Creative Operations Manager

Lumen; Jefferson City (MO); On-site; USD 106,000 - 141,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health benefits

Life insurance

Wellbeing programs

Job summary

Lumen is seeking a senior operations leader to own intake, planning, governance, and reporting for its creative organization. You will partner with leadership to align resources with priorities, improve how work flows, and build scalable practices that increase speed, visibility, and accountability.

You will drive capacity forecasting, staffing decisions, and portfolio visibility across campaigns and agencies while guiding decisions on start, pause, outsource, or decline of work.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in creative or marketing operations, PMO, resource management, agency operations, or related leadership.
• Experience building and scaling processes in creative, marketing, brand, or content teams.
• Strong knowledge of creative workflows, intake, resource and portfolio planning, and delivery governance.
• Experience with dashboards, KPIs, reporting, capacity models, and workflow tools.
• Analytical, systems-thinking, problem-solving, communication and facilitation skills.
• Ability to influence cross-functional teams in ambiguous, fast-changing environments.
• Experience advising senior leaders on prioritization, resourcing, and operating-model decisions.

Responsibilities

• Own enterprise creative intake and set briefing, categorization, prioritization, and readiness standards.
• Define pathways for planned, reactive, executive, innovation, and special-initiative work; improve submission quality.
• Maintain visibility into capacity, workload, utilization, project mix, and constraints; forecast needs.
• Identify staffing gaps, bottlenecks, and over-allocation risks; inform staffing decisions.
• Evaluate demand with leadership based on value, effort, priorities, and capacity.
• Facilitate tradeoffs across campaigns and initiatives; guide decisions to start, pause, or outsource work.
• Own operating model from intake to delivery, defining stages, roles, and governance.
• Drive use of work-management tools, dashboards, and processes; reduce friction across teams.
• Build dashboards and reporting on demand; give leaders visibility into capacity and health.
• Track trends and define KPIs linking operations to business impact.
• Design and improve workflows, SOPs, governance, briefs, review practices, and cadences.
• Lead improvements that increase velocity and stakeholder experience; drive adoption.
• Configure tools to support the operating model and look for automation opportunities.
• Partner with tech and operations to improve data quality and system effectiveness.

Skills

Creative operations

PMO

Resource management

Agency operations

Operational leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Forecasting and capacity planning

Workflow governance

Tools

Dashboards

KPIs

Reporting tools

Job description

Lumen is the trusted network for the AI‑powered world, connecting people, data, and applications through our expansive fiber network and connected ecosystem. We enable secure, high‑performance connectivity across cloud, edge, and AI workloads for enterprises, governments, and communities.

At Lumen, you’ll work on infrastructure customers rely on today and build for what’s next, where performance, security, and resilience matter.

This is a high accountability environment where bold ideas drive real innovation for our customers, partners, and industry. The work is challenging, expectations are clear, and trust is built into how we operate. If you’re ready to take ownership, deliver meaningful impact, and help shape the future of AI‑ready connectivity, join us today.

The Role

Leads the systems, governance, planning, and insights that enable the creative organization to operate effectively at scale. Owns intake, prioritization, capacity and resource planning, workflow governance, reporting, process design, and operational health. Partners with creative leadership to align resources with business priorities, improve how work moves through the organization, and build scalable practices that increase speed, visibility, accountability, and creative impact. Transforms reactive request management into a transparent, strategic, and scalable operating model.

The Main Responsibilities

• Own enterprise creative intake and set briefing, categorization, prioritization, and readiness standards so requests arrive with sufficient context, scope, and strategic clarity.

• Define pathways for planned, reactive, executive, innovation, and special-initiative work; assess readiness, close information gaps, and improve submission quality before scoping or assignment.

• Maintain visibility into capacity, workload, utilization, project mix, skill demand, and constraints across internal teams and external partners; forecast needs using pipeline, priorities, seasonality, campaign calendars, and enterprise initiatives.

• Identify staffing gaps, bottlenecks, and over-allocation risks before delivery is affected, informing staffing, contractor, agency, and headcount decisions.

• Evaluate demand with creative leadership based on strategic value, effort, priorities, and capacity, while providing portfolio visibility across current and upcoming work.

• Facilitate tradeoffs across campaigns, executive and reactive requests, brand initiatives, and capability-building work; guide decisions to start, pause, accelerate, outsource, or decline work and align resources to highest-impact priorities.

• Own the operating model from intake and scoping through assignment, production, review, approval, delivery, and measurement; define stages, roles, decision rights, handoffs, review cycles, escalation paths, and governance standards.

• Drive consistent use of work-management tools, intake systems, dashboards, and processes while clarifying requirements and reducing friction across creative teams, stakeholders, agencies, PMO, and partner functions.

• Build dashboards and reporting on demand, project mix, throughput, cycle time, workload, utilization, velocity, and bottlenecks, giving leaders clear visibility into capacity, operating health, and tradeoffs.

