Creative Operations Manager

Bully Pulpit International is an outcomes agency made up of strategists, data scientists, and artists. We come from politics, brands, and government and we communicate without barriers and measure what matters. We have more than 400 team members in six countries and thirteen offices — Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, D.C., London, Los Angeles, New York, Oslo, San Francisco, and Zürich. We apply our unique expertise across strategic communications, public affairs, research, and digital marketing to create sophisticated and customized strategies that make change possible for both American and European clients.

The Impact You Will Make

The Creative Operations Senior Manager at BPI plays a critical role in supporting the day-to-day operations of the Creative department, helping ensure our teams have the right people, processes, information, and support to deliver their best work. Reporting to the Senior Director of Creative Operations, this role helps connect the dots across creative workflows, resourcing, scopes, budgets, timelines, and overall project health.

You’ll partner closely with Creative leadership and teams across Client Services, Production, Resource Management, Finance, and Operations to keep work moving efficiently, identify needs and risks early, and continually improve how Creative works across BPI.

• Starting Salary Range: $90,000 - $100,000 (+ annual bonus)
• Expectation to work from one of our offices (Chicago, DC, NYC, SF, LA) at least 3 days a week

What the Day-to-Day Looks Like

• Manage and maintain the day-to-day creative resource tracker, ensuring allocations, availability, project assignments, and upcoming needs are accurate and up to date.
• Partner with Creative Operations and Creative leadership to support staffing across projects, helping match the right people and skill sets to the right briefs.
• Work closely with Account, Strategy, Production, and project leads to understand upcoming work, timelines, staffing requirements, and changes in project needs.
• Monitor creative capacity and utilization, identifying potential conflicts, gaps, or periods of over- and under-allocation and flagging them early.
• Lead weekly resource and staffing meetings by gathering information, maintaining accurate allocations, and following up on agreed staffing changes.
• Help coordinate freelance resource needs, including identifying when additional support may be required, tracking availability, and supporting onboarding and extensions.
• Build an understanding of the creative team — their skills, experience, interests, development goals, and availability — to help make thoughtful staffing recommendations.
• Keep teams informed of staffing changes and ensure Creative, Creative Operations, and project leads have clear visibility into who is working on what.
• Support forecasting of upcoming resource needs by looking ahead at the pipeline and helping identify where additional capacity or specific skill sets may be required.
• Help improve resource management tools, trackers, and ways of working, making it easier for teams to understand capacity and make informed staffing decisions.

Requirements

What You Bring

• 5–7 years of experience in Creative Operations, Creative Services, project management, or a similar role within an agency or fast-paced creative environment.
• Strong experience partnering with Creative leadership and cross-functional teams to help manage the day-to-day operations of a busy creative department.
• Experience developing scopes of work, staffing plans, timelines, and estimates, with a strong understanding of how creative work gets delivered.
• Strong commercial and financial awareness, including tracking scopes, budgets, burn, freelance spend, and project health.
• Experience managing creative workflows and processes from brief through delivery, identifying gaps and helping teams work more efficiently.
• A strong understanding of creative resourcing, including balancing staff and freelance talent against project needs, timelines, and budgets.
• Excellent organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple projects, priorities, and stakeholders at the same time.
• Confidence working closely with Creative, Account, Strategy, Production, Finance, and Resource Management teams.
• A people-first approach to operations — able to bring structure and accountability without creating unnecessary process.
• A proactive, solutions-oriented mindset with the ability to spot potential issues early and help teams find practical ways forward.
• Experience with project management, resource management, and financial tracking tools, with an interest in continually improving how teams work.

Benefits

BPI offers a wide range of benefits to U.S.-based employees, including 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401(k) program with employer match up to 4%, generous time off for vacation, $50 monthly phone reimbursement, unlimited sick time, and 16 weeks of paid leave for new parents. BPI’s benefits prioritize employee wellness and progressive support to our diverse workforce.

We’re looking for all kinds of people.  

BPI Group is an integrated public affairs agency that delivers outcomes for the top organizations and leaders around the world. With expertise in strategic communications, digital marketing, creative, research, and measurement, we offer a cohesive approach across corporate, policy, and public affairs strategy in today’s interconnected world. By combining incisive strategy and deep tactical expertise, we make change possible. Our transatlantic presence includes offices across thirteen markets in the US and Europe.

_We are an equal opportunity employer and make employment decisions based on individual commitment to excellence. We want to have the best qualified people in every job. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion or religious creed, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, status as a protected veteran, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information or characteristics (or those of a family member) or any other consideration made unlawful by applicable federal, state or local laws. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. 

BPI is dedicated to building an inclusive, diverse, equitable, and accessible workplace that fosters a sense of belonging – so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description,_ we encourage you to still consider submitting an application_. We consider applications holistically and you may be just the right candidate for this role or another one of our openings!_

Let’s keep in touch. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter at bpigroup.com