Client Service Manager, Brand Activations

Creative Riff; Los Angeles (CA); Remote; USD 80,000 - 115,000; Full time

Job summary

Creative Riff is seeking a Client Service Manager to lead the day-to-day success of assigned client accounts and projects. This role manages the operational and financial performance from pitch through delivery, building strong client relationships and collaborating with Creative, Production, and Finance teams.

This position balances day-to-day delivery with strategic client relationship management, driving growth while ensuring satisfaction and quality across programs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field is required.
• Strong communication and presentation skills are essential.
• Proven ability to build and maintain client relationships.
• Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams (Creative, Production, Finance).
• Experience supporting client programs with revenue, margin, budgets, or pricing insights is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Manage a portfolio of client accounts day to day, supporting account strategy and revenue growth.
• Build trusted client relationships by understanding day to day priorities and stakeholders.
• Serve as the day-to-day point of contact throughout the project lifecycle with proactive communication.
• Support new business efforts by uncovering client needs and connecting them to Creative Riff’s capabilities.
• Resolve day-to-day client issues, escalating to the Director when broader involvement is needed.
• Manage project delivery to ensure work is on strategy, on time, on scope, and on budget.

Skills

Strong communication

Presentation skills

Relationship building

Cross-functional collaboration

Client service mindset

Education

Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field

Job description

Location

Remote, operating within a time zone supportive of Creative Riff's core business hours (between Eastern and Pacific U.S.), with travel to activations and client meetings as needed. Candidates based in Los Angeles are preferred.

Compensation

$80,000 to $115,000 annually, based on experience and location • Full time • Exempt

Position Overview

Creative Riff creates immersive, world building experiences for entertainment IPs and brands. The Client Service Manager is a client leader responsible for the day to day success of assigned client accounts and projects.

This role manages the day to day operational and financial performance of an assigned client portfolio and its projects: from pitch management through project scope and resourcing through delivery and client satisfaction. The Manager builds strong day to day client relationships, supports the Director in identifying opportunities to grow those relationships, and collaborates with the Creative, Production, and Finance teams to deliver exceptional experiences.

This is a role for someone who can move seamlessly between the day to day details that make events run well and the client relationships that keep those events on track. Someone who builds trust quickly, communicates with confidence, anticipates problems, and makes decisions that keep clients, teams, and the work moving forward.

Core Responsibilities

• Manage a portfolio of client accounts day to day, supporting account strategy and revenue growth by contributing to leads and pitches.
• Build trusted client relationships by understanding day to day priorities, stakeholders, and working style.
• Serve as a day to day point of contact throughout the project lifecycle, maintaining clear, proactive client communication and ensuring alignment at every stage.
• Support new business efforts by helping uncover client needs, shape opportunities, and connect them to Creative Riff’s capabilities.
• Resolve day to day client issues directly, escalating to the Director when broader account or executive involvement is needed.

2. Project Delivery

• Manage project delivery day to day, ensuring work is delivered on strategy, on time, on scope, and on budget.
• Help establish clear scopes, priorities, timelines, and accountability across project teams and with the client.
• Maintain strong project and client communication throughout delivery, ensuring teams have the clarity and support needed to execute.
• Flag risks and dependencies early, address issues as they arise, and elevate decisions that require Director input.
• Support client delivery satisfaction, ensuring project teams have the clarity and support needed to deliver.

3. Cross Functional Collaboration

• Support collaboration across Client Service, Creative, Production, and Finance to align teams around the work, client experience, and project outcomes.
• Translate client objectives into clear direction for project teams, helping balance creative vision with budget, scope, timeline, and feasibility.
• Partner with Creative and Production on concept development and campaign execution to help create compelling, culturally relevant experiences.
• Partner with Finance on budget tracking, resource planning, and day to day financial administration to help keep projects commercially sound and appropriately staffed.
• Contribute to a collaborative, solutions oriented environment where teams communicate openly, resolve issues quickly, and stay focused on delivering exceptional work.
• Support revenue, gross margin, and profitability tracking for each project.
• Support pricing execution, ensuring project pricing reflects scope, complexity, and target margins set by the Director.
• Maintain disciplined scope management; ensure changes are documented, priced, and approved before work expands.
• Support staffing plans and resource allocations in collaboration with the Resource Manager and Finance, helping ensure roles and rates are aligned to project budgets and utilization targets.
• Track financial performance throughout the project lifecycle, flagging risks to budget, revenue, and margin to the Director.
• Maintain accurate financial visibility and reporting across active project investments.

Key Performance Metrics

• Account Growth: Maintain strong day to day performance across an assigned $1M to $2M portion of the portfolio, leading Projects up to $500,000, 2 to 5 at a time, and supporting organic growth.
• Client Success: Retain and expand key accounts, building relationships where clients see Creative Riff as a strategic partner, not just a vendor.
• Operational Execution: Keep budgets, cross functional delivery, and team alignment on track with regular Director check ins; elevate issues early with clear recommendations.
• Financial Performance: Support margin protection, maintain accurate reporting, and ensure scope changes are clearly documented and billed.
• Delivery Excellence: Deliver programs on time, on budget, and to the creative standard Creative Riff and its clients expect.

What a Successful Candidate Needs to Succeed

• Relationship oriented and emotionally intelligent: Builds trust quickly, reads the room, and navigates clients and teams with empathy and sound judgment.
• Clear communicator and collaborative partner: Communicates with clarity and confidence, builds alignment, and helps turn relationships into opportunities.
• Proactive, highly organized, and collaborative: Anticipates needs, creates clarity, and brings Creative, Production, Finance, and Client Service together to move work forward.
• Resilient, calm under pressure, and dependable: Stays composed when stakes are high, solves problems quickly, and knows when to escalation.
• Detail oriented, adaptable, and culture obsessed: Brings a strong point of view, connects day to day work to bigger business outcomes, and is deeply invested in the team, the work, and the fandoms our clients serve.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field.
• 3 to 6 years of experience in client service, account management, brand or experiential marketing, or a related role within an agency, brand, entertainment company, or in house marketing organization.
• Experience supporting client programs or engagements with exposure to revenue, margin, pricing, budgets, forecasting, and scope.
• Track record of building strong client relationships and contributing to new business efforts, pitches, or proposals.
• Experience collaborating with cross functional teams, with the ability to influence without direct authority.
• Solid understanding of experiential marketing, entertainment, brands, audiences, and culture.
• Strong communication, presentation, and relationship building skills, with sound judgment under pressure.

Preferred

• Experience with entertainment IPs, fan driven experiences, or large scale cultural events.
• Experience supporting business development or new client pitches.
• Exposure to budget or margin tracking at the project or account level.
• Familiarity with project and resource management tools (Asana, Runn, or similar) and data driven client reporting.
• Cross Functional Partners: Production, Creative, Resource Management, and Finance.
• Serves as a day to day voice of the client inside the agency, and a trusted agency contact for the client.

We are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or any other protected status.