Director, Creative Operations & Project Management

About The Team

The Customer Experience (Marketing) team works to showcase our brand through the lens of expertise and love. They work to provide a personalized experience for our consumers backed by best-in-class, data-driven marketing capabilities. The Customer Experience team focuses across 4 departments including, Marketing, Creative, Communications, and our Loyalty & CRM team. Everyone brings their own point of view to create a unique experience for the pets and pet parents.

About the Location

Hybrid Position:

This position may be considered Hybrid based on PetSmart’s FlexSmart policy and business needs. A Hybrid work arrangement is considered to be a blend of onsite and remote work activity. Associates with a Hybrid work arrangement have a work space at Phoenix Home Office and can be required to come onsite between 1-5 days a week as determined by leadership and based on business needs.

About The Job

Director, Creative Operations & Project Management

We are a small, fast-paced internal Creative Team who aims to be a highly strategic and innovative group that consistently demonstrates leadership and innovation in our work.

We strive to gain the trust and respect of our business partners through our ability to deliver exceptional results, with a focus on creativity, agility and collaboration.

Our goal is to evolve into a revered in-house resource for our clients, providing them with cutting-edge solutions that ensure exceptional results and leave a lasting impact on their business and our pet parents. We have a vision to ultimately aspire to be a driving force in the industry, setting the standard for excellence and inspiring others to follow our lead.

You lead with passion and energy. You are highly detail and process oriented with the amazing ability to creatively develop, manage and evolve creative operations and processes to enable a creative team to run like a well-oiled machine. You have a solid understanding of the way a creative team and marketing department run and know how to easily deal with the multitude of personalities and challenges.

You have an incredible grasp and expertise in creative operations and project management and vast experience building, mentoring and challenging a team and the creative ops process to be unbelievably efficient and effective. You are innovative, adaptable and motivated to proactively work in a nontraditional way.

You take total responsibility for leading the creative teams to deliver projects on time and on or under budget. You are a master of managing internal and external resources, timelines, documentation, invoicing, owning and managing budgets, reporting, scheduling and general team leadership.

You are quick on your feet and a proactive self-starter. You’re able to juggle multiple projects and people at once. You are a go-getter that recognizes where improvements or changes are continually needed and you don’t wait to be told to fix it, you proactively solve problems, build the best processes and go!

You're a highly collaborative team player and leader who is always coming up with a creative solution to the problems at hand. You love your craft and you’re always looking to do more in new and innovative ways while maintaining high standards and expectations. You are an incredible influencer of others and know how to negotiate for the best possible outcomes that allow the creative team to be ultimately successful on a consistent basis.

You’re a rockstar at delivering direction and motivating others and you are tightly connected to the VP Creative and your fellow Directors in a continual effort to propel the Creative Team vision. You adapt quickly with a positive attitude while leading your teams to do the same. Team and client satisfaction is your north star.

You understand creative strategy and business objectives and you know how to guide others to be just as strategic. You welcome constructive criticism with a growth mindset, always seeking to improve yourself, the team and the work. You are unbelievably reliable and flexible to the situations thrown your way.

You lead by example and jump in to manage projects when needed. You’re an effective, articulate and eloquent communicator who has the confidence to pitch new ideas or open up creative presentations.

You’re always thinking ahead and playing offense, not defense. You have a vast experience of understanding how to build bench strength and anticipate challenges before they become problems. You pinpoint situations in which action is needed and delegation is necessary.

You create work through a strategic and critical thinking filter. You understand strategy while always focusing on pet parents and business needs first and foremost. You are consistent to have your teams deliver more than just ok work—your Creative Ops and Project Mgmt decisions are thoughtful, strategic and always in the best interest of the team and department.

You’re always prepared to articulate the reasons “why” the decisions were made. You proactively troubleshoot, and self-edit to create a curated point of view. You have keen accountability of the work, your team and the ownership of developing and improving our operations and processes.

You are incredibly organized and always on time. You juggle and multi-task with the best of them. You work efficiently in a fast-paced environment with tight deadlines and limited budget. You never sacrifice quality. You are relentless in your ability to create innovative ways for creative teams to meet tight deadlines, you understand and question briefs, and you always seek to understand the ongoing direction coming from leadership.

You’re well-versed with project management software, and you thrive to lead solid processes that allow creative to thrive.

You take total responsibility for leading the creative teams to deliver projects on time and on or under budget. You are a master of managing internal and external resources, timelines, documentation, invoicing, owning and managing budgets, reporting, scheduling and general team leadership.

You’re a highly versatile leader and you have a range of skill sets to show for it. You’re fluent in building teams and processes that support a multitude of platforms and campaigns. You have a general knowledge of the Adobe Creative Suite and can easily navigate MS Office applications on a Mac Platform.

You love pets! You’d do anything for pets and pet parents. You want Petsmart to thrive and you’ll do what it takes with great enthusiasm for the business.

