Creative Operations Manager

This role is vital in ensuring the successful delivery of marketing and creative activity across M&S. Working across multiple campaigns and projects simultaneously, you will be responsible for coordinating timelines, stakeholders, suppliers, budgets and delivery plans to ensure work moves efficiently from brief through to implementation.

Acting as the operational link between Marketing, Creative, Production and external partners, you will provide project management expertise, delivery oversight and proactive issue resolution to ensure campaigns are delivered on time, on budget and to the highest quality standards. It's a fast-paced role where organisation, collaboration and attention to detail make a real difference every day.

Key Responsibilities:

• Manage the end-to-end delivery of marketing and creative projects, ensuring campaigns are delivered on time, within budget and to agreed quality standards.  
• Develop and maintain project plans, critical paths, timelines and status reporting, proactively managing risks, issues and dependencies.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams, suppliers and agency partners to ensure activity remains aligned and delivery milestones are achieved.
• Support the efficient running of creative workflows, maintaining project timelines, governance processes and meeting agendas.
• Ensure campaign assets are delivered accurately, meet brand standards and are fit for purpose across all channels.
• Provide clear communication and reporting to stakeholders, maintaining visibility of project status, priorities and delivery risks.
• Support supplier performance management and budget tracking to ensure value, quality and service expectations are met.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives that optimise project delivery, ways of working and operational effectiveness.

Key Relationships: 

• Brand Marketing, Creative, Art Direction, Design, Copy, Shoot Production, Instore Marketing, Digital Channels, VM, Programme Management.
• Strong working relationships with Agency partners, Print and production partners.

Requirements

• Strong project management and organisational skills.
• Ability to manage multiple projects, priorities and deadlines simultaneously.
• Excellent stakeholder management and relationship-building capability.
• Strong communication, coordination and influencing skills.
• Effective planning, problem-solving and risk-management capability.
• Commercial awareness and budget-management experience.
• Highly proactive, solutions-focused and resilient under pressure.
• Strong attention to detail combined with a focus on delivery outcomes.
• Experience using project management tools, critical paths and delivery reporting.
• Understanding of marketing campaign delivery across digital, POS, print, VM, OOH and other customer-facing channels.
• Continuous improvement mindset with a focus on operational excellence.
• Collaborative approach with the ability to work effectively across diverse teams.