Project Manager

Branigan; Milwaukee (WI); Hybrid; USD 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) match

Profit sharing

Educational savings plan

Work-from-home Fridays

Flexible schedule

Wellness program

Job summary

Branigan Inc. in Milwaukee seeks a Project Manager, Account Service to plan, coordinate, and deliver client projects from initiation through closeout.

This role serves as the primary coordinator among clients, account service, creative, and external partners, translating approved scope into actionable workplans. The Project Manager ensures projects stay on time, within scope, and meet Branigan’s quality standards while applying strong financial acumen to support profitable engagements.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, business, project management, or related field.
• 5–7 years of project management, traffic, or related experience; agency experience preferred.
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent client projects with priorities and deadlines.
• Experience with project budgets, estimates, time tracking, billing, and profitability monitoring.
• Proficiency with project-management tools; Smartsheet preferred.

Responsibilities

• Lead project initiation and kickoff with clients and internal teams to define objectives, deliverables, roles, assumptions, milestones, and success criteria.
• Develop and maintain detailed project plans with activities, deliverables, milestones, due dates, and keep engagements on track.
• Coordinate assignments, priorities, and handoffs across account service, creative, strategy, production, and external partners.
• Monitor daily progress, identify schedule or resource conflicts, and adjust plans to keep work on track.
• Facilitate project status meetings; prepare status reports, meeting notes, decisions, and action items; maintain accurate project records in agency systems.
• Track budgets, staff time, expenses, billing readiness, and project profitability; flag and report variances and recommend corrective action.
• Prepare project estimates and support statements of work; document approvals and manage scope, schedule, and budget changes through a clear change-control process.
• Proactively identify, communicate, and resolve project risks, issues, and roadblocks; proactively escape concerns when appropriate.
• Coordinate internal reviews, client approvals, and quality-control checkpoints to confirm deliverables are accurate, complete, and aligned with the approved brief and scope.
• Coordinate vendor and freelance partners, including schedules, deliverables, estimates, and approvals, when applicable.
• Close projects by confirming final deliverables and billing, organizing project files, and capturing lessons learned to improve future work.
• Follow agency processes and contribute ideas that improve workflow, forecasting, communication, and project delivery.

Skills

Budgeting & profitability

Client communication

Meeting facilitation

Education

Bachelor's degree in marketing, communications, business, project management, or related field

Tools

Smartsheet

Job description

Branigan Inc., an independent creative marketing agency in Milwaukee, is looking for a Project Manager, to support its clients and new business goals.

The Project Manager, Account Service is responsible for planning, coordinating, and delivering client projects from initiation through closeout. This role serves as the primary point of coordination among clients, account service, creative, and other internal or external partners, translating approved scope into actionable workplans. The Project Manager ensures projects are completed on time, within scope, and to Branigan’s quality standards, while applying strong financial acumen to support profitable client engagements.

Branigan operates on the concept of self-governance and the first principles that inspired America’s founders. We stress the importance of self-discipline, personal responsibility, humility and a great sense of humor in our culture.

Project Manager, responsibilities include but are not limited to the following:

Responsibilities

• Lead project initiation and kickoff, working with clients and internal teams to translate goals into clear objectives, deliverables, roles, assumptions, milestones, and success criteria.


• Develop and maintain detailed project plans, including activities, deliverables, milestones, due dates, and keep engagements on track.


• Coordinate assignments, priorities, and handoffs across account service, creative, strategy, production, and external partners.


• Monitor daily progress, identify schedule or resource conflicts, and adjust plans as priorities shift to keep work on track.


• Facilitate project status meetings and check-ins; prepare status reports, meeting notes, decisions, and action items; maintain accurate project records in agency systems.


• Track budgets, staff time, expenses, billing readiness, and project profitability; flag and report variances and recommend corrective action.


• Prepare project estimates and support statements of work; document approvals and manage scope, schedule, and budget changes through a clear change-control process.


• Proactively identify, communicate, and resolve project risks, issues, and roadblocks; proactively escape concerns when appropriate.


• Coordinate internal reviews, client approvals, and quality-control checkpoints to confirm deliverables are accurate, complete, and aligned with the approved brief and scope.


• Coordinate vendor and freelance partners, including schedules, deliverables, estimates, and approvals, when applicable.


• Close projects by confirming final deliverables and billing, organizing project files, and capturing lessons learned to improve future work.


• Follow agency processes and contribute ideas that improve workflow, forecasting, communication, and project delivery.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in marketing, communications, business, project management, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and relevant experience.


• Five to seven years of project management, traffic, or related experience; agency experience preferred.


• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple concurrent client projects, priorities, deadlines, and stakeholders.


• Strong working knowledge of project budgets, estimates, time tracking, billing, and profitability monitoring.


• Proficiency with project-management and collaboration tools; experience with Smartsheet preferred.


• Strong organizational, planning, problem-solving, and attention-to-detail skills.


• Clear, professional written and verbal communication, meeting-facilitation, and client-service skills.


• Ability to anticipate risks, exercise sound judgment, adapt to changing priorities, and elevate issues appropriately.


• Ability to collaborate effectively in a dynamic, nimble, team-oriented environment.

Compensation and Benefits

We offer other good stuff, too: competitive salaries, company-sponsored health insurance, 401(k) match, profit sharing, educational savings plan, mobile phone reimbursement, work-from-home Fridays, compressed work week, flexibility, paid maternity/paternity leave, a new business incentive program and more.

In addition to benefits, Branigan has built a fun company culture that includes team-building activities. We also facilitate a comprehensive wellness program.