Director, Creative Operations

Business Overview 

IPG Mediabrands is the media and marketing solutions division of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG). IPG Mediabrands manages over $47 billion in marketing investment globally on behalf of its clients across its full-service agency networks UM, Initiative and Mediahub and through its award-winning specialty business units Healix, Kinesso, MAGNA, Mediabrands Content Studio, Orion Holdings, Rapport, and the IPG Media Lab. IPG Mediabrands clients include many of the world’s most recognizable and iconic brands from a broad portfolio of industry sectors including automotive, personal finance, consumer product goods (CPG), pharma, health and wellness, entertainment, financial services, energy, toys and gaming, direct to consumer and e-commerce, retail, hospitality, food and beverage, fashion and beauty. The company employs more than 18,000 diverse marketing communication professionals in more than 130 countries. Learn more at www.ipgmediabrands.com. 

Position Summary

MBCS is looking for an experienced leader to join our team as a Director of Creative Operations to help run creative operations on the General Mills Inc. (GMI) account in partnership with VP Directors/Operation lead, UM Commerce Team and Creative Leaders.  An ideal candidate has experience with on and offline creative production, implementing operational efficiencies and project and resource management.  We are looking for an individual to align consistent business operations across GMI with a specific focus on creative processes, consistent business models and ways of working and staffing/resource management.

This person should have a deep understanding of how to create and execute on and offline creative content.  We are looking to optimize how we support the GMI business and the type of content we produce for them.  The ideal candidate will share this ambition and bring to life new creative processes and rigor to improve our current project management model.

Responsibilities

•    Build a consistent approach to client projects – project intake, staffing and, where applicable, management of partner and agency inputs.
•    First point of contact for new project requests. Review and assess validity of requests to understand project details, creative ask and deadlines.
•    Streamline process efficiencies with the goal of improving the quality of work and timelines.  
•    Manage freelance staffing needs, including onboarding and management of costs and time
•    Manage relationship with client internal agencies and external creative partners.
•    Identify any resourcing and staffing needs for GMI across all capabilities to bring to leadership 
•    Understand skill sets and team dynamics to assign the right teams to the right projects.  Availability is not a skill set.  
•    Track hours and burn rate of team against projects and scopes.
•    Establish and maintain project tracker to ensure adequate resourcing across all projects.  
•    Own weekly internal meetings with creative team to communicate deadlines, priorities and manage any gaps in communication or process.
•    Identify and manage equipment, systems, processes, and personnel barriers to achieve targeted results.
•    Understand legal requirements and checkpoints of all creative to ensure our work is staying compliant.
•    Design and implement operational processes and procedures to ensure quality and profit targets are met.
•    Ensure team is utilizing Asana (or appropriate project management too) to drive efficiencies with internal communications and tasks.
•    Help to develop and maintain a streamlined system of internal file saving, sharing into an organized asset library within the GMI ecosystem.
•    Support VP in driving client growth and new business through pricing, process development, and RFP responses.
•    Report into Operation lead, presenting weekly status updates on account activity.

Desired Skills & Experience

•    5-8 years professional experience in digital media, marketing, advertising, agencies, production – preferably with client management experience.
•    Strategic POV on process development and improvement
•    Proven leader in operations, creative production, change management, organizational design and development, and resource management
•    Trusted business partner to executives 
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