Director of Project Management

Social Driver; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible PTO

401k

Continuing education

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Disability insurance

Bike-share

Fast Lane

No Meeting Fridays

Job summary

Social Driver in Washington, DC is seeking a Director of Project Management to lead a team of PMs and an administrator across ~100 active clients. This build role shapes a scalable delivery model and ensures plans, timelines, and risk signals are clear for clients.

You will set standards for complex engagements, manage capacity, and partner with Sales and Directors of Engagement to align on priorities. The role stays close to the work, delivering high‑impact programs while growing the PM

Qualifications

• 7+ years of project management in a digital/marketing or client‑service setting.
• 3+ years leading a team of PMs, including hiring, development, and performance management.
• Has built a PM cadence, standards, or operating model, not only run one inherited.
• Negotiated capacity, priorities and timelines with production, creative or development leaders as a peer.
• Track record leading large multidisciplinary programs across web, digital, creative and content.
• Strong budgeting, forecasting and burn tracking across fixed‑fee, retainer, or time‑and‑materials work.
• Comfortable leading change and building inside a model that is still forming.
• Exceptional communication skills with internal and client meetings; C‑level presentations.
• Proficiency with Asana, Harvest, Google Workspace, Slack.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop the project management team with clear expectations by level.
• Set up complex, multidisciplinary engagements with defined plans and sequencing.
• Own PM capacity and workload, including weekly capacity reviews.
• Run the operating cadence, standards, and systems for delivery.
• Partner with Sales, Engagement Directors and Creative Services on delivery and pricing.
• Protect quality and manage risk with early identification of scope changes and delays.
• Stay close to the work, leading select high‑visibility engagements as needed.

Skills

Project management

Team leadership

Agile methods

Stakeholder mgmt

Asana

Harvest

Budgeting

Forecasting

Education

Bachelor's degree or equiv

Tools

Asana

Harvest

Google Workspace

Slack

Job description

About Social Driver:

Social Driver is a modern communications agency that turns big ambitions into breakthrough results. Since 2011, we’ve brought together strategists, creatives, and technical experts who work across nonprofits, associations, B2B, healthcare, technology, influence, and highly regulated industries. We build long-term partnerships and help organizations understand potential and unlock what’s next, whether it’s creating something new or re-envisioning what’s already there.

About this Position:

The Director of Project Management leads Social Driver's project management practice within Client Engagement. Reporting to the Vice President, Client Engagement, this leader manages our team of project managers and our PM Administrator across a book of roughly 100 active clients. They are the delivery-side peer to our Directors of Engagement and to the leaders of our production teams in Creative Services.

This is a build role. Client Engagement is moving from individually managed client work toward a more team-based, flexible, and scalable way of delivering, and parts of that model are still being defined. The Director will help shape it, then make it run: how complex, multidisciplinary work is set up from the start, how work is sequenced across departments, how PM capacity is planned and shared, and the standards every project is held to.

Day to day, the Director runs the delivery side of our cross-functional operating cadence, so clients experience one Social Driver: clear plans, predictable timelines, early warning on risk, and fast responses. They partner closely with Sales on the move from contract to kickoff, with Directors of Engagement on client priorities, and with Creative Services leadership on capacity, resourcing, and timing.

The right person has led a team of project managers at an integrated agency. They built the cadence and standards themselves rather than inheriting them, and they have negotiated capacity and priorities with production leaders as a peer. They are energized by building inside a model that is still forming. This is a practice-leadership role: the Director stays close to the work and leads select complex engagements directly, but their primary job is making the team and the system work while ensuring operational consistency.

Objectives & Responsibilities:

Lead and develop the project management team

• Manage, mentor, and develop project managers at every level and the PM Administrator, building a culture of ownership, collaboration, and accountability.
• Set clear expectations by level: reliable delivery at volume for a Project Manager, owning an account end to end for a Senior PM, and sound judgment under real ambiguity for a Principal PM. Use them for feedback, growth plans, and promotion recommendations.
• Recruit, onboard, and retain strong PMs, and make delivery a career with its own path.
• Advocate for the team's needs, including staffing, tools, training, recognition and professional development.

Set up and orchestrate complex work

• Own how complex, multidisciplinary engagements are set up from the start: the plan, the roles, the sequencing across departments, and what has to be true for commitments to hold.
• Set cross-department sequencing standards with production leaders, and resolve conflicts with the relevant production leader when a PM and a production team can't agree on the order of work.
• Make sure every project and retainer runs from a clear plan tied to the client's goals and to the documented direction set by the Director of Engagement where one is assigned.
• Serve as the escalation point for delivery issues, bringing in the Director of Engagement or the VP when client direction or the relationship is at stake.

