What are the responsibilities and job description for the Director of Resource Operations position at Iris?
Location: Atlanta or NYC
Hybrid: 3 days in-office weekly
Supervisor: Group Managing Director
The Director of Resource Operations has the primary goals of helping drive agency profitably, work flow
efficiency for creating great work that gets noticed, and morale by leading the allocation, recommendation
and optimization of resources to deliver on client SOW’s, new business opportunities and non-billable
agency initiatives. They are also responsible for leading development and management of Project Management
as a critical, sought after, and effective discipline at Iris.
Responsibilities
Partner with Finance and Account Management to ensure paths to client profitability
Participate or perish. It’s not just our rallying cry – it’s a creative imperative. Iris is the global creative micro-network built for brands that refuse to blend in. With 650 people across 11 offices, we help clients like Samsung, adidas, Bentley, California Pizza Kitchen, Beiersdorf and Samsonite show up in culture with work that stands apart. Powered by Participation, and brought to life across paid, earned and owned media, our agency model is big enough to be dangerous, small enough to stay agile. Founded outside the ad establishment in 1999, Iris has always been defined by its outsider mindset – one that still drives our mission today.
We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and recruit on talent alone, regardless of age, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, education, class, sexual orientation or disability. We champion diversity and believe it not only benefits, but enhances our creativity, our company and the wider society at large.
Hybrid: 3 days in-office weekly
Supervisor: Group Managing Director
The Director of Resource Operations has the primary goals of helping drive agency profitably, work flow
efficiency for creating great work that gets noticed, and morale by leading the allocation, recommendation
and optimization of resources to deliver on client SOW’s, new business opportunities and non-billable
agency initiatives. They are also responsible for leading development and management of Project Management
as a critical, sought after, and effective discipline at Iris.
Responsibilities
Partner with Finance and Account Management to ensure paths to client profitability
- Work with Account Management and Finance to create and standardize reports across clients that provide ongoing view of client / agency health
- Work with Account Management to maintain ongoing FTE scope allocation data across clients and assignments
- Lead Resource Planning recommendations and optimizations
- Partner closely with department heads, Account Management and CCO/Creative Directors on an ongoing basis (weekly) to make weekly, real-time resource allocation recommendations
- Develop and present resource allocation recommendations and optimizations to the CEO, Group Managing Director, CCO & Head of Finance on a quarterly basis
- Lead power user team, across disciplines in usage of resource management tool
- Set standards to ensure resource data is up-to-date, accurate and actionable
- Develop process for collecting and maintaining data
- Continually explore and provide recommendations for improving and optimizing resource planning, including but not limited to tools and training
- Work with Account Management to standardize pricing model as a best practice for new business and current client staffing recommendation
- Become a power user of the model and provide thought leadership for tool usage
- Provide council to Account Management team in usage and implementation of tool
- Work with Finance to ensure pricing approach is actionable for each new business and current client staffing recommendations
- Work with the Account Directors to create scoping standards that maintain the legacy needs of our current clients but allow the agency to have consistency as we scale
- Serve as manager, trusted resource and provider of oversite for team members
- Work with agency stakeholders to create and align on standards for Project Management
- Publish playbook that will allow new team members to be set up for success on day one.
- Enroll PM team to champion standards
- Ensure playbook addresses PM role within new and existing business capacity
- Responsible for ensuring standards are being met across the department
- Responsible for managing or escalating cross discipline conflicts
- Represent PM POV with senior leadership
- Consistently work to champion excellence within the PM discipline
- Action Oriented. Enjoys working hard; is action oriented and full of energy for the things he/she sees as challenging; not fearful of acting with a minimum of planning; seizes more opportunities than others.
- Problem Solving. Uses rigorous logic and methods to solve difficult problems with effective solutions; probes all fruitful sources for answers; can see hidden problems; is excellent at honest analysis; looks beyond the obvious and doesn’t stop at the first answers.
- Organizational Agility. Knowledgeable about how organizations work; knows how to get things done both through formal channels and the informal network; understands the origin and reasoning behind key policies, practices, and procedures; understands the cultures of organizations.
- Motivating Others. Creates a climate in which people want to do their best; can motivate many kinds of direct reports and teams or project members; pushes tasks and decisions down; empowers others; invites input from each person and shares ownership and visibility; makes each individual feel his/her work is important; is someone people like working for and with.
- Interpersonal Savvy. Relates well to all kinds of people – up, down and sideways, inside and outside the organization; builds appropriate rapport; builds constructive and effective relationships; uses diplomacy and tact; can diffuse even high-tension situations comfortably.
- Highly organized and detail-oriented. Comfortable with data tools / analysis as well as advanced MS office suite product knowledge. Ability to effectively develop and present recommendations—verbal and written.
- Ability to apply smarts and common sense understanding to both build alignment and carry out plans.
- Understanding of agency workflow process.
- Understands immediate & future needs; running a list of potential candidates.
- Interviews freelance to understand capacity, rates and potential fit
- Ideal candidate has a minimum 10 years of experience in project management preferably in a full-service advertising agency environment
- Bachelor’s degree strongly preferred
Participate or perish. It’s not just our rallying cry – it’s a creative imperative. Iris is the global creative micro-network built for brands that refuse to blend in. With 650 people across 11 offices, we help clients like Samsung, adidas, Bentley, California Pizza Kitchen, Beiersdorf and Samsonite show up in culture with work that stands apart. Powered by Participation, and brought to life across paid, earned and owned media, our agency model is big enough to be dangerous, small enough to stay agile. Founded outside the ad establishment in 1999, Iris has always been defined by its outsider mindset – one that still drives our mission today.
We are proud to be an equal opportunities employer and recruit on talent alone, regardless of age, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, education, class, sexual orientation or disability. We champion diversity and believe it not only benefits, but enhances our creativity, our company and the wider society at large.
