Walker and Sloan are proud to be working with a fully integrated marketing agency in Birmingham, as they are keen to bring on board a Project Manager to the team on a full-time basis.
The Role:
As a Project Manager, you will be responsible for a selection of the agencies accounts, of various sizes, handling multiple projects to ensure consistency and quality of delivery. Managing the campaigns from the start to finish, you will umbrella the whole project working closely with all disciplines and agency partners. You will be client facing, with ownership and responsibility for timings, scope of work, staffing plans, budgets and logistics, becoming the trusted face of delivery. You will refine process, become the backbone of every project and be the client operations expert on every account.
The day-to-day stuff:
- Lead forward planning, holding regular status meetings with your account teams to keep communication open. To update relevant workflow documentation
- To set up and run ignition meetings at the beginning of every project, ensuring all are clear on the agreed actions/plan discussed
- Partner closely with Account Handling and discipline leads to manage client scope of works, across multiple channels, managing multiple agency partners
- To produce fee estimates together with a scope of work document, gaining the relevant approvals before starting the work and to continually track project burn rates by client, tracking project progress, flagging any concerns with the relevant team
- Track and report incremental scope opportunities
- Producing (and following) accurate timing plans, which should be agreed with all parties
- Working closely with the Project Director, Creative Services Director, ECD and Studio Mgr to define and book resource, having a viewpoint of the skill sets required for the project and what is required from the team
- Scheduling and attending all creative review meetings, facilitating attendance of key stakeholders and ensuring the meetings start and finish on time with clear deliverables
- Hold regular catch ups with the Account Management team to monitor and control the creative and production workflow on your account(s)
- Working closely will all producers to ensure they see the work prior to client presentation and have the opportunity to comment and raise any concerns
- This is a client facing role, so attending production meetings and where necessary client presentations is required
- Ensuring client expectations are set and met appropriately and fed through the account team structure
- An advocate for all internal processes
- Ensuring the right people are involved at each key stages of the project
- Work with all other Project Managers within the team to ensure you are aware of all live projects going through and work with the team to plan and prioritise accordingly
People Management:
- To be the calming and motivating influence in the team
- Use knowledge of individuals strengths to ensure effective teamwork
- Make sure effective agreements are reached quickly and with minimum disruption to the workflow when disruptions and conflict arises
- Communicating project changes quickly and clearly, making sure he/she is always understood by all project participants
- Apply strong written and verbal communication
- The go-to person/lynch pin of the project
Budget Control/Financial Management:
- To produce fee estimates together with a scope of work document, gaining the relevant approvals before starting the work
- Ensure the creative teams know how much time they have on a project and keep communication high if the time is not enough, or if we are starting to go over – pre warn on a project, do not wait until the time is spent and we cannot do anything about it
- Attend weekly financial meetings with the relevant financial controller/account team to review financial status on live projects
- Accurate estimating and management of client approvals
- Issuing of purchase orders to suppliers and checking against purchase invoices
- Reconciliation of every project on completion
What you need to have under your belt:
Required key skills:
- Ability to contribute to the development and execution of creative work
- Proactive with a ‘can do’ attitude and solution focused
- Well organised and efficient
- Forward thinking and practical
- An enthusiastic team player with the energy to take responsibility for the core team
- Strong Project / Program Management
- The ability to anticipate and proactively manage projects
- Planning and process optimization
- Knowledge of both online and offline production
- Ability to work with external agency partners
- Willingness to learn and develop with the core team
- Strong financial control
Experience and Knowledge:
- Client facing experience in both management and delivery of a wide range of projects, across multiple channels
- Demonstrable experience in delivering projects to quality, on time and on budget
- Interest and appreciation of world class creative output
- Strong negotiation skills with ability to control and report on costs and budgets
- Good verbal and written communication skills, ability to influence, negotiate and solve problems at all levels and stages of a project
- Demonstrate a solid track record of managing & mentoring more junior project managers within an agency environment
- Previous experience in an agency environment
Benefits:
In addition to a competitive salary we are committed to creating a brilliant environment for all our people. This includes benefits such as 28 days holiday, plus the opportunity to buy more holiday, enhanced pension contributions, life assurance and much more.
