Director, Project Delivery
About Blue North
We are a leading Canadian agency who helps our non-profit clients – in the international development, healthcare, environmental sectors – effectively raise funds, to make our world a better place. We are unique in that there is no one like us who can bring together direct marketing, donor-centric fundraising, production, data, and strategy. We are passionate about our clients’ work and the good they want to achieve. We are always thinking of new ways to help them achieve their goals.
Summary of the role
The Director, Project Delivery role presents an exciting opportunity for a performance driven individual with exceptional communication, interpersonal skills, and process improvement mindset. The Director, Project Delivery will be responsible for overseeing the efficient execution of client deliverables. The role will have both people management responsibilities and managing workflow processes between our Studio & Creative, Project Management, and Print teams. Think of this role as the air traffic controller at Blue North, it’s extremely high paced, detail oriented, and balancing multiple deadlines is critical.
Responsibilities
Team Management:
- Oversee all Project Managers in their project management work, helping them to be successful in delivering jobs on spec, on time, and on budget while delighting the client.
- Management of Creative Studio and Print Team, meeting regularly to monitor current projects, provide coaching and support, give appropriate feedback.
- Management of creative freelance vendors including vetting and outsourcing as required
- Responsible for the ongoing training and development of new and existing team members and process compliance
- Lead departmental initiatives resulting in improved Client Experience and Quality Assurance
Project Resourcing:
- Oversee Proposal & Project Review as required. Attend and participate in new project briefings, review scope of work, estimate hours required, provide recommendations for resource allocation and review timeline for completion.
- Manage and monitor workflow processes between teams and influence work flow processes to optimize resource usage.
- Forecasting & Utilization Analysis - Monitor, analyze and interpret utilization for both billable and non-billable activities. Ensure understanding and facilitate discussions with management on utilization improvements. Analyze forecasted projects and hours and identify overages and/or deficiencies in resources.
Process Management:
- Planning & Process Improvement - Contributes to overall strategic planning, reviews and implements process improvements to effectively support our delivery services.
- Process Management - Provides early warning indicators when significant off-plan adjustments may be required and presents well-developed alternatives to address any issues.
- Ongoing responsibility to review and improve processes as business and client needs change.
Knowledge and Experience Required
Knowledge:
- Minimum 5-7 years’ people and project management experience
- Minimum 5 years’ experience thriving in a Direct Response Agency
- Experience in a digital marketing is an asset
Skills:
- Exceptional multi-tasking capabilities, with superior attention to detail in management of master schedule.
- Ability to perform well under pressure and be flexible when required, as new information may come in and will need to be dealt with urgently and diplomatically
- Must be assertive yet approachable to all staff - a fine balance, must be able to fully understand requirements of a project and ask for clarification up front if required
- Exceptional prioritization skills to ensure that deadlines are being met, while employing the best fitting resource to certain tasks
- Proficient understanding of team capabilities and complexity of client requirements to provide sound timing estimates and revise schedule accordingly
- Highly developed interpersonal skills to ensure effective cross-divisional communication among teams. This will be critical in ensuring that the correct resources are deployed to ensure deadlines are met and the production of high-quality work
Abilities
- Positive conflict resolution skills, with the ability to conceive 'Win-Win-Win' issue resolution and retain focus on broader objectives to ensure best-case operational decisions are made
- Proactive personality that enjoys problem-solving in a demanding environment
- Exceptional communication skills to ensure that everyone is provided with accurate direction when work is assigned
Key Contributions:
- Ensures efficient delivery of all projects
- Provides leadership and training to delivery team
- Manages utilization and capacity planning of the delivery team
Are you the fit we’re looking for? Don’t wait - Apply today! Please email your resume and cover letter to careers@bluenorth.ca
