Creative Operations Lead

We are looking for a Creative Operations Lead to join Translation!

The Creative Operations Lead is a critical operational leader at Translation, responsible for ensuring the right people are on the right work at the right time across every active account and initiative.

Responsibilities

Resource Planning & Allocation

• Own and manage staffing allocations across all active client accounts, ensuring people are planned accurately and updated in real time.
• Lead the rollout and ongoing adoption of Translation's new resource management platform, serving as the primary administrator and internal champion.
• Surface capacity conflicts, volume pressure points, and over-allocation risks proactively , before they become delivery problems.
• Partner daily with the PM team to align headcount plans with project timelines, scope changes, and shifting client demands.
• Develop and maintain clear visibility into who is available, who is over-committed, and where gaps exist across all functions.
• Track talent skills and passions.

Workload Balancing & Prioritization

• Balance competing demands across billable client work, proactive creative opportunities, new business pitches, and internal initiatives.
• Make and communicate clear recommendations on when and how to pull staff from non-billable work in service of billable priorities.
• Establish and enforce workload thresholds that protect talent from burnout while maintaining agency output and quality.
• Build frameworks for how to triage competing requests, ensuring leadership has the right information to make fast, informed staffing calls.

Freelancer Management

• Proactively source and pipeline freelance talent in advance of high-volume periods, ensuring the agency is never caught flat-footed when capacity spikes.
• Manage first holds on preferred freelancers across disciplines, maintaining relationships so Translation has priority access when demand peaks.
• Negotiate freelance rates with an eye toward engagement length securing better terms for longer commitments while staying within agency margin thresholds.
• Vet new freelancers in partnership with relevant discipline leads and key creative, strategy, and production leaders before adding them to the approved roster.
• Own and maintain a current, organized freelancer database including rates, availability windows, past project history, and performance notes so the agency can move quickly when a need arises.

Awards & Case Study Management

• Own the end-to-end process for awards submissions tracking eligible work, managing timelines, coordinating materials, and submitting entries across relevant shows.
• Build and maintain a living library of agency case studies, ensuring work is documented accurately and kept current across accounts.
• Partner with Business Development, Business Leadership, Strategy, and Creative to capture the story behind Translation's best work in a format ready for new business, press, and agency promotion.
• Develop a calendar and workflow for proactive awards planning to avoid last-minute scrambles.

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Serve as a key operational partner to the PM team, creating tight alignment between resource plans and delivery commitments.
• Act as a trusted advisor to Business Leadership and Client Engagement teams on capacity and staffing strategy, translating data into actionable recommendations.
• Collaborate with People Operations on headcount planning, open role identification, and freelance needs driven by capacity gaps.
• Represent resource management in agency planning conversations, including scoping, new business, and organizational design discussions.

Requirements

• Proven track record managing complex, multi-account staffing in a fast-paced environment where priorities shift quickly.
• Strong command of resource management tools and platforms; experience leading a tool rollout or system migration is a plus.
• Experience managing or willing to learn managing awards submissions and/or case study development, with a clear understanding of how agency recognition supports business development.
• A systems thinker who is equally comfortable in the weeds of a staffing grid and in a strategic conversation about organizational design.
• Clear, confident communicator who can translate operational complexity into simple, actionable recommendations for senior leadership.
• A natural collaborator who builds trust quickly and maintains it under pressure.
• High integrity around people data: this role has visibility into utilization and performance-adjacent information and must handle it with discretion.

Minimum Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in resource management, project management, creative operations, or a related function within a creative agency or marketing organization.
• Deep understanding of how creative agencies work, the rhythms of production, the difference between billable and non-billable time, and how to protect both.
• Freelance recruiting experience and negotiation skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing and enhancing a product or platform.
• A strong network of freelance talent relationships.

Salary Information

The salary hiring range for this position is $140,000 - $165,000.