About Us
The Financial Times is one of the world’s leading news organisations, globally recognised for its authority, integrity and accuracy, with a mission to deliver quality information and services worldwide.
At the FT, curiosity thrives and ambitious thinking is rewarded. Here, you’re given the chance to reach millions, create work that matters and deliver impartial journalism in a polarised world.
In our warm, collaborative culture, you’ll connect with a diverse community of experts who support your growth, career aspirations and wellbeing.
Your future at the FT will be filled with opportunities that challenge and inspire you. With no fixed path, you’ll discover new skills and forge a career that can take you anywhere.
Build a newsworthy career at the FT.
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
We believe in the power of unique perspectives and want all voices in our organisation to be heard, respected and valued. A supportive workplace is one where employees feel they can be themselves and operate to their full potential. We are committed to removing barriers for everyone, with a focus on addressing those faced by underrepresented groups.
The Role
We are looking for a commercially minded and highly organised Advertising Executive to lead the planning and operational delivery of the FT Weekend portfolio, with a primary focus on FT Weekend Magazine.
Planning sits at the heart of this role. You will oversee the weekly planning cycle for FT Weekend Magazine, coordinating advertising allocations, flat planning, inventory, booking timelines and collaborator management across Editorial, Production and Sales. You will ensure that each issue is carefully planned, commercially optimised and delivered accurately and on schedule.
Alongside weekly issue planning, you will contribute to longer-term commercial and portfolio planning. This will include forecasting advertising availability, assessing revenue performance, identifying inventory and yield opportunities, and supporting the development of future products and commercial packages.
The role combines forward planning and strategic oversight with detailed, hands-on delivery. You will need to anticipate risks, handle dependencies and keep multiple teams aligned around changing priorities and timelines.
The ideal candidate will be an assured planner who is comfortable working with detailed schedules, data and competing requirements. You will bring excellent attention to detail, sound commercial judgement and the ability to build trusted relationships across editorial, production, sales and commercial teams.
Key Responsibilities
Issue Planning and Delivery
- Lead the end-to-end weekly planning process for FT Weekend Magazine, ensuring advertising, editorial and production requirements are aligned.
- Own flat planning, advertising allocation and issue closure in partnership with Editorial and Production.
- Develop and maintain clear issue plans, schedules and critical paths covering booking deadlines, creative delivery, pagination, copy requirements and press deadlines.
- Plan advertising positions and inventory to support both commercial priorities and the overall quality of each issue.
- Anticipate potential planning conflicts, capacity constraints and delivery risks, advancing or resolving issues before they affect publication.
- Handle changes to issue plans efficiently, ensuring all relevant teams understand the impact on advertising, editorial content, pagination and deadlines.
- Maintain accurate Salesforce reporting and advertising lists, ensuring they remain fully aligned with agreed flat plans.
- Handle incoming creative against planned positions, timelines and specifications, raising any quality or suitability concerns.
- Liaise with Production on pagination, special executions, copy requirements and press schedules.
- Plan and source filler content where required to support effective issue closure.
- Coordinate issue logistics, including subscriptions, voucher copies and distribution requirements.
Portfolio, Commercial Performance and Inventory Planning
- Maintain a forward view of advertising availability, inventory and booking capacity across the FT Weekend portfolio, including HTSI.
- Plan and supervise booking deadlines, inventory, filler content and issue requirements to support reliable weekly, quarterly and annual publishing schedules.
- Provide Sales teams with clear guidance on future availability, advertising positions, pagination options, production logistics and key commercial timelines.
- Coordinate renewals planning with Sales, ensuring upcoming opportunities, deadlines and capacity requirements are visible and effectively handled.
- Maintain accurate planning and sales documentation, including publishing schedules, media kits, rate cards, sales toolkits and operational guidance.
- Track commercial targets and maintain accurate, up-to-date revenue reporting and performance metrics across the portfolio.
- Support revenue forecasting, capacity planning and yield optimisation by aligning advertising demand with available inventory.
- Produce monthly and quarterly reporting that provides clear commercial insight, forward-looking analysis and practical recommendations.
