Senior Project Manager

The Senior Project Manager serves as the process steward to lead agency teams by managing all projects from a process and accountability standpoint. You will own the discipline of planning, organizing and managing resources to successfully complete specific project goals and objectives. You instill confidence in the team’s ability to bring great work to life by being process oriented, having a problem-solving approach and by being an expert in the fundamentals of Project Management and Integrated Production. This discipline requires being naturally curious and thinking one step ahead to establish an environment for team success. We expect collaboration without regard to ownership, department or hierarchy.

General note: this account is for an important client in the financial sector, with workloads straddling two offices. A critical component to success in this role will be creating synergy with ways of working, resources and processes within the Havas network.

We are open to candidates in both New York City & Chicago

What you’ll do:

• Manage the day-to-day project and program activity
• Show an eagerness to plan, manage and bring projects to life during the full project lifecycle
• Champion processes and workflows within teams, finding operational and production efficiencies whenever possible
• Monitor, optimize and partner with Agency Leads on resource allocations, bandwidth and opportunities to maximize utilization across teams
• Ensure the best practices and standards are understood and followed throughout the project and apply lesson learned from previous projects
• Nexus of communication/information for the team. This role proactively helps close knowledge gaps, demonstrates strong communication, listening and presentation skills across multidisciplinary audiences and can learn from and/or distribute constructive feedback with ease
• Be a taskmaster mastermind; able to articulate task status and progress daily via hotsheets, status reports, morning stand ups and/or to other agency partners
• Able to prioritize tasks, workflows and deliverables for the team, with the capability of breaking down large asks into smaller assignments (and delegating accordingly)
• Own financial estimating, forecasting and tracking in partnership with Account Lead
• Responsible for tracking margin/burn rate and fee/hours reconciliation at project level and making necessary adjustments
• Leverage project management tools (Workfront, Monday.com and Google Docs) to support effective and efficient project delivery
• Manage multiple integrated, multi-track projects simultaneously and investigate/understand project priorities in the context of agency and client expectations
• Assess and manager risk within, and across multiple projects and bring solutions to resolve roadblocks
• Coach, manage and mentor 1 junior project manager direct report

What we need:

• Someone who is passionate about advertising and the latest advancements in the industry
• A minimum of 5-7 years project management experience in an agency and/or production firm
• Solid understanding of creative and production processes, with experience and interest in leading large, integrated campaign projects
• Ability to demonstrate maturity when dealing with difficult team situations and delivering constructive feedback
• May serve as point person for mid-level clients on occasion, managing flow of complex project information and responding appropriately to client concerns (as needed)
• Solutions sage who is empowered to bring forth fixes to optimize the process and procedures between agency and client
• Multitasker extraordinaire; you are excellent and comfortable at collaborating and multitasking in a fast-paced environment
• Highly organized, meticulous attention to detail and a solutions-oriented problem solver
• Critical thinker; you have the ability to foresee and plan for potential bottlenecks before they become issues
• Pricing wizard; you have mastered the craft of developing scopes and staff plans and are superb at holding the team accountable to deliverables and timelines
• Proactive approach with ability to meet deadlines
• Enthusiastic, flexible and adaptive to change
• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Must be able to manage and maintain all operational tools