[Hiring] Senior Production Project Manager @Equator Design

Role Description

The seasoned senior project manager plays a pivotal role in supporting the Project Management team across diverse accounts and client projects. This role involves collaboration with cross-functional teams, and direct client engagement if required. In addition to ensuring project delivery within established timelines, budgets, and scope, at the senior level, you will guide and mentor junior team members and be involved with any process improvements needed.

Key Responsibilities

• Project Leadership:
  • Spearhead a diverse range of client projects, ensuring exceptional quality, adherence to deadlines, and alignment with budget constraints.
  • Implement robust project plans and workflows, capitalizing on your comprehensive understanding of creative and design project life cycle.
  • Proven ability to manage large volumes of work.
• Client and Internal Collaboration:
  • Act as a central communication hub among clients, Client Service teams, and internal departments including Creative, Design, Content, Operations and Studio.
  • Foster positive relationships and efficient collaboration to achieve project objectives.
• Process Improvement:
  • Actively contribute to the optimization of project management processes, increasing efficiency and effectiveness across client and internal projects.
  • Leverage project management tools and techniques to enhance team workflow and project tracking.
  • Proactively identify potential roadblocks, offering strategic solutions to keep projects on track.
• Resource Coordination:
  • Coordinate resource allocation in partnership with studio operations, internal schedulers, ensuring availability and optimal deployment of talent and resources needed for project success.
  • Notify PM Director of any capacity issues and advise when the team has capacity to take on more work.
• Training/Onboarding:
  • Able to provide training/guidance/mentorship to junior team members.

Project Specific Responsibilities

• Develops and maintains production execution plans, including documentation of project scope, implementation of QC plan, objectives, deliverables, key milestones, timelines, schedules, internal and external resources, project dashboards, etc.
• Communicates the status of production/manufacturing in respect to overall project schedule, requirements, deadlines, and structure to all necessary departments and team members.
• Ensures that projects flow seamlessly from conception through to completion, embodying the highest standards of quality, budget adherence, and timeliness.
• Monitors project progress, handles issues and escalations that arise, documents and follows up on critical actions, decisions, issues, and risks.
• Develops a detailed project plan/tracker to monitor and track progress.
• Creates and maintains comprehensive project documentation.
• Develops thorough understanding of internal team operations and processes.
• Manages changes to the project scope, schedule, and costs (working with CS to ensure all costs are captured).
• Reviews and validates mandatory project information required prior to project kick-off.
• Verifies information is accurate on design briefs, and specifications received from the account team and/or client.
• Procures all assets (dielines, copy, packaging/printer specs, reference materials) needed for studio and provides flexible solutions to potential production roadblocks.
• Works within our project management tool to write up work orders, and create project tasks for the studio.
• Facilitates/lead accurate and clear briefing to the creative team and/or Adaptive team in a timely fashion in partnership with CS.
• Acts as a liaison between the creative team, external partners, and the account team to obtain missing information and materials.
• Sets up and/or attends technical review of projects via pre-pro meetings or onboarding meetings providing valuable insight into project process and next steps.
• Provides the final rounds of QA on all assets – checking all design files to ensure work has been executed to the client brief prior to releasing for final delivery.
• Leads and/or participates in post-mortem meetings to review and provide insight on completed projects.
• Reports and escalates issues to management as needed.
• Evaluates engineered drawings to identify potential production plans and internal/external suppliers.
• Scopes and procures work to external partners to fill gaps where applicable to overall production plan.
• Actively manages relationships, project schedules, and quality with external suppliers.

Qualifications

• BA or higher in Graphic Management Services (concentration in packaging is an asset), or Design or in Marketing/Business Administration.
• 6+ years proven experience in project management, preferably in a design environment (concentration in packaging preferred).
• Profound understanding of branding, design, and print-production processes, including knowledge of Flexo, Litho, and Gravure printing techniques.
• Excellent communication skills, leadership qualities, and the ability to manage multiple projects in a fast-paced agency setting.
• Strong proficiency in Microsoft Office suite (Excel, Word, Teams, Outlook), project management platforms, and potentially Adobe software suite, with a focus on solution-oriented approaches and critical thinking.
• Intermediate ability to read/interpret engineered drawings.

Personal Attributes

• Demonstrated ability to lead by example, fostering a collaborative team environment while driving for results.
• A solutions-oriented mindset with unparalleled attention to detail, strong analytical skills, and a proactive problem-solving approach.
• Organized, a self-starter able to prioritize effectively, and possesses a deep interest in brand stewardship and project management excellence.

Benefits

• We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace.
• We strive to make our employment website and application process accessible to all users and applicants.
• Flex Force employees are part of our extended workforce and support our teams on an as-needed basis to meet changing business demands.
• Flex Force positions operate under a flexible, project-based work arrangement.
• Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location.
• This is a remote position in the US.