Job Description

Wasserman is a global sports, entertainment, and lifestyle-marketing agency with expertise in creating connections between brands, properties, talent, and consumers. Today, Wasserman offers global expertise in Athlete Management, Marketing, and Media. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Wasserman also has offices in New York, Miami, Carlsbad, Raleigh, Portland, London, Toronto, Dubai, and Mexico City.

We are looking for a Senior Program Manager that can oversee the creative operations and maintenance of a major account that does everything from virtual xR concerts to holographic interviews to gaming in VR.

As Sr Program Manager, you and your team of Project Managers (PMs) will help support a diverse group of creatives to build tech-forward, fan-focused experiences in partnership with a wide portfolio of sports and entertainment properties.

You and your PM team will be responsible for managing the workload of all creatives, and for managing the workflow for all projects. This includes estimating, building and managing all aspects of a job, resource management, budgeting, and operations. You understand all the nuances of developing creative against consumer-facing channels and have a strong knowledge of experiential and social / digital content.

Your knack for people will help position you as a champion for the creative department while ensuring that leadership, client services and all of your peers have complete trust in you. Leading operational communications with external clients is expected, so communication skills are a must. We work in a fast-paced, collaborative environment and will need you to hit the ground running as a new addition to a great, supportive team.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Understands, implements, and serves as a champion for the creative process. Identifies areas of optimization when necessary.
• Consistently demonstrates a full understanding of the benefits and repercussions of altering the process to fit project and client constraints.
• Serves as the primary contact for all new creative requests. Intake creative briefs and diagnose the staffing and brief response needs alongside the Creative Lead.
• With a full understanding of the technical requirements and timelines associated with creative deliverables, oversees the building and management of detailed project plans that accurately forecast workload, and costs projections for all creative projects.
• Understand every creative’s strengths, as well as every department's function within the agency, paying specific attention to each individual's strengths and weaknesses and identifying ways to match the best talent to the task.
• Lead onboarding of new hires. Prepare onboarding documents and ensure new hires are trained on all softwares and internal process tools.
• Project staffing needs, and identify the best resources available, alleviating resource conflicts, optimizing complex project schedules where possible and identifying needs for flex staffing where necessary.
• Inspires teammates to adhere to successful processes, and teaches them to properly recognize the repercussions and benefits of process changes to keep projects on time, on budget and fully meeting client expectations
• Meticulously track costs across multiple large-scale and complex systems of work ensuring: accurate time reporting, proper fee application, appropriate resource assignments, accurate project projections and the ability to speak to all project variances. Accountable for partnering with client services and ensuring all variances outside of 10% follow proper change management protocol for projects managed personally or by any other project manager under your supervision.
• Demonstrates a mastery of assessing the changing landscape and constantly reevaluates priorities across complex projects. Manages these priorities across teams and complex projects, and finds the most efficient path to completion without letting any tasks go unmanaged.
• Mentors teammates and direct reports to establish and utilize strong working relationships with others, internally and externally, and demonstrates a strong acumen in evaluating and managing which channels and styles of communication will yield the best outcome. Always works to resolve and course-correct scenarios for the well-being of the team, the project and the client.
• Fully understand agency scopes and estimates and be responsible for accurately identifying work that is committed versus work that should be incrementally charged across a system of work.
• Partner with the Project Management team and senior leadership to meticulously track the financial health of a system of work, identifying and managing all scope creep. Author and track change orders when necessary. Identify patterns in scope creep and report trends and operational solutions to senior leadership.
• Identifies patterns and proposes company-wide process optimizations and customizations, always working toward the most efficient use of each discipline.
• Lead retainer and creative scope negotiations with Client Service and Brands counterparts.
• Manage freelance budgets, process invoices, and onboard all freelance talent.
• Conduct and lead project management and operational calls with external client teams.

Requirements

• 7 years of project leadership or operations experience within agency environments
• 5–7 years managing large, multidisciplinary teams
• Proven track record directing projects within a variety of mediums
• Demonstrated experience in Project Management across a variety of deliverables and executions is a must
• Proven track record of developing agency relationships through gaining trust and successful delivery
• Robust knowledge of agency workflows and inter-office operations
• Intimate knowledge of core integrated agency disciplines, capabilities and workflow
• Expertise in financial analysis, data management and related software (MS Excel, project leadership software, database applications, etc.)
• Excellent interpersonal and collaboration skills with ability to communicate effectively under high-pressure situations
• Creative problem solver with keen negotiation skills