Creative Project Manager

Acadia; Atlanta (GA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Acadia is seeking a Creative Project Manager to serve as the operational backbone of our agency's creative function. You will partner with strategists, designers, media teams, and Contractors to ensure scope accuracy, proper resourcing, and on-time delivery without compromising creative quality or performance outcomes.

This role thrives in a fast-moving agency setting and balances structure with flexibility as scopes evolve with AI-driven workflows and changing priorities.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in a creative project management, traffic, or operations role within an agency environment.
• Strong understanding of creative workflows and how creative supports paid media outcomes.
• Hands-on experience managing projects and workflows in Asana.
• Proven ability to track scope, hours, and deliverables across multiple accounts.
• Experience managing team utilization, resourcing, and contractor coordination.
• Confidence running standups and facilitating cross-functional collaboration.
• Comfort working in fast-changing environments with evolving scopes and tools.

Responsibilities

• Track and manage project scope across hours, deliverables, and timelines to ensure work aligns with client agreements and internal capacity.
• Scope new creative initiatives and iterations, with flexibility to adjust scopes as priorities, performance insights, or AI-driven workflows evolve.
• Partner with strategy and account teams to identify scope risks early and recommend solutions.
• Partner with sales and account teams during the scoping phase to validate deliverables against team capacity before contracts are finalized.
• Flag scope threshold breaches at 75% usage and elevate to service lead and account manager for client notification and billing decisions.
• Track and report absorbed overage costs monthly to quantify revenue impact and inform contract negotiations.
• Manage day-to-day workflow and allocation of creative strategy and design team resources.
• Monitor team utilization across accounts and proactively flag resourcing gaps or bandwidth constraints.
• Coordinate timelines and deliverables across internal teams and external contractors.
• Escalate capacity conflicts to leadership with clear tradeoff recommendations.
• Make day-to-day resource allocation decisions within approved capacity; elevate strategic prioritization decisions.
• Own and maintain creative workflows in Asana, ensuring projects, tasks, dependencies, and timelines are clearly documented and up to date.
• Lead recurring creative standups to review work in progress, upcoming priorities, potential challenges, and risk areas.
• Identify and implement process improvements to support speed, clarity, and scalability.
• Serve as the central point of coordination between creative, media, strategy, and contractor teams.
• Ensure teams have clear briefs, expectations, and timelines before work begins.
• Communicate status updates, changes, and risks clearly to stakeholders.
• Flag scope threshold breaches (at 75% usage) and elevate to the service lead and account manager for client notification and billing decisions.
• Escalate capacity conflicts to leadership with proposed tradeoffs when competing priorities exceed available resources.
• Partner with account managers to notify clients of scope departures, timeline impacts, or need for additional budget.

Tools

Asana

Job description

The Role

As a Creative Project Manager, you will be the operational backbone of the creative function at our agency. You’ll partner closely with creative strategists, designers, media teams, and contractors to ensure work is scoped correctly, resourced effectively, and delivered on time — without sacrificing creative quality or performance outcomes.

This role is ideal for someone who thrives in fast-moving agency environments and can balance structure with flexibility as scopes evolve at the pace of AI-driven change.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

Project & Scope Management

• Track and manage project scope across hours, deliverables, and timelines to ensure work aligns with client agreements and internal capacity
• Scope new creative initiatives and iterations, with flexibility to adjust scopes as priorities, performance insights, or AI-driven workflows evolve
• Partner with strategy and account teams to identify scope risks early and recommend solutions
• Partner with sales and account teams during the scoping phase to validate deliverables against team capacity before contracts are finalized (scope approval from this role is required before client agreements are signed)
• Flag scope threshold breaches at 75% usage and elevate immediately to service lead and account manager for client notification and billing decisions
• Track and report absorbed overage costs monthly to quantify revenue impact and inform contract negotiations

Workflow & Resourcing

• Manage day-to-day workflow and allocation of creative strategy and design team resources
• Monitor team utilization across accounts and proactively flag resourcing gaps or bandwidth constraints
• Coordinate timelines and deliverables across internal teams and external contractors
• Escalate capacity conflicts to leadership with clear tradeoff recommendations when competing client priorities exceed available resources (e.g., "Client A timeline slips 3 days OR Client B gets reduced execution quality")
• Make day-to-day resource allocation decisions within approved capacity; elevate strategic prioritization decisions that require client relationship or revenue considerations

Process & Tools

• Own and maintain creative workflows in Asana, ensuring projects, tasks, dependencies, and timelines are clearly documented and up to date
• Lead recurring creative standups to review work in progress, upcoming priorities, potential challenges, and risk areas
• Identify and implement process improvements to support speed, clarity, and scalability

Collaboration & Communication

• Serve as the central point of coordination between creative, media, strategy, and contractor teams
• Ensure teams have clear briefs, expectations, and timelines before work begins
• Communicate status updates, changes, and risks clearly to stakeholders
• Flag scope threshold breaches (at 75% usage) and elevate to the service lead and account manager for client notification and billing decisions
• Escalate capacity conflicts to leadership with proposed tradeoffs when competing priorities exceed available resources
• Partner with account managers to notify clients of scope departures, timeline impacts, or need for additional budget

Authority and Decision Rights

This Role Has Authority To

• Approve or reject project timelines based on team capacity
• Allocate resources across accounts within budgeted hours
• Pause work when critical brief information is missing
• Require brief revisions before creative work begins

This Role Escalates To Leadership

• Scope changes that exceed contracted deliverables
• Capacity conflicts requiring client deprioritization
• Contract-level decisions on billing overages vs. absorbing costs
• Strategic tradeoffs between client relationships and team sustainability

Qualifications

You Must Have

• 5+ years of experience in a creative project management, traffic, or operations role within an agency environment
• Strong understanding of creative workflows and how creative supports paid media outcomes
• Hands-on experience managing projects and workflows in Asana
• Proven ability to track scope, hours, and deliverables across multiple accounts
• Experience managing team utilization, resourcing, and contractor coordination
• Confidence running standups and facilitating cross-functional collaboration
• Comfort working in fast-changing environments with evolving scopes and tools

Nice to Have

• Experience supporting paid media, performance marketing, or retail media teams
• Familiarity with AI-enabled creative tools or adaptive creative workflows
• Experience working with distributed or contractor-based creative teams
• Background in design, production, or creative operations