Welcome to Clemenger BBDO. We're looking for a Project Operations Manager (Melbourne or Sydney based) to help bring ambitious creative work to life across our clients.
The Role
The Project Operations Manager is the engine room of the Orchestration team.
This role owns the day-to-day delivery of workstreams with clarity, structure and growing commercial confidence. You are responsible for keeping projects moving, clients informed and teams aligned, while ensuring the operational and commercial foundations of delivery are strong.
You don't just track work. You help make it better.
You translate objectives into clear, actionable direction for teams, anticipate risks before they escalate and ensure every piece of work is set up for success from the outset.
This role sits close to the detail, but with a growing expectation to think beyond execution. You are starting to shape how work flows through the agency, not just move it through the system.
Who You Are
You bring order to complexity.
You are proactive, structured and dependable. You don't wait to be chased, and you don't let things drift. You keep multiple workstreams moving and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
You are commercially aware and increasingly financially confident. You understand how scopes, budgets and resourcing decisions affect both the agency and the client, and you use that awareness to make smarter decisions in real time.
Most importantly, you care about creative work. You are invested in getting ideas to market in their strongest possible form, and you work closely with others to protect and improve them along the way.
You are building your judgement, but you already operate with intent, ownership and pride in the work.
What You'll Be Doing
You'll manage timelines, scopes and budgets across multiple concurrent projects, ensuring delivery is accurate, efficient and well-coordinated.
You'll own day-to-day communication with clients across your workstreams, keeping stakeholders informed, aligned and confident in progress.
You'll partner closely with Client Impact, Creative and Production teams to ensure work moves smoothly from brief to delivery.
You'll support Project Operations Directors in managing scope, tracking resourcing and identifying opportunities to improve efficiency and commercial outcomes.
You'll build estimates, track budgets and monitor scope changes, developing strong financial discipline and flagging risks early.
You'll identify potential issues before they escalate, escalating appropriately with context and suggested solutions.
You'll contribute to improving internal workflows by identifying friction points and sharing recommendations with senior members of the team.
Behaviours
In this role, delivery and creativity are not separate things.
The way you manage work directly impacts the quality of the ideas that reach the world. A strong Project Operations Manager improves the work through clarity, communication and care at every stage of the process.
That includes writing better briefs, giving sharper feedback, and helping protect ideas through production so they arrive as intended.
The best people in this role don't just manage tasks. They elevate outcomes.
Our Values: The Six Acts of Courage
Everything we do is shaped by our Six Acts of Courage. They aren't words we stick on a wall. They're how we run meetings, deliver feedback, pitch ideas, make decisions and treat each other, especially on the tough days.
The Courage to Speak Your Mind
Yes, it is okay to say the thing, in the room, to the right person. Even, and especially, when it's uncomfortable. Just be kind.
The Courage to Play
Take the brief somewhere unexpected. Resist the safe option. We want people who are willing to explore what might be possible, not just what feels predictable.
The Courage to Be Your Whole Self
Diversity of thought only works when people feel safe to show up authentically. We value different perspectives, experiences and ways of thinking.
The Courage to Do Big Things
Back the idea that could change things. Don't self-edit ambition before it has a chance to breathe.
The Courage to Fail
Blame kills creativity. We encourage people to try new things, take calculated risks and learn from what doesn't work.
The Courage to Say "I Don't Know"
Asking for help is good judgement, not weakness. Nobody knows everything. We'd rather hear "I don't know" than have someone stay silent.
What AI means to us, and what it should mean to you
At Clemenger BBDO, AI is now part of how we build faster, more connected creative solutions across every capability.
For a Project Operations Manager, this means knowing which tools our creative, design and production teams are using, and understanding how AI assisted workflows affect timelines, outputs and resourcing decisions.
It also means actively using AI tools to improve the operational craft of the role, speeding up scheduling, status reporting, budgeting and resourcing so more of your time is spent on the judgement calls that require human thinking.
AI should reduce friction in the system, not replace your thinking. The value you bring is in the decisions, trade offs and clarity you create in complex, fast moving environments.
Why Clemenger BBDO?
Because we believe great operations are essential to great creativity.
You'll be part of a team that values clarity, collaboration and craft in equal measure, working alongside people who care deeply about the work and the impact it has in the world.
If you're energised by organisation, motivated by creative excellence and excited by the idea of growing your commercial and operational craft in a world-class agency, we'd love to hear from you.
