Location: Sydney (Alexandria HQ), 4 days p/w onsite

About The Local Project

The Local Project is one of the fastest-growing premium architecture and design media businesses, operating across Australia, New Zealand and North America. We celebrate extraordinary local design and its global impact through editorial, digital, video and documentary content, reaching over 100 million impressions per month. In 2024 we expanded with The Local Production, a full-service creative agency dedicated to elevating brands through strategic storytelling and high-end content creation.

We are recognised by the industry for our craft. In 2025 we were awarded Publication of the Year, Publishing Company of the Year, Publish Leader of the Year, and Special Edition of the Year at the Mumbrella Publish Awards.

The Role

The Head of Digital owns the digital function across both The Local Project and The Local Production. This is a dual remit: the brand-owned audience channels that define our voice in market, and the social media management (SMM) portfolio that we deliver for our partner clients.

Core responsibilities include:

Strategy and reporting

• Quarterly strategy and performance reviews with the CEO.
• Weekly reporting on paid ads performance.
• Monthly Sales and Client EDM delivered live and consistent.

Paid advertising 

• Set the paid strategy across brand and performance, across Meta (Instagram and Facebook), Google, Pinterest, LinkedIn and emerging channels as relevant.
• Own creative briefing for paid campaigns, working with the in-house content and production teams to develop ad creative that meets the TLP brand standard.
• Own audience strategy, segmentation, retargeting and lookalike modelling.

Owned brand and audience

• The Local Project owned channels: Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, web and newsletter.
• The Local Production Instagram and other owned production channels: activated, planned, and run on a sustained weekly cadence.

Client SMM portfolio

• Premier accounts that require senior, direct ownership. You will hold the relationship at executive level, attend strategic client meetings personally, and approve every client communication. 
• Major accounts that require disciplined account management with strong delegation. You set the strategy and oversee delivery, with day-to-day execution led by named team members and reviewed at structured checkpoints.
• Mid-tier accounts thatrequire efficient, productised delivery with clear quality benchmarks. The department must be able to deliver against these contracts at margin while maintaining the same craft standard as our premier work.

Team leadership and operations

You will lead a team of six employees and four contractors spanning content, digital execution, and web development. The team operates across Sydney, Manila and additional offshore locations.

This is a hands-on operational leadership role. You will:

• Hold regular 1:1s with reports, with structured agendas covering delivery, blockers, development and feedback.
• Lead a weekly digital WIP with tracked schedule changes against client-approved plans, and documentation of decisions taken.
• Maintain Sprout (our publishing platform) as the single source of truth for scheduling, delivery and reporting across the entire SMM book. 

AI integration

The Local Project is in active rollout of AI across the business, with the digital function central to that work. This role will be a key partner to the CEO in driving the next phase of AI integration in the function, including:

• Identifying where AI can lift the quality and efficiency of content production, paid ad creative, audience analytics, reporting, and client deliverables, without compromising the TLP brand standard.
• Embedding AI tooling into the team's weekly workflow in ways that the team adopts and trusts.
• Maintaining the TLP point of view that AI augments craft, it does not replace it. Premium brand voice, considered creative, and human-led storytelling remain non-negotiable.

This is a meaningful component of the role. We are looking for someone with genuine fluency in current AI tooling for content and digital marketing, who can think clearly about where it adds value and where it does not.

What we're looking for:

• 10+ years' experience in digital and social, with at least 3 years leading a team of similar size and scope.
• Demonstrated experience leading an SMM client portfolio across a tiered book of business, including premium and mid-tier accounts.
• Direct, hands-on paid advertising experience. You have personally set strategy on six-figure annual spend, briefed creative, run testing cycles, and owned reporting to executive level.
• Genuine fluency in current AI tooling for content and digital marketing, with a considered view on where it adds value and where it doesn't.
• Premium brand sensibility. You understand the difference between content that performs and content that elevates.
• Experience in architecture, design, lifestyle, fashion, hospitality or premium publishing will be looked on favourably.