Own PM capacity and workload

• Own PM assignment and capacity: who runs which account, at what level, and when to rebalance.
• Run a weekly capacity review of what the book demands against what the team can carry. Turn over-allocation into decisions (what moves, what waits, what we won't take on) rather than silent absorption.
• Partner with Creative Services leadership on capacity, resourcing and timing across delivery, and help shape how project management and production allocation work together as our model matures.
• Build a blended staffing model: a full-time core plus contract and freelance PM support for surge, leave coverage, and specialist needs.
• Make sure every account has a primary and a backup, with coverage plans for PTO, leave, and unexpected absences.

Run the operating cadence, standards, and systems

• Run the delivery side of our daily cross-functional portfolio cadence, so client priorities, risks, and staffing needs surface early and leave with an owner and a next step.
• Own the shared PM inbox and its response-time standards, so clients get speed and predictability without depending on any one person.
• Own PM standards and playbooks: project setup, kickoffs, timelines, status reporting (including client sentiment), retrospectives, and close‑out.
• Strengthen our existing tools and shared records (Asana, Harvest, Google Workspace, Slack) rather than building parallel workflows, and lead the PM Administrator in keeping them accurate.
• Use data on budget burn, utilization, on‑time delivery, and escalation trends to improve how the team plans and delivers.

Partner on sales, scope, and finance

• Partner with Sales on the move from contract to kickoff, confirming work is ready before it starts: deliverables named, a start window agreed, client inputs and approvers identified, budget approved, and a PM with room assigned.
• Give Sales and Directors of Engagement the delivery picture (burn, scope history, capacity and risk) for renewals, change orders and next phases. Sales owns the commercial conversation.
• Make sure out‑of‑scope requests are named when they arrive and routed the right way, not quietly absorbed.
• Partner with Finance on forecasting, month‑end time and budget reviews, and margin visibility.

Protect quality and manage risk

• Monitor project health and act early on scope growth, repeated revisions, slipping dates, and budget burn.
• Make sure work completes internal review and quality control before it reaches a client, and hold it back when it isn't ready.
• Turn recurring delivery problems into better process, training, and accountability.

Stay close to the work

• Lead select complex or high‑visibility engagements directly, chosen deliberately, and provide hands‑on coverage when needed, without carrying a book that pulls focus from leading the practice.

How This Role Works With Others

• Vice President, Client Engagement: sets department direction, standards, and priorities. The Director leads the PM practice within it, with delegated authority over PM assignment, PM standards, and day‑to‑day delivery leadership.
• Directors of Engagement: owns client strategy and the client relationship on their accounts. The Director of PM owns delivery and PM assignment, and the two set priorities together at the weekly capacity review.
• Creative Services: owns craft, production teams, and their output. The Director of PM is the delivery‑side peer to production leaders on capacity, sequencing, and timelines.
• Sales: owns proposals, pricing, contracts and renewals. The Director of PM provides delivery input and confirms work is ready before it starts.

What Success Looks Like

In the first six months:

• Leading the PM team directly, with regular 1:1s, growth plans, and clear expectations by level in place.
• The weekly capacity review running under the Director, with a workload benchmark for PMs set from real data.
• Delivery escalations routing to the Director rather than the VP.
• A readiness check with Sales in place for new work.
• The shared PM inbox meeting its response standard.
• A coverage and flex staffing plan in place for leave and surge.

Over time:

• Consistent on‑time, on‑budget delivery, with risks visible early.
• Fewer preventable escalations.
• PMs who grow and stay.
• A delivery model that scales without depending on any one person.

Requirements:

• 7+ years of project management experience in a digital, marketing, or communications agency, or a similar client‑service environment.
• 3+ years leading a team of project managers, ideally five or more, including hiring, development, and performance management.
• Has built a PM cadence, standards, or operating model, not only run one they inherited.
• Has negotiated capacity, priorities and timelines with production, creative or development leaders as a peer.
• A track record leading large, multidisciplinary programs across web and digital, creative, content, social, paid media and communications.
• Strong command of resourcing, budgeting, forecasting and burn tracking across fixed‑fee, retainer and time‑and‑materials work.
• Comfortable leading change and building inside a model that is still forming.
• Exceptional communication skills, including leading internal and client meetings and presenting to C‑level audiences.
• Strong emotional intelligence and skill navigating complex team dynamics.
• Proficiency with Asana, Harvest, Google Workspace, Slack, and Excel.
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred

• PMP or similar certification.
• Website development experience on WordPress, Drupal, or similar platforms.
• Experience running blended staffing models with contractors and freelancers.
• Experience with nonprofit, association, advocacy, or mission‑driven clients.
• Comfort using AI tools to streamline planning, reporting, and documentation.

Benefits:

We take pride in our culture and offer a competitive salary with great benefits, like flexible PTO, 401k, continuing education, phone reimbursement, medical, dental, and vision, short‑term/long‑term disability, a bike‑share membership, flexible work schedules including "Fast Lane" and "No Meeting Fridays", and great colleagues.

Commitment to DEI:

Social Driver is committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in hiring, marketing, programming, and in all other aspects of the work we do. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are deeply connected to our mission, our success, and our culture.