Director, Creative Operations & Resource Planning

Aquent; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Aquent is partnering with a globally recognized leader in beauty and specialty retail to recruit a Director of Creative Resource Planning & Operations. This role shapes how a large-scale creative and marketing organization plans, allocates, and optimizes resources across North America.

You will drive capacity management, workflow visibility, and operational efficiency, partnering with Creative, Brand Marketing, Production, and external partners to align talent with priorities and timelines.

Qualifications

• Experience leading resource planning and capacity management in large marketing/creative contexts.
• Proven ability to forecast capacity, develop staffing plans, and allocate resources effectively.
• Strong analytical skills to translate data into actionable recommendations.
• Excellent communication to align senior stakeholders and cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise-level resource and capacity planning across multiple creative, marketing, and production functions.
• Develop and maintain capacity forecasts, utilization models, staffing plans, and resource allocation strategies.
• Identify constraints, skill gaps, workload imbalances, and capacity risks to adjust plans proactively.
• Partner with Creative and Marketing leadership to translate priorities into actionable workforce plans.
• Coordinate work allocation across internal teams, external agencies, freelancers, and contractors.
• Establish frameworks for internal vs. agency work and new AI-enabled solutions.
• Support budgeting and balance quality, speed, cost, and available talent.
• Optimize workflows, governance, and project intake and prioritization.
• Identify bottlenecks and unnecessary handoffs to speed up delivery.
• Develop dashboards and reports on workload, utilization, and project health.
• Collaborate with agency partners on staffing, forecasting, and integration.
• Use data to guide planning, investments, and capability development.
• Work with technology partners to implement resource planning and workflow tools.
• Drive continuous improvement and transformation for efficiency and quality.

Skills

Resource planning

Capacity management

Operational leadership

Stakeholder management

Cross-functional leadership

Analytical skills

Tools

Adobe Workfront

Monday.com

Asana

Smartsheet

Job description

Aquent is partnering with a globally recognized leader in beauty and specialty retail, known for delivering innovative customer experiences and creating iconic, high-impact marketing campaigns. We're seeking an experienced Director of Creative Resource Planning & Operations to help shape how a large-scale creative and marketing organization plans, allocates, and optimizes its resources.

About the Role

In this highly visible leadership role, you'll drive resource planning, capacity management, and operational efficiency across a complex North American marketing organization. You'll partner closely with Creative, Brand Marketing, Production, Project Management, and external agency teams to ensure the right talent and resources are aligned with the right projects at the right time.

You'll play a key role in evolving the organization's creative operating model, bringing greater visibility into capacity, utilization, workflow, and resource decisions. This is an opportunity to combine strategic planning with hands-on operational leadership, implementing scalable processes and technology solutions that improve how creative work is delivered.

What You'll Do

• Lead enterprise-level resource and capacity planning across multiple creative, marketing, and production functions.
• Develop and maintain capacity forecasts, utilization models, staffing plans, and resource allocation strategies aligned with business priorities.
• Identify resource constraints, skill gaps, workload imbalances, and capacity risks, proactively adjusting plans to support business needs.
• Partner with Creative and Marketing leadership to translate annual and quarterly priorities into actionable workforce and resource plans.
• Coordinate work allocation across internal creative teams, production resources, external agencies, freelancers, and contractors.
• Establish frameworks for determining when work should be handled internally versus through agencies, specialized partners, or emerging AI-enabled solutions.
• Support creative resource budgeting and make recommendations that balance quality, speed, cost, and available talent.
• Evaluate and optimize end-to-end creative and marketing workflows, improving project intake, prioritization, planning, and governance.
• Identify and eliminate operational bottlenecks, inefficient processes, and unnecessary handoffs that slow creative production.
• Develop dashboards and reporting frameworks that provide visibility into workload, resource utilization, project health, throughput, and capacity.
• Collaborate with agency and production partners on staffing needs, scope planning, resource forecasting, and operational integration.
• Leverage resource and workflow data to guide organizational planning, investment decisions, and future capability development.
• Partner with technology vendors and internal stakeholders to implement and optimize resource planning and workflow management tools.
• Drive continuous improvement and operational transformation initiatives that increase efficiency, flexibility, and creative output quality.

What You'll Bring (Must-Haves)

• 10+ years of experience in creative operations, resource management, workforce planning, marketing operations, or related functions.
• Proven experience leading resource planning and capacity management across large-scale creative, marketing, production, or agency organizations.
• Demonstrated success developing resource forecasts, utilization models, staffing plans, and capacity allocation strategies.
• Strong understanding of creative development, marketing workflows, production processes, and the operational needs of creative teams.
• Experience managing complex resource ecosystems involving internal creative teams, external agencies, freelancers, and contractors.
• Experience working in fast-paced, highly matrixed retail, consumer, or multi-brand environments.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate resource, workflow, and operational data into actionable business recommendations.
• Ability to lead cross-functional initiatives, influence senior stakeholders, and drive alignment without direct authority.
• Experience improving operational processes, identifying inefficiencies, and implementing scalable workflow solutions.
• Strong business acumen, organizational planning skills, and the ability to balance strategic priorities with hands‑on execution.
• Exceptional communication skills and the ability to navigate ambiguity within complex organizations.

What Will Set You Apart (Nice-to-Haves)

• Experience in beauty, fashion, luxury, specialty retail, or major consumer brands.
• Experience supporting large, in-house creative studios or enterprise marketing organizations.
• Hands‑on familiarity with resource planning, project management, and workflow platforms such as Adobe Workfront, Monday.com, Asana, Smartsheet, or similar tools.
• Experience leading creative operations transformations, organizational redesign, or new operating model implementations.
• Experience optimizing the balance between in-house creative talent, external agencies, and freelance resources.
• Familiarity with AI-enabled workflow solutions and emerging technologies that improve creative production efficiency.