Director, Creative Operations

About the Role:

The Director, Creative Operations is a key member of Post Consumer Brands’ Creative Leadership Team and reports directly to the Executive Creative Director. This role will be responsible for optimizing end-to-end processes for all creative projects ranging from big idea development, digital media, social, AR/VR experiences, film production, animation, photography, copywriting, print, packaging, etc. Sounds like a large range of exicting opportunities? Radical prioritization will also be a big part of your role.

The Director, Creative Operations should be an exceptional strategic thinker capable of translating their future-facing vision into frictionless day-to-day practice. They should naturally mentor and motivate creative team members while influencing cross-functionally at their senior level.

Extensive digital marketing experience in CPG or retail/eCommerce is required. Ideal candidate must have a strong understanding of what it takes to fuel modern marketing and efficiently create content at scale for complex media plans. You will effectively drive teams, process and foster cross-functional collaboration to create packaging and deliver the surrounding consumer experiences for Post Consumer Brands.

In this role, you will manage a team of Creative Producers and Project Managers that oversee all creative projects from concept to completion. You will be expected to proactively build strong relationships with partners across the entire organization. You will also oversee relationships with external agencies and vendors—including coordinating ecosystems of in and out of house working teams.

You will:

• Partner with the ECD and Creative Leadership team to continuously transform The Studio’s traditional creative capabilities into modern, consumer experience capabilities for our brands 
• Drive digital-first, consumer-centric, modern-marketing thinking 
• Act as the guiding light for the organization’s Creative Operations excellence—build a long-term strategic vision for Creative Operations that supports corporate goals, priorities and objectives 
• Optimize process from end-to end to transform design and content creation into a scalable operation 
• Oversee the development of a best-in-class project management and creative producer team across all creative and design executions 
• Define roles and responsibilities for the Creative Operations team to avoid duplicative work or confusion across partners and other members of the creative team 
• Establish rituals and routines for The Studio to openly discuss blockers, progress, wins and collaboration opportunities 
• Regularly foster cross-functional retrospectives to discuss what worked and what can be improved—and then assign action 
• Lead weekly “Creative Stage Gate” discussions to accept and prioritize unplanned work—assigning/communicating level of effort 
• Oversee agency, design and content production budgets Lead team of Creative Producers and Project Manager who establish project timelines and budgets 
• Proactively lead cross-functional workshops to seek out annual scope-of-work in effort to better plan budgets from the ground-up 
• Oversee pre-production of master content shot lists—assuring the most cost-effective approach is taken to encompass needs of all brand/channels 
• Negotiate and manage agency scopes, assuring scope is adhered to 
• Manage team responsible for bidding process with external vendors/agencies/freelancers 
• Have the ability to identify, recruit and onboard resources for creative needs (specialty or dependent on internal bandwidth) 
• Oversee the orchestration of an ecosystem of in- and out-of-house creative resources 
• Lead the prioritization/management of budget allocation for external resources 
• Identify tool optimization, barriers and gaps causing inefficient workflow management 
• Enforce time-tracking for more accurate project estimation/cost estimation 
• Mentor and coach team members through a combination of regular and annual performance reviews to ensure clarity of goals, effectiveness of feedback and to inspire career growth

You have:

• A producer mindset—the ability to swiftly connect, accurately brief and energetically activate creative teams to produce content across all media and creative disciplines 
• 15+ years of operations and project management experience, preferably agency 
• 8+ years people management experience embracing diverse perspectives and skillsets 
• Naturally inspiring leadership skills—people describe you as a mentor 
• A Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, advertising or a related field 
• Business acumen mixed with creative fire, nerdiness and curiosity 
• Strong, persuasive presentation skills 
• The drive to simplify everything from the way we work to the final deliverables 
• The ability to radically prioritize and protect the brain space of your creative do-ers 
• An instinct to make consumer-centric decisions based off of data, facts and insights 
• The ambition to be a leader of change management at all levels of the organization 
• Extensive knowledge of project management systems and ability to identify new tools 
• Proficiency in the Microsoft Office suite 
• Knowledge of Adobe CC 
• Familiarity with Business Affairs/Talent Management 
• Knowledge of font licensing 
• Knowledge of print pre-press and digital delivery success, a plus