Creative Operations Lead

Creative Operations Lead

Department: Creative & Operations
Location: London
Contact type: Temp to Perm
Full Time/Part time: Full-Time 12-Month Fixed Term Contract, Initially
Reporting into: Chief ECD & Chief Production Officer

About Ogilvy: 

Ogilvy UK has been creating iconic ideas that deliver impact at scale for clients ever since David Ogilvy founded the company in 1948. Ogilvy UK specialises in bringing together brand advertising, customer experience marketing, PR, influence and consulting, all fuelled by Behavioural Science. Our world-class award-winning creative campaigns deliver solutions for clients including Molson Coors (owner of Madrí beer), Valeo Foods UK (owner of Kettle Chips and Rowse Honey), Argos, Mondelēz International, Unilever, TK Maxx and Pernod Ricard.  

In 2023, Ogilvy UK celebrated their 75th anniversary and was the most awarded agency in Europe. Ogilvy is home to the largest influencer marketing practice globally, and hosts the world’s biggest festival of behavioural science and creativity, Nudgestock – now in its 12th year. 

The Role:

As we continue to drive and grow our operations function within Ogilvy, we are seeking a talented and experienced Creative Operations Lead to join our team with a focus on our creative projects integration, management and output. You will drive creative excellence and optimise our ways of working alongside our creative leaders and delivery directors, with a focus on efficiency and innovation – a unifying Lead to shape & organise the team for the future.

In this pivotal leadership role, you will maintain a birds eye view on all creative and design resource, planning & teams allocation, across the agency. You will specifically work in close partnership with the team of Senior Resource Managers and the ECD’s, Studio Management & Producer, and other stakeholders to ensure we deliver exceptional work through the effective deployment of our creatives via careful planning & talent allocation.

You’ll play a crucial role in aligning creative resource with business needs—balancing the big picture deliverables with the day-to-day, across many different projects & creative demands. You will work closely with the various Ops Leads, who deliver on our overarching creative agenda and vision for clients, by tracking the creative projects. The role will be responsible for driving and implementing best in class operational thinking and ways of working across the entire business, looking at streamlining workflows, increasing collaboration across departments, and ensuring all teams are well utilised.

You will work holistically across agency teams & clients, bringing together all capabilities and working with the team to ensure effective cross discipline casting and resourcing in the arena of creative project management. Also thinking about future facing skills and capabilities to deliver growth, setting our roadmap to ensure we’re attracting best in market talent to other creative, delivery & ops roles.

Focus on Creative Operations: 

• Operational optimisation through management of creative teams & workload, and a focus on scheduling, efficiency and ways of working.
• Improving the Workflow process; efficient streamlining whilst maintaining the highest quality output & asset delivery.
• Effective cross discipline casting & resourcing across the agency, including managing short term resource needs & hiring new staff where needed
• Resource Management including systems/process/team growth.
• Future facing skills and capabilities. What do we need to deliver growth, including driving AI strategy & roadmap.
• Talent retention – do we have the right people on the right projects
  
  

Responsibilities:

• Working with the Leadership teams on the overarching strategies for Ogilvy ensuring the work entering the department aligns to the strategy.
• Overseeing all aspects of our creative process and driving efficiency throughout.
• Monitoring utilisation across the departments to ensure effective use of talent and look at ways to improve and impact.
• Supporting the growth and development of the creative & resourceing teams.
• Collaboration with the people team to establish and maintain a trusting, inclusive, and productive environment for employees and new starters.
• Increase and streamline collaboration across the creative community.
• Forecasting the needs and skill sets of the creative department in quarterly/yearly requirements based on commercials and output.

Requirements:

• Proven experience in a Creative operations or management role, sometimes called traffic or triage, leadership services, working alongside senior creatives across the industry.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across departments and levels of the organisation.
• A can-do attitude who can always find a solution with a firm but fair approach and be the backbone of the departments.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to develop and execute complex plans in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
• Knowledge of industry best practices and emerging trends in creative operations and broader project management.
• A passion for creativity, innovation, and delivery of great work.
• Able to work across multiple workstreams at pace and scale.
• Excellent organisational and communication skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively and build relationships with a diverse range of people.
• Experience working within the creative industry (advertising, marketing, design etc.).
• Knowlegde of the industry trends and the latest who’s who of the creative world.
• Passion for creative services in advertising
  
  

How we help you Thrive:

• 25 days annual leave + 1 Volunteer Day 
• Bupa Healthcare
• Enhanced Maternity, Adoption and Shared Parental Leave
• We have a Flexible Working Model with core working hours: 10am – 4pm
• A 1.5:1 Matching Pension Structure
• Wellbeing and Health: Up to £25.00 per month towards physical or online exercise class membership, Unmind membership, LifeWorks tool and annual eye tests and development budgets and Wellbeing incentives and activities throughout the year. 
• Season Ticket Loan and Cycle to Work Scheme
• Life Assurance

Our ambition is to attract the very best diverse talent to Ogilvy, and to be the employer of choice in the UK. We want everyone to feel welcome when they join us, and once they’re here, for them to want to stay with us, grow their career, and to feel they belong with us.

We are an equal opportunity employer and we’re committed to creating an inclusive, welcoming environment for everyone who wants to work at Ogilvy. For us, diversity, equity and inclusion is integrated into everything that we do. We believe that for creativity to flourish, everything about how we work must have diversity at its core. Your race, colour, ethnic, religion, gender, gender identity, national origin, sexual orientation, age, marital status, disability, have no bearing on our hiring decisions, but we encourage everyone to feel free to express their true selves in an environment we are consistently striving to make as inclusive as possible.

We aim to facilitate an accessible and positive application experience for all candidates. If you require any adjustments from us to support you through the process or expect to require any adjustments to working conditions to be able to best perform in the role, please let us know. We are happy to consider all reasonable adjustments.

If you live with a disability and you would like to take advantage of our offer of a guaranteed interview under the Disability Confident Scheme, please ensure you fill out our voluntary Equal Opportunities Questionnaire when applying.