ENVIRONMENT
Our client is a leading social-first agency that connects brands with influential creators to produce culturally relevant, performance-driven campaigns. The agency is scaling into its next phase of growth and is investing in the operational backbone and program-management discipline required to deliver premium work, repeatably, profitably, and at pace. This role exists at a growth inflection where operational decisions and project delivery are deeply interdependent. The environment is hybrid, collaborative, and innovation-forward, embracing AI and automation as force-multipliers. The person in this role operates across NY and LA, serving as the operational bridge across all departments.
DUTIES:
- Lead planning, execution, and delivery of major agency-wide initiatives.
- Build detailed project roadmaps with clear owners and decision gates.
- Proactively identify risks and implement mitigation plans.
- Drive stand-ups, steering committees, and retrospectives.
- Define and enforce project management methodology standards across the agency.
- Own the selection and optimization of internal tools and tech stack.
- Continuously refine the A-to-Z Process Playbook.
- Eliminate bottlenecks to increase output without proportional headcount.
- Maintain real-time team bandwidth visibility across all accounts.
- Resolve resourcing conflicts, balancing strategic versus immediate needs.
- Refine influencer pricing models and the deliverables calculator.
- Monitor project budgets, gross margins, and P&L data.
- Enforce budget adherence and flag variances early.
- Keep the deliverables calculator aligned with market conditions.
- Manage the end-to-end legal workflow: SOWs, reviews, redlines, scope changes.
- Ensure compliance with FTC regulations and AI content standards.
- Serve as operational point of contact with outside counsel.
- Lead operationalization of AI agents across high-frequency workflows.
- Measure and report on time and cost savings from AI integrations.
- Continuously identify new automation opportunities.
- Serve as the operational bridge across all departments.
- Act as objective decision-maker for shared resource conflicts.
- Contribute an operations-first perspective to leadership discussions.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 7+ years in operations management, project/program management within an agency or marketing services environment.
- Demonstrated track record of leading complex, multi-stakeholder programs from planning through delivery.
- Strong financial acumen — comfortable with P&L statements, margin analysis, and budget management.
- Experience managing SOW/contract workflows and familiarity with FTC advertising compliance.
- Proven ability to manage cross-functional teams without direct reporting authority.
- Proficiency with modern project management tools (Asana, com, Notion, Smartsheet).
- Strong command of both Agile and Waterfall delivery methodologies.
- Preferred: Strong operational experience in a high-stakes environment with excellent project management capabilities driving a premium team to achieve operational objectives.
- Preferred: Hands-on experience evaluating, deploying, or managing AI/automation tools in an operational context.
- Preferred: PMP, PgMP, or equivalent project management certification.
- Preferred: Experience with capacity planning software or resource management platforms.
- Preferred: Background working in a high-growth, founder-led or private-equity-backed agency environment.
ATTRIBUTES:
- Operational Rigor:Builds systems that run without daily intervention; obsessive about documentation, repeatability, and continuous improvement.
- Program Delivery:Consistently delivers complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives on time and within budget — even when scope shifts mid-flight.
- Financial Acumen:Naturally thinks in margins, utilization, and ROI; translates P&L data into actionable operational decisions.
- Cross-Functional Influence:Earns trust across departments without positional authority; resolves conflict through clarity, not escalation.
- Tech & AI Fluency:Comfortable evaluating, adopting, and operationalizing new tools and AI workflows at speed.
- Bias to Action:Defaults to “solve it now” over “schedule a meeting about it.”