• Track trends and define KPIs linking operations to creative effectiveness and business impact, using insights to guide staffing, partner strategy, prioritization, process improvement, speed, quality, clarity, and scale.

• Design, document, and improve workflows, SOPs, governance, briefs, review practices, and operating cadences; remove redundant work, unclear ownership, unnecessary approvals, and process gaps.

• Lead improvements that increase velocity, reduce rework, and strengthen stakeholder experience; communicate changes, drive adoption, and establish scalable practices for planned and reactive work.

• Configure tools to support the operating model and provide team and leadership visibility; identify opportunities for automation, templates, improved reporting, and workflow simplification.

• Partner with technology and operations teams to improve adoption, data quality, and system effectiveness, and set standards for tracking work, resources, timelines, and project metadata.

• Advise creative leadership on structure, resource planning, workload forecasts, agency and contractor strategy, future operating models, business cases, staffing recommendations, and capability planning.

• Identify recurring demand patterns requiring new roles, process or scope changes, or alternative partner models, and clarify how organizational design choices affect capacity, velocity, quality, and business impact.

What We Look For in a Candidate

• 7+ years in creative or marketing operations, PMO, resource management, agency operations, or related operational leadership.

• Experience building and scaling processes in creative, marketing, brand, or content organizations.

• Strong knowledge of creative workflows, intake, resource and portfolio planning, and delivery governance.

• Experience with dashboards, KPIs, reporting, capacity models, and workflow or collaboration tools.

• Strong analytical, systems-thinking, problem-solving, communication, and facilitation skills.

• Ability to influence cross-functional teams and operate in ambiguous, fast-changing environments with competing priorities.

• Experience advising senior leaders on prioritization, resourcing, and operating-model decisions.

Compensation

This information reflects the anticipated base salary range for this position based on current national data. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. Individual pay is based on skills, experience and other relevant factors.

Location Based Pay Ranges

$105,786 - $141,047 in these states: AL AR AZ FL GA IA ID IN KS KY LA ME MO MS MT ND NE NM OH OK PA SC SD TN UT VT WI WV WY

$111,074 - $148,099 in these states: CO HI MI MN NC NH NV OR RI

$116,364 - $155,152 in these states: AK CA CT DC DE IL MA MD NJ NY TX VA WA

Lumen offers a comprehensive package featuring a broad range of Health, Life, Voluntary Lifestyle benefits and other perks that enhance your physical, mental, emotional and financial wellbeing. We're able to answer any additional questions you may have about our bonus structure (short-term incentives, long-term incentives and/or sales compensation) as you move through the selection process.

Learn more about Lumen's:

Benefits (https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/benefits-statement)

Bonus Structure

#LI-Remote

What to Expect Next

Requisition #: 343527

Life at Lumen

Life at Lumen is human and connected, even in a fast moving, AI‑focused organization. We set clear expectations and trust people to meet them. With real support and shared accountability, teams collaborate better, move faster, and deliver meaningful outcomes.

Our Lumen 8 behaviors guide how we interact, make decisions, and work together, shaping a culture built to perform and win.

To learn more about Life at Lumen and how we live the Lumen 8, please visit:

https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/life-at-lumen

Background Screening

If you are selected for a position, there will be a background screen, which may include checks for criminal records and/or motor vehicle reports and/or drug screening, depending on the position requirements. For more information on these checks, please refer to the Post Offer section of our FAQ page (https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/faq) . Job-related concerns identified during the background screening may disqualify you from the new position or your current role. Background results will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Equal Employment Opportunities

We are committed to providing equal employment opportunities to all persons regardless of race, color, ancestry, citizenship, national origin, religion, veteran status, disability, genetic characteristic or information, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, family status, pregnancy, or other legally protected status (collectively, “protected statuses”). We do not tolerate unlawful discrimination in any employment decisions, including recruiting, hiring, compensation, promotion, benefits, discipline, termination, job assignments or training.

Privacy Notice

Lumen is committed to protecting the privacy and security of personal information collected during the recruitment and hiring process. Our Applicant Privacy Notice explains how we collect, use, disclose, and protect applicant information, as well as how individuals may request access to or deletion of their personal data.

To review Lumen’s Global Employment Applicant and Talent Community Privacy Notice, please visit:

https://jobs.lumen.com/global/en/privacy-notice

Disclaimer

The job responsibilities described above indicate the general nature and level of work performed by employees within this classification. It is not intended to include a comprehensive inventory of all duties and responsibilities for this job. Job duties and responsibilities are subject to change based on evolving business needs and conditions.

In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.

Please be advised that Lumen does not require any form of payment from job applicants during the recruitment process. All legitimate job openings will be posted on our official website or communicated through official company email addresses. If you encounter any job offers that request payment in exchange for employment at Lumen, they are not for employment with us, but may relate to another company with a similar name.