Manager, Client Operations

Company Description

This is a hybrid role, requiring three days in-office each week. If you are contacted for an interview, your recruiter will discuss specifics with you, inclusive of any necessary reasonable accommodations.
About Spark Foundry:
 

Spark Foundry is a global media agency that exists to bring HEAT – Higher Engagement, Affinity, and Transactions – to brands. By combining flawless media fundamentals with aggressive innovation, Spark inspires consumers to pay more attention, to care more about our clients’ brands, and to buy more products and services from them.

Balancing the nimble spirit of a startup with the powerhouse soul of Publicis Media, Spark Foundry delivers the best of both worlds to a client roster that spans some of the world’s best and most beloved brands and companies. We combine boutique-caliber insights and service with the buying clout and first-look access of a global leader, bringing the heat to challenger brands that want to act like giants, and to giant brands that want to act like challengers.

With a bottom-up culture that celebrates diversity and aims for all voices to be heard, Spark has become a magnet for the industry’s best talent, with one of the best retention rates in the industry. And by applying a whole-person approach to professional and personal development, Spark develops a workforce that is well prepared for today’s challenges, and also poised to create meaningful careers in the years to come.

Because we know that heat arises the intersection of complementary forces, our professionals come from myriad disciplines and backgrounds: data, analytics, and insights; content and creative production; communications and strategy; finance and marketing; and sociology, psychology, and other liberal arts disciplines.

Job Description

The Manager, Client Operations manages client-specific operational tasks across virtually every practice area within the agency, including Strategy, Investment, Finance, Invoice Reconciliation, and Agency Administration & Compliance. This includes execution and oversight of budget management, billing, reconciliation, labor reporting, data manipulation, process improvement, and more. The Supervisor works to centralize and standardize processes across all areas of the business while bringing tactical and detail-oriented work streams together to find smarter, faster ways of working.

A successful Manager, Client Operations typically has the following traits:

• Extremely detail-oriented and obsessed with accuracy
• Picks up on new technology and software/programs quickly
• Proactively spots problems and says, “How can I fix this?”
• Not afraid to jump in to create new processes and effect change
• Coach who wants to share knowledge by teaching and improving team’s skills
• Good at building relationships – a creative problem solver, a customer service expert, a great team player

Role Objectives:

• Support all elements of the end-to-end financial management process for paid media teams
• Analyze system reports to prepare documentation needed for client billing and other financial reporting
• Communicate with media planning and investment teams to ensure accurate client billing (i.e. billings are aligned with client-authorized spend)
• Answer internal and client questions related to media billing and budgets
• Process system access requests, including Client/Product Code set up in Mediaocean (Prisma/MBOX)
• Help enforce team adherence to standard processes and ways of working
• Manage direct report(s) responsible for pulling data and reporting

Maintain up-to-date staff plan and org chart
 

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• 3+ years in operations, finance, project management, data analysis, or media buying/planning
• Proficient Excel skills, including pivot tables
• Demonstrable quantitative skills and the ability to dig into numbers and solve for problems as they arise
• Highly detail orientated with strong project management and time management skills, including proven history of meeting deadlines in a fast-paced environment
• Critical thinker and problem solver
• Effective writer and communicator who can convey complex processes in a digestible way to both internal and external teams
• Ability to exercise discretion when presented with sensitive and/or confidential information (e.g. financial data, Desire to learn and grow, demonstrated through proactivity and initiative
• Positive, solution-oriented attitude
• Able to work successfully both independently and in teams with different personalities
• Ability to exercise discretion when presented with sensitive and/or confidential information (e.g. financial data, personnel information, etc.)