managers performing the actual job. For very large contracts (1 bln +), 600 + people could be involved in contract execution.

In an ideal situation, at the end of a contract life cycle, the AE and part of the staff will be involved in new contract negotiations. This could be for the same account or for a new customer. Once the contract is signed, the AE and staff will be directly up to speed. However, practice shows this situation will only be achieved one out of five times on average.

In the marketing and advertising industries, account executives are typically responsible for client servicing and client acquisition. The AE serves as the direct link between the advertising agency and the existing client, managing day-to-day affairs and ensuring customer satisfaction. The word "executive" in this instance means to "execute" - that is he/she is mostly responsible for more practical parts of the advertising jobs (i.e. media placement, distributions, contract negotiation, etc.). The AE is also tasked with bringing more clients into the agency to increase revenue. The AE will typically have 1-2 assistants and reports to the respective account supervisor/manager and/or to the client service director/account director. This depends on the country and on the account (s)he is working for. In Spain for example, an account executive could probably develop very important campaigns on his/her own.^{[citation needed]}