- Conduct revenue audits and collate product and portfolio insights for global updates and wider business planning.
- Identify short-term commercial opportunities, including tactical packages, underused inventory and opportunities to improve yield.
- Contribute to longer-term commercial planning by identifying new revenue opportunities, product enhancements and potential changes to publishing plans.
- Use data and performance insights to support recommendations for new products, product improvements and portfolio development.
- Supervise market trends, competitor activity and product performance to advise commercial, inventory and portfolio plans.
Collaboration
- Act as the primary commercial planning lead for FT Weekend Magazine.
- Serve as a key point of contact across Editorial, Production, Sales and Commercial teams.
- Coordinate regular planning discussions to ensure teams are aligned on upcoming issues, timelines, inventory and commercial priorities.
- Communicate changes to plans clearly and promptly, ensuring dependencies and potential impacts are understood.
- Support Sales presentations, client projects, special executions and commercial enquiries by confirming feasibility, availability and delivery requirements.
- Build effective working relationships across teams, creating confidence in the accuracy and reliability of issue and portfolio plans.
- Help improve planning processes, documentation and ways of working across the FT Weekend portfolio.
Required Skills and Experience
- Strong planning and organisational skills, with experience handling detailed schedules, dependencies and changing priorities.
- Experience in advertising operations, media planning, publishing, product management, media sales or a related commercial environment.
- Demonstrable ability to manage an end-to-end planning process and coordinate delivery across multiple teams.
- Strong commercial competence, with the ability to balance revenue priorities, inventory availability and operational requirements.
- Excellent attention to detail and a methodical approach to maintaining accurate plans, data and documentation.
- Confidence working with data, reporting, forecasting and performance analysis.
- Ability to anticipate risks and resolve problems before they affect delivery.
- Strong relationship-management skills, with the ability to work effectively across editorial, production, sales and commercial teams.
- Clear and confident written and verbal communication skills.
- Ability to communicate plans, timelines and changes clearly to a range of collaborators.
- Solid working knowledge of Excel, PowerPoint and Word.
- Ability to identify commercial opportunities and translate insight into practical, deliverable plans.
- A proactive and collaborative approach, with the confidence to take ownership of processes and make informed decisions independently.
Desirable
- Experience using Salesforce.
- Experience within the luxury, media or publishing sectors.
- Knowledge of print production, flat planning, pagination, issue planning or advertising operations.
- Experience handling advertising inventory, booking schedules or publishing timelines.
- Experience supporting sales teams with availability planning, collateral, reporting or client-facing materials.
- Experience contributing to revenue forecasting, yield planning or commercial performance analysis.
- Interest in the FT Weekend portfolio and the wider luxury, lifestyle and media landscape.
What’s in It for You?
Our benefits vary by location, but we are committed to providing best-in-class perks across all our offices. These include generous annual leave, medical cover, inclusive parental leave packages, subsidised gym memberships and opportunities to give back to the community. Full details of our benefits are available here.
We’ve embraced a 50% hybrid working model, averaging two to three days onsite, that fosters trust and remote adaptability while encouraging in-person camaraderie and peer learning. Additionally, we are open to accommodating specific flexible working pattern requests for all roles where feasible.
Accessibility
We are a Disability Confident employer and Valuable 500 signatory.
Please let us know if you require any reasonable adjustments or personalisation as part of the application process or to enable you to attend an interview. If you would like to discuss your requirements or have any questions, email talent@ft.com and a member of our team will be happy to help.
Further Information
At the FT, we embrace innovation and the use of technology and appreciate that individuals may harness AI tools as part of their job application process. While we are happy for you to use AI to assist with your application, it is essential that all information provided is authentic and accurately represents your skills, experience and qualifications.
Candidates should be aware that the use of AI throughout the application process may be monitored to ensure a fair and transparent hiring process for all.
Please beware of fraudulent job postings and offers claiming to be from the Financial Times. All legitimate opportunities will direct you to apply through the official Financial Times careers site, and the FT will never ask for financial information, payments or referrals to third parties during the hiring process. If you have any concerns about the legitimacy of a job posting or suspect any scam activity, please contact talent@ft.com.
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