Creative Traffic Manager, Business Affairs (Winston-Salem)

The Variable is a forward-thinking advertising agency focused on driving ownable differentiation for our clients. We believe the strongest results happen when brand and performance work together, creating ideas that break through, spend that works harder, and outcomes that multiply. With a dedication to innovation and strategic partnership, we work as true client partners to deliver creative that inspires, strategies that perform, and results that matter.

POSITION SUMMARY

As Creative Traffic Manager, Business Affairs, you’ll own the day-to-day flow of creative work across The Variable, connecting project timelines, team bandwidth, and upcoming needs to help teams stay ahead of what’s next and keep work moving.

Reporting to the Senior Director, Business Affairs, you’ll maintain a clear, real-time view of active and upcoming creative work, including assignments, milestones, presentations, delivery dates, and team capacity. You’ll use that visibility to anticipate conflicts, identify resource gaps, and help teams navigate competing priorities before they become roadblocks.

This role sits at the intersection of people, projects, and priorities. You’ll work closely with Creative, Account & Delivery, Strategy, Media, and Business Affairs to understand what’s coming, connect the dots across projects, and give teams and leaders the information they need to make thoughtful decisions. Success in this role means bringing structure and foresight to a fast-moving creative environment so our teams can focus on delivering work that drives impact and creates value for our clients and their customers.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Creative Traffic & Workflow Management

• Own the day-to-day traffic of creative work across the agency, maintaining a real-time view of active and upcoming assignments, team bandwidth, key milestones, presentations, and delivery dates.
• Monitor workloads and timelines across projects, understanding how individual assignments and changing deadlines affect the broader creative pipeline.
• Anticipate overlapping timelines, competing deadlines, capacity gaps, and resource conflicts, surfacing potential challenges before they impact the work.
• Partner with teams to work through scheduling and capacity challenges, helping identify solutions and adjust priorities as needs evolve.
• Assess the impact of rush requests and shifting priorities, providing teams with the visibility needed to make quick, informed decisions.
• Keep work moving day-to-day and week-to-week by monitoring deadlines, identifying dependencies, and proactively following up on outstanding needs and deliverables.

Resource Visibility & Planning

• Build and maintain spreadsheets, trackers, and resource planning tools that provide clear, forward-looking visibility into workloads, deadlines, and team capacity.
• Connect current assignments with upcoming project needs to identify where teams may be approaching capacity or where additional support may be needed.
• Equip Business Affairs and Creative leadership with clear, accurate information to inform staffing and freelance decisions based on bandwidth, project needs, skill sets, and agency priorities.
• Partner with the Senior Director, Business Affairs to identify recurring capacity gaps, workload trends, and opportunities to improve how creative resources are planned.
• Maintain accurate and dependable resource information so teams and leaders can make decisions with confidence.

Cross-Functional Coordination

• Work closely with Creative, Account & Delivery, Strategy, Media, and Business Affairs to stay ahead of upcoming briefs, presentations, deliverables, shifting priorities, and project deadlines.
• Serve as a central connector across teams, ensuring the right people have visibility into changes that could affect creative workloads or delivery.
• Lead regular creative traffic and status conversations, aligning teams around workloads, priorities, upcoming needs, deadlines, and potential pressure points.
• Develop and distribute regular status reports and hot sheets across Creative and Production, providing a clear view of priorities, deliverables, deadlines, and upcoming needs.
• Proactively surface risks and facilitate conversations when priorities, timelines, or resource needs need to be reconciled.
• Communicate updates and changes clearly so teams understand what’s shifting and how it affects their work.

Process & Operational Improvement

• Partner with the Business Affairs team to strengthen the tools, processes, and workflows used to manage creative traffic and resources.
• Identify recurring friction within creative workflows and bring forward practical ideas for improving efficiency, communication, and visibility.
• Help establish and reinforce consistent traffic practices that create clarity without adding unnecessary process.
• Leverage project management tools, automation, and AI to streamline reporting, improve visibility, and reduce manual administrative work.
• Look for opportunities to make creative traffic management increasingly proactive, efficient, and scalable as agency needs evolve.

MINDSET & APPROACH

Forward-Looking: You don’t just know what’s happening today, you’re constantly looking ahead to understand what’s coming next and where conflicts or gaps may emerge.

Solutions-Oriented: You don’t stop at identifying a problem. You gather the right information, think through options, and help teams determine a practical path forward.

Clarity-Driven: You can take a high volume of projects, people, deadlines, and competing priorities and turn them into information teams can quickly understand and act on.

Calm Under Pressure: You stay organized and focused when timelines tighten, priorities change, and multiple teams need answers at once.

AI-First Hustle: You look for tools, automation, and smarter ways of working that improve visibility and eliminate unnecessary manual effort

KEY TRAITS

• Highly Organized: You’re comfortable keeping track of a lot of moving pieces while maintaining both attention to detail and awareness of the bigger picture.
• Proactive Communicator: You ask the right questions, surface potential issues early, follow up consistently, and make sure the right people have the information they need.
• Natural Connector: You build strong working relationships across disciplines and understand how the needs and decisions of one team can affect another.
• Sound Judgment: You’re developing a strong instinct for what can be solved independently, what requires cross-functional alignment, and what should be elevated to leadership.
• Resourceful Problem Solver: You can navigate competing needs, shifting timelines, and incomplete information to help teams identify workable solutions.
• Low-Ego Partner: You create clarity and enable others to do their best work without needing to own the spotlight .

QUALIFICATIONS

• 3+ years of experience in creative traffic, project management, resource management, creative operations, account management, or a related discipline; advertising agency experience preferred.
• Experience coordinating workflows, timelines, assignments, or resources across multiple simultaneous projects and teams.
• Strong proficiency with spreadsheets and project management or resource planning tools, with the ability to organize complex information and turn it into clear, actionable plans.
• Experience working across disciplines and navigating competing priorities, deadlines, and resource needs.
• Strong organizational and analytical skills with excellent attention to detail.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the confidence to proactively follow up, ask questions, and facilitate conversations across teams.
• Ability to work independently, anticipate needs, solve problems, and stay organized as priorities shift.
• Curiosity about new technologies and comfort adopting AI, automation, and other tools that can improve traffic and resource management.
• Must be local to or willing to relocate to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

WE OFFER

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your family, with strong employer contributions
• 401(k) with a 4 percent employer match , immediately vested
• Monthly, non-taxable cell phone reimbursement
• Meaningful bonus opportunities , including client referrals, employee referrals, and a peer-to-peer bonus program that gives you $1,000 each year to recognize teammates doing great work
• Up to 14 weeks of paid parental and medical leave , plus a paid, part-time transition back to work, designed to support recovery, bonding, and balance for all parents
• Generous paid time off that increases with tenure, plus Me Time Off (MTO) for the real-life moments that don’t require a full PTO day
• Paid holidays and agency-wide closures , with additional flexibility built into our time-off approach
• Bereavement leave that recognizes loss in all its f]]>