DEPT: Project & Resource Management Management

REPORTS TO: Head of Operations / Director of Project Management

Who We Are:

We are a fiercely entrepreneurial ad agency that blends creativity and performance to build great brands. We call this approach Soul + Science. With offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Seattle, we serve as collaborative business partners to some of the world’s best brands including Ben & Jerry’s, Jose Cuervo, Alaska Airlines, Charles Schwab and OkCupid, among others.

Being a Mekanista requires a rare combination of being a weird, fearless and wonderful person who enjoys birthday cakes, well behaved dogs, and shared sensibility of respect and not taking ourselves too seriously.

Mekanism has been named to Ad Age’s A-List and twice to their Best Places to Work list. Most recently, Mekanism was named Independent Agency of the Year by The Drum and a Top 10 Most Effective Independent Agency in the US by the Effie Index. We have been profiled by The New York Times, Fast Company and ABC’s Nightline. Our campaign methodologies are studied by Harvard Business School.

Pay Range: $85,000 - $95,000

The Senior Project Manager

The Senior Project Manager is a curious and inquisitive learner; someone with a project-management brain, a knowledge of integrated advertising tactics and a desire to facilitate great creative work. As a result, they wear many hats. 

They have 5+ years of experience as a project manager in an advertising agency or similar industry. They are strong leaders and creative problem solvers whose project management expertise allows them to manage all aspects of the project life cycle from concept to delivery moving projects through creative teams and internal reviewers. They will identify the need or opportunity to involve other internal agency departments at the optimal time including finance, creative management, brand management, strategy, media, social, data analytics, and production.  

They are the internal hub of communication, the creatives’ rock and the brand manager’s best friend: ensure everyone is clear on assignments, workload is manageable, calendars make sense, hours are being billed to the correct job, a general solver-of-problems.

They maintain in understanding of a project’s ever-evolving needs, while keeping it on time and of the highest quality. They are a strong financial supporter who is committed to tracking projects, hours, and raising red flags as needed. 

They should be interested in process, operations, system tools and have a desire to continue finding and developing improvement and efficiencies in the system. 

Key Areas of Responsibility:

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• The hub of information for all things related to creative development for the brand/project; they should be in the know on everything 

• Partner with BM to liaise between depts, ensuring information, feedback, and documents are routed to the appropriate people
• Own PM system entry and maintenance 
• Own daily or weekly hotlist and internal status meetings (as needed)
• Proactively identify potential efficiencies and/or issues i.e. efficient use of creative time, bandwidth issues, scheduling conflicts, brief clarity, oos deliverables, etc.
• Secure and assign creative resources/allocation for all projects on their assigned brand(s)
• Production supporter: ensure production is brought into creative dev at the right time, create/manage holistic project schedules that allow for proper production time, initiate and schedule production kickoff meeting, ensure creatives are able to meet prod. schedule requirements from a resource standpoint
• Financial supporter: Proactively manages to creative development budgets / scopes
• Coordinate freelance needs for creative development (i.e. creative freelancers / storyboard artists / presentation needs) 
• Be the creatives’ rock: ensure they are clear on assignments, workload is manageable, calendars make sense, a general solver of creatives’ problems
• Create project folder & maintain up-to-date server organization/ asset management during creative development 
• Own creation of project timelines - work with all depts to get alignment and signoff prior to project start
• Schedule and attend internal meetings related to creative development (creative briefing, creative reviews, full team reviews, etc.) 
• Own notes and identify feedback and next steps for all internal team meetings in creative development 
• Lends a hand with office management duties if needed (shares responsibilities such as: help coordinate food/drink for guests/clients as needed, liaise with IT as needed)  

Qualifications:

• At least 5 years of Project Management (or similar) experience
• Embody Mekanism values (loyal, weird, realistic, fearless, optimistic, storyteller)
• Be a team player, ability to effectively play nice with others 
• Ability to lead multiple brands; solid communication and decision-making skills
• Exceptional organizational skills; able to juggle multiple projects as well as disparate information
• Comfort in working autonomously, while also keeping Head of Operations and PM team abreast of all project’s status
• Agency experience mandatory; experience managing multiple brands highly preferred
• Curious and inquisitive: someone that wants to roll up their sleeves and build something new
• Able to work under tight deadlines and handle multiple tasks in parallel

Joining Mekanism , you are part of the Plus Company. This network of entrepreneurial agencies is designed to collaborate, not compete. It empowers every agency – and every individual – to bring their own unique capabilities together to make magic happen. You will be empowered to take risks, dream big, develop your skills and grow in your career with the full support of the network and all it has to offer.