Freelance Associate Director, Project Management

VSA Partners is a design-driven branding and marketing company.

VSA was founded as a design firm more than 30 years ago with the belief that design is not only a craft, but a tool for achieving business objectives. As design thinkers, we approach business challenges holistically and aim to break down silos between branding, digital, marketing and advertising.

The Freelance Associate Director of Project Management is responsible for leading all aspects of multiple projects at a time across multiple clients. They are charged with the overall health of the projects, including financials, resources, risks, and relationships.

VSA Partners is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive, equitable environment for all employees. All employment decisions are made based on qualifications, merit and business need.

The Freelance Associate Director of Project Management is expected to:

Project Delivery Management

• Manage projects of $1M+ in revenue.
• Interface heavily with senior marketing, technical, and executive management at the client to ensure the solution is understood and address the customer’s business requirements.
• Deliver accurate financial management of assigned clients and improved client margins.
• Contribute to all client SOWs to ensure deliverable and financial accuracy.
• Raise and maintain awareness to identify and drive solutions to issues and risks across projects and clients.
• Optimize team utilization, working with leads across all disciplines at the assigned clients.
• Ensure the project managers are handling essential functions, including but not limited to scheduling and facilitating project-related team meetings (kickoffs, status, internal/client reviews, and project sunset reviews, etc.), communicating action steps to the team, and driving the project to successful completion.
• Contribute content and presentation of key client deliverables as needed to ensure relevancy, strategy, quality, and timeliness.
• Establish relationships with key client team members within projects; act as a secondary client point of contact (CE is primary).
• Interface heavily with senior marketing, technical, and executive management at the client to ensure the solution is understood and address the customer’s business requirements.
• Lead and contribute to process development, knowledge sharing, and overall Project Management practice success.

People Management

• Ensure team in accordance with VSA policies, including:
• Planning, assigning and directing work
• Onboarding new employees
• Working with direct reports to ensure performance expectations are set
• Providing direction and feedback via biweekly check-ins
• Fostering and mentoring employees’ ongoing skill and career development
• Conducting quarterly and annual performance reviews, recognizing good performance, and addressing performance issues

Additional responsibilities as assigned

The Freelance Associate Director of Project Management has the following education, experience, and licenses:

• 7+ or more years of experience leading marketing, design, or digital projects throughout the full life cycle, preferably in a consulting or agency environment.
• Bachelor’s degree in business administration with a concentration in project management, marketing, or related field; direct report management experience in a project management setting is a plus.
• Extensive expertise in the use of project management methodologies and tools.
• Consistent track record of leading small-/medium-scale clients, including budgets, scheduling, and resource planning.
• Experience with agile methodologies (scrum is a plus) and exploring alternative approaches to waterfall.

To succeed, they must have the following skills, abilities, and knowledge:

• Strong analytical, process flow, problem-solving, communication, customer relationship, organization, project management, system thinking, and conflict resolution skills.
• Has a deep understanding of the client’s business, needs, expectations, and requirements.
• Extensive understanding of project management methodologies, including the ability to identify and resolve issues, mitigate risk, develop detailed project plans and specifications, develop and oversee staffing plans, and lead the team to successful completion.
• Skills in complex problem solving, judgment, critical thinking, creative solution development, and decision making.
• Strong digital literacy in MS Office/Google Suite (particularly Excel/Sheets), email, project and team communication software (e.g., Smartsheet, Jira, Slack, DoneDone).
• Ability to interact at all levels of the company and with external parties in a professional manner, maintaining effective communication—both written and spoken.
• Ability to manage staff members is a plus.
• Ability to be highly organized, accurate, and timely; able to prioritize.
• Adaptability, flexibility, persistence, versatility, and the ability to handle multiple projects and changing priorities.
• Ability to organize information, pay attention to detail, accurately follow procedures, take detailed notes, maintain confidential information, and remember important pieces of information.
• Ability to maintain self-motivation and to work independently and in collaborative environments.

Additional information:

• Some evenings and weekend work may occasionally be required to meet deadlines.