Creative Operations Manager

Job description

GALE is the world’s first and only Business Agency. We bring business strategy to brand storytelling to drive enterprise value. With expertise in strategy, media, CRM, creative, performance marketing, and technology, GALE creates integrated marketing systems and campaigns that grow businesses in significant ways. Founded in 2014, the agency has since been named AdAge’s Business Transformation Agency of the Year and Adweek’s U.S. Media Agency of the Year and has been recognized for its innovative creative at the Cannes Lions. We work with brands such as Delta, Uber, Starbucks, Chili’s, Hard Rock, MilkPEP, Diageo, Cotton, IHG and more. If you’re driven by a passion to build something great, a desire to innovate, and a commitment to achieve excellence in your craft, GALE is a great place for you! GALE has eight offices around the world, including New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, Austin, Denver, Kansas City, London, and Bengaluru. GALE embraces a hybrid, flexible workplace Your Impact We're currently seeking a Creative Operations Manager to lead resourcing and delivery on a high-volume production account. This role is a hybrid of a Creative Resourcer and an Integrated Project Manager with an initial focus on taking ownership of creative capacity planning, resource allocation, and production traffic; bringing order to a high-volume, fast-moving workflow. From there, this role will expand into broader Integrated Project Management responsibilities, owning end-to-end delivery across disciplines. ### What You Will Be Doing: ## Creative Resourcing & Traffic - Own and stand up a formal resourcing process from the ground up, bringing structure to a high-volume, currently instinct-driven workflow. - Analyze incoming creative requests and forecast resourcing needs against team capacity, staying ahead of upcoming projects rather than reacting to them. - Build and maintain a resource allocation/staffing plan using Everest (GALE proprietary tool), Smartsheets, and Excel, aligned to production timelines and client deliverables. - Coordinate the flow of work through the creative process (briefing, routing, reviews, approvals) ensuring on-time, quality output. - Monitor workload across designers, writers, and producers, and rebalance assignments as priorities shift, including last-minute changes and reprioritizations. - Maintain granular, real-time visibility into team availability, skillsets, and utilization (e.g., knowing who's a fast copywriter vs. a strong systems designer) to inform staffing decisions. - Own and lead a weekly cross-functional resourcing meeting with creative leads, account leads, and PMs; arriving with proposed solutions rather than reacting to issues without a plan. - Partner closely with the Director of Program Management and resourcing counterparts to flag capacity gaps and build the case for additional headcount when needed. - Forecast and roadmap staffing needs on a regular basis (weekly, quarterly, annually) - Serve as a go-to resource for creative directors and client partners fielding real-time staffing questions as new projects and shifting priorities arise. - Establish and refine best practices/processes for resourcing and traffic management, with the goal of stabilizing the process within the first 30-60 days. Integrated Project Management (Growing Focus Over Time) - Manage project estimation, understanding objectives and scope, and collaborate across domains to develop an integrated approach. - Create and own integrated project plans. - Manage daily scrums, status reporting, and integrated project communications. - Manage and help resolve project issues across multiple large, cross-disciplinary teams. - Act as a motivating leader, setting goals, purpose, and direction for the team. - Foster an open, communicative, and collaborative work environment, including global interoffice relationship building. - Update clients on weekly project developments and manage client communications, expectations, negotiations, and feedback. ### Who You Are: - 6+ years of experience in creative operations, resource/traffic management, or project management within a creative or digital agency environment. - Experience building or managing creative resourcing/staffing processes on high-volume production accounts. - Genuinely energized by solving the resourcing puzzle. Last-minute shifts, competing priorities, and demanding stakeholders don't rattle you; you enjoy the game. - Strong creative intuition, able to quickly learn and track who on the team is strong at what, and staff accordingly. - Comfortable being pulled into ad hoc, real-time requests from creative directors and client partners and calmly triaging. - Confident bringing structure and process to a fluid, fast-paced environment with tight timelines and competing priorities. - Experience (or strong working knowledge of) managing digital marketing campaigns and integrated project delivery, with interest in growing into that responsibility over time. - Experience leading or coordinating cross-disciplinary teams (creative, production, strategy, media). - Strong organizational, multitasking, and communication skills. - Proficiency with project/resource management tools; experience with Everest, Smartsheets, or similar platforms is a plus. - Agile and digital execution experience is a bonus. - Eager to learn new skills, platforms, and methodologies to adapt to the evolving agency landscape. - Always self-reflecting on how to improve yourself and the team's processes. - Comfortable leveraging AI tools and process enhancements to drive efficiency and save time, keeping the team agile and focused on high-value creative work. *Note: Hybrid work in office is an essential function of the job.*