Director, Project Management (NBCUniversal)

Essence, part of GroupM, is a global data and measurement-driven media agency whose mission is to make advertising more valuable to the world. Clients include Google, Flipkart, NBCUniversal, L'Oreal and the Financial Times. The agency is more than 1,800 people strong, manages $4B in annualized media spend and deploys campaigns in 106 markets via 20 offices in APAC, EMEA and North America.

Visit essenceglobal.com for more information and follow us on Twitter at @essenceglobal

About the role

As an Operations Director, you will report into the VP, Operations, and be accountable for the strategic and day-to-day leadership of operations across one large client or a portfolio of clients.  Leading a small team, and partnering with Client Services, you will be expected to:

• Support the management of financial performance of your portfolio, maintaining visibility and advising on actions to ensure financial gain is balanced with client and employee satisfaction
• Lead the successful delivery of work within your portfolio, by ensuring work is effectively planned, effort is carefully project managed, barriers to delivery are overcome and risks are proactively managed
• Champion the use of the agency’s ways of working, and strive for their continual improvement, to drive operational effectiveness and work quality within your portfolio

Some of the things we’d like you to do:

• Delivering Projects
• Lead the delivery of business critical global/regional projects.  
• Interrogate problems/opportunities to develop clear problem/opportunity statements, objectives and scopes of work.
• Breakdown complex information into smart, well-structured and attainable project plans, always balancing project management best practice with pragmatism.
• Partner with subject matter experts to determine the appropriate resource structure for the projects, ultimately driving towards an effective and efficient team
• Adeptly manage the work of a cross-location and cross-discipline project team in line with milestones within the plan, flexing your approach to get the best out of the mix of different skill sets and personalities
• Identify potential risks and issues within a project, often well before they have been seen by others.   You get to the root of the risk or issue quickly, and can identify, recruit and motivate the right group of people to overcome all but the most challenging risks and issues
• Effectively push back on stakeholders when requirements of a project put us at risk of not delivering quality work, minimizing disruption and fallout by adapting your approach to the situation and personalities involved
• Engage stakeholders on project plans to ensure they understand trade-offs throughout the project around budget, scope, schedule, etc. in a positive, professional
• Understand the impact of change on a complex stakeholder group - which can be geographically diverse, with varying expertise and level of experience - and use this insight to ensure you create and execute effective engagement plans that ensure they feel aware, heard, supported and positively engaged throughout
• Successfully own a global/regional discipline leadership stakeholder group within projects, leveraging your ability to influence them to ensure they have input into the success of the project at the right times and in the right way, and feel heard and supported throughout
• Provide regular input into the ongoing development of project management and change management best practice within the business, balancing best-in-class approaches with pragmatism

• Deep understanding of business operations within and across disciplines, including an expert understanding of all business processes  
• Use business understanding to continually analyse the processes, quality standards and ways to improve work quality and/or efficiency
• Demonstrate ability to confidently, tactfully and decisively coach, direct and support people of all levels to improve work quality and the way they work within the existing operating model
• Ensure that external partners and clients understand our processes and ways of working, and that plans are put in place to enable successful cross-company collaboration

 Driving Strategic Thinking & Priorities

• Be a strategic advisor to the global/regional leadership team with the ability to support the leadership team with business-critical decisions.
• Provide strategic recommendations that will drive real business impact
• Develop a deep understanding of the current-state of business to drive productive conversations and decision-making
• Identify gaps between the current-state and a desired end=state of business and raise awareness among global/regional leadership
• Develop a deep understanding of the business and wider industry, and regularly use this to generate insightful strategic recommendations for the Global Executive Team to help drive business forward

 Managing Business Performance

• Must be accountable for the profitable delivery of work for client portfolio between $20-40M in annualized revenue
• Must have the ability to scope work from simple to complex projects and develop appropriate assumptions to manage potential risk
• Work with Resource Management to develop financial forecasts and resource plans that map to those forecasts
• Analyze financial results on an ongoing basis and effectively communicate the relevant analysis to client leadership team and global/regional leadership team
• Analyze and socialize progress against project plans to ensure projects keep on margin targets
• Effectively coach the client teams to manage effort against margin targets

 Team Leadership

• Regularly assess the work quality measurement frameworks used, and drive recommendations to improvement
• Ensure global/regional leadership has visibility of work quality and drive appropriate conversations and decision-making
• Successfully maintain an up-to-date view of work quality and adherence to the operating model processes
• Manage your entire team and make sure they have a clear understanding of their roles and what is expected from  them.
• Help establish strong team morale and dynamics
• Ensure that you and your team stay connected to the wider Operations community, effectively balancing the global agenda for improvement and consistency with your team’s
• Lead the development of business cases for the increase of Operations resource within your remit, and [if successful] the subsequent recruitment and on boarding process
• Mentor the internal team in their understanding of, and approach to, supporting their goals and day-to-day output of the team

A bit about yourself:

• You are commercially savvy and you have experience managing a large scale, multidisciplinary teams
• You're likely to have 10-12  years experience with a proven track record in Operations or project management
• You have deep experience of digital project management
• You’re armed with an active interest in how innovation and technology is driving change in digital marketing and a real desire to be a part of that innovation
• You have outstanding analytical capabilities

On top of all this experience, you’ll need lots of softer skills:

• Interpersonal, team building and relationship management skills
• Written communication, presentation, influencing and negotiation skills
• Ability to recruit, motivate and develop teams
• The ability to make decisions and resolve problems quickly and effectively
• Strong organizational skills to effectively manage smooth flow of work through
• Time management and the ability to determine priorities and delegate
• A thirst for new learning and a drive to develop new approaches which further
• Analytical and comfortable presenting quantitative information to a client
• Tact, diplomacy, maturity in relating and interacting with people at all levels
• The skills and drive to be an influential member of a fast growing agency