Senior Manager, Creative Operations

The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) is a top-ranked nonprofit global provider of leadership development solutions with a mission to advance the understanding, practice, and development of leadership for the benefit of society worldwide. The Societal Impact division of CCL focuses on leadership development in four vertical areas of practice: K12 education, Higher Education, Nonprofit, and Population Health. The Development team works collaboratively with the different vertical directors, faculty, operations, and the CCL enterprise to provide high-quality, high-impact leadership solutions to our clients.

General Summary

The Senior Manager Creative Operations is an organized, proactive and highly collaborative leader with proven experience guiding creative and marketing teams cross-functional projects. Key to supporting the Creative Studio (Studio) function that consistently provides quality and on-time work across the global enterprise, this role requires strong skills in developing and overseeing complex project plans and maintains an acute understanding of the inner working of projects, including interdependencies and required resources.

This role guides people and processes to ensure that our creative services projects are delivered on time; and serves as the 'hub' across all creative services workstreams. This role is responsible for making effective decisions when presented with multiple options for how to progress and leads projects from requirements definition through to deployment - identifying schedules, scopes, budget estimations, and implementation plans.
This position reports to the Creative Director and is a people leader.

Creative Operations, Project & Workflow Management

• Serves as the main point of contact for requestors regarding Studio project status.
• Develops, evolves and maintains procedures and workflows, relative to specific types of project needs, that streamline work efforts and allow greater efficiency.
• Oversees workload distribution across the Studio team and contractors and ensures timely delivery of creative assets.
• Manages project scoping processes and is responsible for reporting on team time in support of chargebacks to the business.
• Oversees time tracking and budget, contracts and invoices for freelance support, ensuring effective use of resources and financial responsibility.
• Supports training, maintenance and evolution of project management system to ensure all creative work is documented, organized, and facilitated effectively.
• Collaborates with GTT and KM to determine and oversee file structure, organization, and stability across creative resources and deliverables.
• Periodically reviews creative software to ensure it is up-to-date and continues to be the most efficient product for the needs of the team; makes recommendations for improvement.

Creative Operations, Resource Management:

• Develops, analyzes, and regularly reports on team capacity, freelance allocation and staffing needs to senior leadership.
• Monitors project progress and team capacity. Identifies risks and takes proactive measures to address any issues.
• Works collaboratively with internal customers, faculty, and senior leaders to provide clarity, establish timelines, work plans and draft briefs.
• Gathers and analyzes stakeholder requirements to identify opportunities for efficiency and consistency and ensure all necessary information is included to meet their specific needs.
• Provides guidance and recommendations to stakeholders on effective creative collaboration and consistency and efficiency best practices.
• Participates in planning with functional leads and Project Management for greater insight into upcoming work. Attends regularly held planning meetings as a key role.
• Works with management to obtain and assign external creative resources based on project parameters, budget and team capacity.
• Responsible for guiding delegation of work to Studio team based on capacity, skillset and development goals.
• Coordinates internal and external resources to ensure that projects adhere to scope, schedule, and budget.
• Coordinates external meetings and vendor communications.

Communications & Team Collaboration:

• Serves as a member of the Studio Leadership Team to ensure a seamless leadership experience for the team with consistency in communications and feedback.
• Responsible for scheduling and leading regular production meetings, 1:1s and ad hoc check-ins to ensure work is documented, deadlines are being met, and roadblocks are being addressed.

Team Development & Management:

• Consistently and demonstrably prioritizes team development, growth, and retention with direct reports.
• Conducts performance evaluations addressing creative quality, personal/professional development, efficiency, cross-functional collaboration, and opportunities for growth.
• Inspires and nurtures quality in the work.

Required Skills & Education

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent job experience.

Functional Work Experience

• Knowledge of creative/agency workflow and best practices.
• Knowledge of print and production processes.
• Mastery of creative project workflow and related processes, e.g., project scoping, scheduling, budgeting, creative development and execution, client review and feedback, proofing, and production

Required Knowledge & Skills

• High-level of competence implementing and utilizing project management software such as Wrike, Click-Up, etc.
• Experience working in marketing and related creative industries, including in-house or agency-side, and across a variety of marketing mediums (content, print, digital, video, etc.)
• Possesses stellar communication, presentation, and creative problem-solving skills
• Talent for leading others, collaborating with cross-functional teams and guiding through change.
• Ability to handle confidential materials and matters with maximum discretion.
• Demonstrated success in eliciting cooperation from a wide variety of sources, including upper management and other departments.
• Strong persuasive, encouraging and motivating skills.
• Ability to effectively prioritize and execute tasks in a high-pressure environment.
• Experience at working both independently and in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.

Pay and Benefits

• The starting range for the role is $90,000 - $100,000. All offers will be commensurate with relevant qualifications and professional experience.
• US applicants preferred but all regions considered.
• Internal candidates will retain their current location status.
• 403(b) Savings Plan with employer contribution
• Medical insurance
• Telemedicine
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Health savings and flexible spending accounts
• Paid time off and paid holidays
• Employer-paid short-term and long-term disability
• Employer-paid life insurance
• Employee and family assistance program
• Various voluntary options for additional plans or coverage levels