ON BOARD EXPERIENTIAL
On Board Experiential (OBE) is an award-winning, full-service, experience-led agency that creates meaningful brand experiences worldwide. We work out of our homes and physical offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and NYC, or wherever our adventures take us! Our clients include Nike, Meta, JPMorgan Chase, Cheez-It, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day, and SEPHORA, to name a few. We know, "Cool, cool, but what’s it like to work at OBE?" We thought you'd never ask. Event Marketer has recognized OBE as one of the best places to work in events and well, we couldn't agree more.
The most important part of our business is our people. They are hardworking, brave and make magic happen on the regular. But under each majestic exterior is a human deserving of a healthy work-life balance. That’s why we believe in recovery days, happy hours, friendly but competitive fitness challenges, company retreats and agency yearbooks.
We conduct open meetings to facilitate discussions that heal, inspire, and bring us closer. We encourage each other to bring our whole selves to work. We want to hear about your lived experiences and unique perspectives. We don't just want you to be unapologetically you: it's part of the job description.
SUMMARY OF POSITION
The Creative Operations Manager supports the operations of the Creative Department including Resourcing, Talent Management & Integration, Workflow Management, Creative Culture Building, and Key Learnings & Best Practices. This person manages the time and bandwidth of all talent, while optimizing billability on all agency projects. In addition, they play a critical role in understanding team members’ personalities, emotional states, approaches to collaboration and skillsets. They are the backbone of the team and the guardian of team morale, and they have a special mix of emotional intelligence and business savvy.
As Creative Operations Manager, you will be a critical creative and staffing consultant to the project leads (Account, Production and Creative teams) throughout project lifecycle. In addition, you will work with Creative Leadership and cross-functional teams to forecast and anticipate Creative needs and identify opportunities for the agency to provide additional services as projects and client relationships evolve.
You will thrive in a high-pressure, constantly changing, fast-paced environment, managing multiple projects, people and tight timelines. The Creative Operations Manager must demonstrate an ability to stay laser-focused on the business operations of the department(s) they serve while also being empathetic, trustworthy and perceptive of the teams’ needs.
ESSENTIAL JOB FUNCTIONS
OPERATIONS & OPTIMIZATION
- Prepare, distribute, and analyze creative resource utilization reports, communicating findings to Creative and agency leadership.
- Monitor team deliverables against SOW and deliverable schedule to ensure projects are completed on time and within budget.
- Continually improve departmental processes, incorporating feedback and best practices
- Track departmental performance against success metrics to identify and define continuous improvement opportunities.
- Collect feedback from internal and external clients to catalog improvement opportunities; work with supervisors to create plans to reach improvement goals as needed.
RESOURCING & TALENT MANAGEMENT
- Manage and work with Creative Resourcing team to ensure appropriate teams are assigned to certain projects.
- Circulate project updates and communicate creative needs and expectations within the Creative department and across the agency.
- Understand each team member’s skills and work with supervisors to confirm strengths, weaknesses and goals to strategically resource projects.
- Evaluate incoming creative resumes and portfolios, maintaining detailed documentation for full-time and freelance talent.
- Assist in identifying, interviewing, and recruiting freelance, contract, full-time and specialty talent.
CREATIVE WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT
- Serve as the gatekeeper: Work with departments to control the inflow and outflow of projects and deliverables.
- Assist project leads with workback and deliverable planning.
- Consult on Creative hours projections for project budgeting.
- Proactively communicate schedule and scope changes; predict and escalate resourcing issues and project/program issues as appropriate.
- Oversee day to day job performance of the team
ADMIN
- Maintain Creative Department calendar, managing/ scheduling departmental meetings and tracking OOO and onsite dates.
- Ensure team members are submitting timesheets and expense reports on time.
- Assist the Operations team with general Creative office management.
DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE
EDUCATION / EXPERIENCE
- 4+ years of experience in creative operations, project management and/or resourcing within a marketing agency or Creative team, and/or events. Experiential marketing agency experience preferred.
- BA/BS in marketing, business administration, communications, or related field a plus.
ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND ABILITIES
- An understanding of creative and production processes for both digital and print mediums.
- Ability to effectively communicate information in a timely manner to appropriate parties.
- Keen attention to detail
- Excellent planning, organizational and time-management skills.
- Ability to manage priorities and commitments and meet deadlines.
- Ability to make informed, quick decisions that impact the Creative Department.
- Excellent ability to proactively identify issues/obstacles and effectively create solutions.
- Strong understanding of cloud-based collaboration and storage platforms. Experience using Procim a plus.
- Familiarity with standard Creative and Design software.
- Ability to work independently as well as with internal and external teams.
- Strong work ethic and ability to thrive and enjoy a fast-paced dynamic work environment.
OTHER QUALITIES AND SKILLS
- Ability to develop and maintain strong internal and external (e.g., freelancer, vendor) relationships.
- Natural curiosity—the drive to always be learning and growing, professionally and personally.
- High energy and flexibility in working non-traditional hours as needed (some nights and weekends as deadlines dictate).
- Willingness to work a hybrid schedule (up to 4 days in office) and travel as needed.
Compensation Range: $72,000.00 – $102,000.00 annually. This is the pay range OBE believes will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on level of experience, relevant skills, professional certifications, market pay, and demand for the role. OBE reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. For this role, Benefits include: medical/dental/vision insurance, employer paid basic life and personal accident insurance. Also included: Annual Profit Sharing/Bonus Plan based on the company’s performance and your individual performance, 401(k), Healthcare Flexible Spending Account, Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account, PTO, STD/LTD insurance benefits.
On Board Experiential is An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status, age or any other federally protected class.
