Director, Project Management

The Director, Project Management is a player-coach and operational leader within Client Services, accountable for both hands-on delivery of complex integrated programs and the development of project management excellence across the team. This role owns the "how" and "when" of program delivery while coaching and developing Project Managers and Sr. Project Managers on best practices, financial stewardship, resourcing, risk management, and cross-functional execution. The Director sets the standard for how project management operates across assigned business, ensuring programs are delivered on time, on budget, and with consistent operational rigor.

Responsibilities:

People Leadership & PM Excellence:

• Manage, coach, and develop Project Managers and Sr. Project Managers, setting clear expectations for performance, ownership, communication, and delivery quality.
• Build PM capability through onboarding, training, shadowing, feedback, and ongoing coaching on agency project management best practices and tools.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, performance conversations, and development planning; identify growth opportunities and delegate stretch assignments aligned to individual career goals.
• Review PM work product and program health regularly, providing hands-on guidance on scopes, timelines, budgets, resourcing, risk mitigation, and stakeholder management.
• Partner with leadership on PM resourcing, capacity planning, hiring, onboarding, and succession planning to ensure the function can scale with business demand.

Process Optimization & ROB Efficiency:

• Continuously evaluate workflows across accounts and propose practical, implementable solutions - not theoretical frameworks.
• Support process standardization across accounts and project management ways of working. Drive rhythm-of-business efficiencies that reduce friction for your book of business.
• Be the go-to source for operational questions across all COEs - scheduling, permissions, documentation access, and process clarification. Own the answer, don't relay the question.

Project Management / Workstream Ownership:

• Maintain a master program tracker as the single source of truth across all assigned accounts - action items, resource links, work-back schedules, COE allocations, deliverables status, and project status, etc.
• Ensure consistency in project scope, establish key phases, define milestones, and set timelines.
• Proactively flag scope drift and compressed timelines before they create downstream risk.
• Build and maintain internal and external work-back schedules in advance.
• Scan continuously for gaps, compressed timelines, budget pressure, and cleanup opportunities.
• Proactively ensure that all cross-functional teams are informed and aligned.
• Support the VP of Client Services to monitor budget and hours and their burn, pacing, and utilization across active scopes.
• Pull exports, run calculations by staff and department, review month-over-month trends, identify drivers, and surface risk with clear recommendations to leadership
• Document and consolidate learnings and optimizations that can be applied downstream.
• Set-up and maintain project infrastructure - Internal kick-off documents, folder structure, slack channels, Monday.com boards, campaign management trackers, timelines, and shared documentation.

Resource Management:

• In partnership with the VP of Client Services, schedule and assign appropriate resources for project completion. Forecast capacity, reallocate as needed, balance workload, flag capacity gaps before they become delivery problems, and build staffing recommendations when demand exceeds supply ensuring tasks are completed on schedule. Own utilization and team time-tracking workflows end to end - set resource allocations prior to campaign kickoff, conduct bi-weekly time audits and monthly program health audits, and chase COEs to correct misbilled time entries.
• Provide high-level burn and pacing summaries with insights and trends to client services leadership (VPs, Directors & ADs). Communicate risk early and pair it with a recommended path forward.

Operational Cadence & Communication:

• Schedule and lead internal meetings - standups, workflow meetings, internal reviews, and status syncs - including navigating calendar conflicts across teams.
• Ensure note-taking for all internal meetings (manual and via Gemini Notes/Transcript). Distribute post-sync recaps, add notes to channel canvas, and track follow-up actions to completion.
• Provide timely updates and documentation to internal teams - status, next steps, timeline shifts, and budget implications.
• Attend client status meetings and briefings as needed, based on CSL guidance.
• Hold weekly syncs with AS and ADs and schedule one-off sessions with creative, strategy and BI leads to discuss wins, pain points, and optimizations.

Skills and Qualifications:

• 8+ years of project management experience in an agency, marketing, or integrated services environment, including experience leading complex, cross-functional programs.
• Strong command of project management tools - Monday.com experience is extremely valuable.
• Proven people leadership experience managing, coaching, and developing Project Managers and/or Sr. Project Managers.
• Demonstrated ability to train PM teams on project management best practices, including scope, work-back planning, resource management, financial stewardship, risk management, and stakeholder communication.
• Excellent analytical and commercial skills - comfortable building workback schedules as well as reviewing burn, utilization, staffing, and pacing data and translating it into actionable recommendations.
• Strong executive communication and influencing skills, with the ability to drive accountability across cross-functional teams without direct authority.
• A proactive, solutions-oriented leadership mindset. You anticipate problems, coach teams through ambiguity, and arrive with recommendations rather than observations.
• Experience managing creative production workflows from ideation through final delivery, including influencer, social, and paid media workstreams, is strongly preferred.