Project Director

Private Company; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Agency is seeking a Project Director with agency experience across luxury clients, ideally some experience in the beauty space. This role combines senior client partnership with hands-on program leadership.

You will serve as the day-to-day point of contact for assigned clients, oversee planning, resourcing, and financial performance, and manage a team of project and program managers. The role emphasizes owning client relationships, guiding program strategy, and maintaining integrity of

Qualifications

• 7–10 years of program or project management experience in an agency environment.
• Must have substantial agency experience and direct ownership of client relationships.
• Experience mentoring PMs or other team members is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Act as the primary day‑to‑day contact for assigned clients and build trusted relationships.
• Lead program status discussions, priorities, and trade‑offs with confidence.
• Translate client goals into internal direction and keep dashboards and reports up to date.
• Identify risks and growth opportunities and present solutions.
• Convert business objectives into work plans, milestones and KPIs.
• Coordinate workflows across strategy, creative, and media for launches and campaigns.
• Oversee structured reviews, approvals, and ensure clear decisions.
• Manage, coach, and develop the PM team and assist in hiring and growth planning.

Skills

Client management

Stakeholder communication

Brand sensibility

Leadership

Job description

Digital Agency is seeking a Project Director with agency experience across luxury clients, ideally some experience in the beauty space. This role combines senior client partnership with hands‑on program leadership. You will serve as the day‑to‑day point of contact for assigned clients, oversee planning, resourcing, and financial performance, and manage a team of project and program managers.

Key Responsibilities

Client Partnership

• Act as the primary day‑to‑day contact for assigned clients, building direct, trusted relationships with their stakeholders.
• Lead conversations on program status, priorities, and trade‑offs, with the confidence to deliver both good news and difficult news.
• Translate client goals and feedback into clear internal direction, and represent the agency’s perspective with conviction.
• Identify risks, blockers, and growth opportunities early, and present solutions alongside them.
• Convert business objectives into work plans, briefs, milestones, and KPIs.
• Coordinate integrated workflows across strategy, creative, and media for launches, seasonal campaigns, and property or brand marketing programs.
• Run structured reviews and approval cadences so that decisions are always clear.
• Maintain dashboards, documentation, and reporting as the single source of truth for clients and internal teams.

Team Management

• Manage, coach, and develop project and program managers, setting clear expectations and standards.
• Assign PMs to accounts based on skills, experience, and capacity.
• Review PM work for quality, consistency, and margin health, and support escalations as needed.
• Contribute to hiring, onboarding, performance reviews, and growth planning for the PM team.
• Develop shared templates and best practices to keep programs consistent.

Resourcing & Operations

• Schedule and resource creative work across internal staff and freelance vendors.
• Maintain accurate resourcing, task, and deliverable status in Workfront.
• Own budgets, SOWs, forecasts, and margin performance for your programs, and oversee the same across your PMs’ accounts.
• Partner with Finance, Resource Management, and Account Leads to optimize staffing and keep burn predictable.
• Continuously improve workflows and processes to reduce cycle time and rework.

Measures of Success

• Clients view you as a single, reliable owner who anticipates their needs.
• PMs are supported, accountable, and developing in their roles.
• Teams work with clear priorities, sustainable capacity, and efficient handoffs.
• Programs show reduced rework, faster cycle times, and controlled delivery costs.
• Accounts grow through disciplined scope management and earned client trust.

Experience

• 7 to 10 years of program or project management experience. MUST have substantial agency experience.
• Experience managing or mentoring PMs or other team members, formally or informally.
• Demonstrated history of owning client relationships directly rather than executing against a brief handed down by others.

Skills

Client & Stakeholder Management

• Confident, clear communication with senior client and internal stakeholders
• Strong sense of brand, taste, and consumer audience
• Comfort navigating trade‑offs and difficult conversations

Program & Delivery

• End-to-end management of integrated marketing programs
• Ability to turn ambiguous objectives into clear, executable plans
• Experience coordinating external vendors and cross-agency partners
• Budget, forecast, and profitability management
• Resourcing across internal creative teams and freelancers
• Process and template development

Leadership

• Coaching, mentoring, and performance management
• Ability to set standards and hold a team accountable