Creative Operations Manager

Creative Operations Manager

Seattle based - 3 days a week onsite 2 remote

$680 per day - 6 month contract

Reports To: Head of Production

Role Summary

My client is looking for a Creative Operations Manager to combine the strengths of an Integrated Producer and Creative Project Manager. You will shape briefs, coordinate the right teams and partners, build practical delivery plans, maintain project visibility, manage risks and approvals, and guide campaigns and projects through launch. In addition to orchestrating delivery though others, you’ll be responsible for overseeing the production of digital and video content, from concept through to post production. You will help ensure our work meets client requirements, performs against agreed objectives, and becomes easier to deliver at scale.

This role sits within Creative Operations, Production & Creative Technology. It supports the broader studio by ensuring the right people are involved and assigned workstreams remain on track.

Core responsibilities

Intake and brief shaping

• Manage project intake and triage for assigned work.

• Clarify client requirements, strategist direction, Sales inputs, Ad Operations needs, deliverables, timelines, scope, and success measures.

• Shape incomplete or ambiguous briefs for internal teams, vendors, agencies, freelancers, creators, and specialist partners.

• Translate the brief into clear objectives, roles, inputs, dependencies, acceptance criteria, and a feasible delivery approach. Planning and resourcing coordination

• Coordinate with relevant studio leads to form the right cross-functional squad.

• Build workback plans, milestones, decision points, review stages, handoffs, and launch requirements.

• Maintain accurate project-management and workflow-tool data, including status, scope, owners, dependencies, risks, capacity assumptions, and delivery health.

• Keep project information reliable enough to inform resourcing, capacity, sequencing, prioritization, and leadership decisions.

Digital and video production

• Source, brief, and manage external vendors and freelance crew — photographers, videographers, editors, motion designers, and production houses — including contract negotiation and budget ownership..

• Oversee post-production: editing, motion graphics, color, sound design, and captioning/subtitling, ensuring outputs meet brand and quality standards.

• Version and reformat assets for platform specs across social, CTV, display, and web (aspect ratio, duration, accessibility requirements).

• Build, produce, and maintain editorial templates, page layouts, and modular content structures directly within the CMS, ensuring content is scalable and on-brand.

Integrated production and delivery

• Connect strategists, Creative & Design, production, Creative Technology, Sales, Ad Operations, social, editorial, and other specialists around a shared plan.

• Establish the operating rhythm through kickoffs, working sessions, status reviews, creative reviews, production check-ins, and decision forums.

• Manage dependencies, risks, issues, scope changes, actions, approvals, and escalation paths.

• Ensure creative, production, technical, accessibility, legal, brand, rights, and distribution requirements are addressed.

• Coordinate final QA, launch readiness, asset handoff, documentation, and closeout.

Client and performance accountability

• Maintain a clear line of sight from client objectives and campaign KPIs to the workplan, deliverables, launch readiness, and performance inputs.

• Ensure delivered campaigns and projects reflect client requirements and are built to perform against agreed objectives with Creative Partnerships & Strategy team.

• Surface trade-offs early when timing, scope, quality, budget, capacity, or performance expectations are in tension.

• Capture learnings and improve repeatable workflows, templates, and delivery practices.

Collaboration and boundaries

• Head of Production: Provides production leadership, coaching, prioritization input, quality expectations, and escalation support.

• Head of Creative Operations, Production & Creative Technology: Sets the broader operating model, workflow standards, delivery priorities, and escalation pathways.

• Strategists / Creative Partnerships & Creative Strategy: Define the audience, partner objectives, strategic narrative, and brief direction.

• Sales: Provides advertiser context, commitments, stakeholder expectations, and commercial timing or scope considerations.

• Ad Operations/ PI: Advises on trafficking, specifications, inventory, implementation, QA, and launch requirements.

• Creative & Design: Owns creative concepts, craft, storytelling, and design execution.

• Studio Planning & Growth: Provides portfolio context, prioritization signals, operating insights, and growth considerations.

• Creative Technology: Advises on technical feasibility, interactive delivery, templates, automation, and implementation dependencies.

• Vendors & Freelance Crew (photographers, videographers, production houses): Deliver contracted production services; this role sources, briefs, negotiates, and manages quality and budget.

• Social & Channel Teams: Advise on platform specs, publishing requirements, and content performance benchmarks.

Success measures

• Projects are properly scoped, tracked, resourced, and launched with clear ownership.

• Client requirements, campaign objectives, and KPIs are reflected in the delivered work.

• Work moves predictably with fewer avoidable delays, rework cycles, and late escalations.

• Project-management tools provide accurate visibility into demand, status, risks, dependencies, and capacity pressure.

• Stakeholders, clients, and delivery partners understand what is expected, when decisions are needed,and how success will be measured.

• Campaigns and projects meet agreed creative, production, technical, quality, and launch standards.

• Digital and video content is delivered on budget, meets brand and platform quality standards, and performs against channel benchmarks (e.g., completion rate, engagement, view-through).

• Learnings improve future workflows, templates, and delivery performance.

Experience and qualifications

• Experience in integrated production, creative operations, project management, agency operations, studio operations, or a related discipline.

• Experience delivering complex creative, content, advertising, brand, digital, social, or partnership work.

• Hands-on experience producing video and digital content from concept through post-production, within an agency, in-house studio, or production company setting.

• Experience managing production budgets and negotiating vendor and freelancer contracts (photographers, videographers, editors, production houses).

• Ability to shape ambiguous briefs into clear scopes, plans, workstreams, and decisions.

• Experience coordinating multidisciplinary teams, vendors, agencies, freelancers, or specialist partners.

• Strong project-management skills across schedules, dependencies, risks, issues, approvals, scope, and delivery expectations.

• Experience translating client requirements into campaigns or projects that launch effectively and perform against agreed objectives or KPIs.

• Strong communication, facilitation, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills.

• Familiarity with project-management, workflow, collaboration, asset-management, or production

systems.

• Comfortable working hands-on within a content management system (CMS) — building, publishing,

and troubleshooting editorial templates and structured content, not just briefing others to do it.