Who do you report to?

VP Creative

Responsibilities

• Lead, coach, grow a small Creative Operations and Project Management team that oversees hundreds of assets per week for in store signage, fixturing, digital emails, web, app, seasonal concepts, photography, videos, campaign initiatives, gift cards, and so much more.
• Influence peers, business partners and VP Creative to follow process and timelines while being cognizant of the ever-shifting priorities in a retail environment.
• Manage all aspects of multiple related projects to ensure the overall program is aligned to and directly supports the achievement of strategic objectives.
• Report on monthly, quarterly and yearly success and improvement metrics for Creative Team. Provide status reporting regarding project milestones, budgets, deliverables, dependencies, risks and issues, communicating all across leadership on a consistent basis.
• Develop scrappy, fast ways of working while maintaining the integrity of the work. Think outside the box. Provide non-traditional solves to age-old problems.
• Work creatively and analytically in a critical thinking, strategic problem-solving environment demonstrating teamwork, innovation and excellence
• Establish & lead continual process evolution to increase productivity while maintaining creative time needed to produce great work.
• Oversee Creative Team Budget: estimates, invoicing, purchase orders, vendor & contractor resourcing, printing for creative initiatives and report on budgets monthly.
• Procure adequate resources to achieve project objectives in planned timeframes. Proactively plan ahead for resource-gap planning and raise red flags well before the team is at capacity.
• Coach Creative Ops & Project Management team to function at the highest level in a consistent and customer service friendly manner.
• Manage project scope and changes working closely with stakeholders to train and ensure strategic alignment on all requests.
• Manage ongoing quality control and participate in issue resolution.
• Set and continually manage project and program expectations while delegating and managing deliverable with team members and stakeholders.
• Provide on-site leadership for teams by building and motivating team members to meet project goals, adhering to their responsibilities and project milestones.
• Provide continual strategic POV in presentations, reviews and meetings.
• Communicate clearly to team, peers, business partners and manager. Be adept at presenting concise executive level messages in a polished and professional manner.
• Owner of Workfront Software upkeep, evolution, revolution, renewals and day to day management of inputs, outputs, upgrades, budget and requirements. Make that software sing! Work to evolve the software as the team and work evolves.
• Continually research and keep in touch with best practices and technology within and outside the organization to establish benchmark data and use continuous process improvement disciplines to achieve results
• Schedule and set meetings according to timelines both for long term and short-term emergency reviews.
• Lead team to align with Creative Team Vision set by VP to be a revered in-house resource for all campaign needs.

Required Skills And Experience

• Bachelor's degree in advertising, marketing or related discipline or equivalent professional experience. Preferred, not mandatory.
• 10+ yrs Creative Operations/Project Management leadership experience at Director level in a creative/marketing environment, including tracking and planning projects required. Experience working with stakeholders/business partners within a cross-functional fast-paced environment required.
• We’re more interested in your experience and if you’re the right fit vs the exact number of years.
• Previous Creative Field experience. Looking for someone that has been at a Director level at a large company. Vast experience working with creative teams a must.
• Proven ability to work in a complicated, fast-paced, sometimes ambiguous environment.
• Proven ability to collaborate across multiple areas in order to achieve a common business objective required.
• Demonstrated experience of building and managing cross-functional creative processes and marketing practices in retail.
• Knowledge of the digital arena, print production, photo, video, conceptual campaign, toolkit, brand guidelines processes.
• Knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite programs.
• MAC proficient and skilled using MS Office applications.
• Must have experience building, directing and managing teams, creating unique processes and projects in a project management software tool such as Workfront, Basecamp, Wrike, Asana, etc. Workfront preferred.

Location: Must reside in the Phoenix area

About The Culture

At PetSmart, we work hard to create a culture where every associate feels like they truly belong and we celebrate the unique stories, backgrounds, and experiences our associates share. These experiences not only bring new perspectives in shaping our Belonging culture but they’re core to PetSmart’s success.

Not sure if you meet 100% of the position requirements and whether you should apply? We’d still like to hear from you and encourage you to apply with us! You just may be the ideal candidate for this role, and if not this one, perhaps another position.

Our home office offers outstanding amenities in a fun and rewarding workplace including:

• Pet friendly environment, bring your pets to work!
• On-site Dog Park
• “Top Dog” gym with equipment, fitness classes, massage therapists and personal trainers
• “Sit & Stay” Café serving fresh breakfast and lunch options
• On-site coffee bar
• “Lil’ Paws” learning center and onsite daycare facility (associate paid)
• Volunteer events with PetSmart Charities
• Learn more about here: https://www.lifeatpetsmart.com... out Associate stories and share in some celebrations at PetSmart: https://www.blog.lifeatpetsmar... PetSmart Benefits here: https://benefits.petsmart.com/... you don't already live in the Phoenix area here's a guide to the area: Welcome to Phoenix Guide