Studio manager

Studio Manager

Our company is a brand alignment and implementation partner for mission-driven organizations. We don’t just build brands, websites, and campaigns — we make them work. Our systems are understood, adopted, and protected across teams, partners, and channels. For sustainability, health, arts, and government organizations competing against giants, JSR turns creative strategy into operational advantage.

Our Studio Manager is the engine room of JSR. You own how work moves through the studio — who’s doing what, by when, to what standard — and you make sure our three creative team members and all of our contractors hit their numbers and do their best work. This is an accountability and support role, not a direct-manager role: you track performance against clear KPIs, support the team in hitting them, hold the bar on quality, and keep every project on time, on budget, and accessible. You partner directly with our CEO to turn strategy into scheduled, resourced work, and with our Chief of Staff — who owns people management and operational processes — surfacing issues early and recommending solutions so the right person can act. Your job is to keep the work flowing and the standards high.

We’re looking for someone who brings order without bureaucracy, who people are genuinely proud to work for, and who can turn “I think we’re behind” into “here’s exactly where we are and here’s the plan.”

Objectives and KPIs

• 95% of projects delivered on time across active accounts

• 90% of projects delivered on or under budget

• Creative team and contractor utilization held within target band (75–85%)

• Efficiency targets consistently met across the creative team and contractors

• Deliverables meet ADA / accessibility standards where required, with zero compliance misses on client-facing work

• Reduction in revision/rework cycles quarter over quarter

• Performance gaps surfaced early, with clear recommendations to leadership

Responsibilities

• Own the studio traffic and resourcing system — assign and sequence work across the three creative team members and all contractors, balance workloads, and protect deadlines before they slip

• Hold the creative team and contractors accountable to their KPIs — utilization, efficiency, on-time and on-budget delivery — by tracking performance, flagging gaps early, and supporting course-correction, escalating to the CEO or Chief of Staff where formal management action is needed

• Support the three-person creative team day to day — keep priorities clear, unblock them, and help them do their best work — without acting as their direct manager (people management stays with the Chief of Staff)

• Own quality control: review creative output, flag when work isn’t good enough yet, and hold the bar before anything reaches a client

• Ensure deliverables meet ADA and accessibility standards (WCAG, accessible web, documents, and PDFs) — especially for government and public-sector clients

• Export, populate, and maintain the dashboards and reporting that give the company visibility into project status, capacity, utilization, and budget burn

• Work within and actively support the operational processes set by the Chief of Staff — make them run on the ground

• Partner with the CEO to translate strategy into resourced, scheduled, executable work

• Coordinate external contractors and freelancers: assignment, scheduling, quality, and on-time/on-budget delivery

• Identify bottlenecks and remove them; protect the team’s focus and shield them from avoidable chaos

• Keep the studio’s project management and reporting tools trustworthy and up to date

Are we the right place for you?

• You long to work with a team of badass and brilliant people

• You’re genuinely energized by clean energy, sustainability, and mission-driven work

• You’re the person who brings calm to a busy studio — people relax a little when they know you’ve got the plan

• You bring out people’s best by keeping things clear, fair, and on track — without needing to be their boss

• You have the eye and the backbone to look at creative work and say “not yet” when it isn’t good enough

• You care about accessibility and getting it right — it’s part of doing the work well, not an afterthought

• You’re hyper-focused on getting the details right — you don’t do sloppy work or let things slip through the cracks

• You communicate clearly and confidently in every format — written, verbal, and in the room

• You can hold the line on timelines and quality without becoming the person nobody wants to talk to

• Our company values speak to your heart: Uplift, Solve It, Connection, Greatness

Preferred Skills and Experience

• At least 5 years of experience in creative operations, studio/traffic management, or production within a marketing, advertising, or communications agency (agency experience is required)

• Proven experience trafficking and resourcing creative work across multiple concurrent projects and people

• Experience holding creative teams and contractors accountable to performance standards — through tracking, coordination, and clear communication rather than direct supervision

• Hands-on experience with ADA / digital accessibility compliance (WCAG standards, accessible web and document design)

• A strong creative eye — able to assess quality and give clear, constructive direction

• Comfort working in project management and reporting tools, and reliably exporting and maintaining dashboards and reports

• Strong written and spoken English; able to work effectively with a U.S.-based team and primarily PST-based clients

• Genuine passion for clean energy, sustainability, or mission-driven work

• Four-year degree or equivalent experience

Essential Skills

• Traffic and resource management: you can hold the whole board in your head and on the screen, and reprioritize on the fly without dropping anything

• People accountability: you hold standards and have honest conversations about performance, and you earn trust while doing it — without needing positional authority

• Quality judgment: you know good work from good-enough, and you have the spine to send it back

• Accessibility fluency: you understand ADA/WCAG requirements and make sure they’re met

• Reporting fluency: you keep dashboards and reports accurate, current, and useful

• Communication: clear, confident, and direct — you create clarity rather than adding noise

• Nerves of steel and a steady hand: deadlines move, things go sideways, and you stay calm and lead

This position is not for you if:

• You don’t genuinely care about sustainability and clean energy

• You’d rather quietly do the work yourself than help a team do it well

• You have drama and/or love stirring up drama

• You have trouble taking or giving feedback constructively

• You avoid hard conversations about performance or quality

• You hold a grudge or love complaining

• You have no sense of humor

How to Apply

If this sounds like the role you’ve been waiting for, we’d love to hear from you. Apply with your resume and a brief note on why JSR Strategies — and this role specifically — speaks to you. Applications without a personal note will not be considered.