Associate Director, Ad Operations & Programmatic Strategy

Associate Director, Ad Operations & Programmatic

The Associate Director, Ad Operations & Programmatic serves as the operational and strategic leader for a team of three programmatic traders managing approximately 150 active line items across two distinct sales models. This is a hands-on leadership role: you are expected to be a working manager who steps into the trading seat as needed, while simultaneously developing your team's capabilities, driving process excellence, and serving as the primary point of escalation for high-priority clients.

This role is also responsible for driving the team's digital transformation by integrating AI-enabled workflows and automation to elevate our strategic output.

You will oversee the full lifecycle of both impression-based CPM package campaigns and spend-based managed budget campaigns, ensuring flawless execution, pacing accuracy, and consistent delivery against client goals. The role demands equal fluency in people leadership, platform operations, and strategic client thinking.

• Directly manage, mentor, and develop three programmatic traders, setting clear performance expectations and fostering a culture of accountability and growth.
• Serve as a working manager and backup trader; actively stepping in to manage line items, troubleshoot delivery issues, or support high-priority campaigns during peak periods or team absences.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and skills-gap assessments; create individualized development plans for each team member.
• Lead daily and weekly team stand-ups to review pacing, flag issues, and prioritize workload across the full ~200 line item portfolio.
• Coordinate effectively across onshore and offshore resources to ensure continuity of campaign operations.

• Automation Roadmap & Implementation:
  Own the programmatic team's automation roadmap. Proactively identify, evaluate, and integrate AI-driven tools, automation, and methodologies to streamline day-to-day operations and programmatic strategy.
• AI-Enabled Upskilling:
  Lead the team's transition to AI-enabled workflows. Coach and upskill programmatic traders to adopt "AI-solution-forward" ways of working, ensuring the team is proficient in using AI for forecasting, reporting, and strategic insights.
• Workflow Re-engineering:
  Audit and re-engineer manual, recurring processes (e.g., campaign setup, tagging, trafficking) around automation and AI agents to reduce manual effort and increase throughput.
• Strategic Capability Development:
  Build and assist in the development of AI-enabled measurement, optimization, and reporting capabilities. Shift the team's focus from execution-heavy tasks toward higher-value strategic output and AOR-style services.

• Oversee trafficking, QA, and optimization of bundled CPM package campaigns that follow standardized targeting templates and package definitions.
• Establish and maintain clear naming conventions, package taxonomies, and trafficking SOPs that enable consistent, scalable execution across the team.
• Monitor delivery pacing and performance, proactively identifying underperforming line items and directing optimization actions.
• Partner with the sales team to ensure package definitions are operationally feasible and clearly communicated at the point of sale.

• Provide strategic oversight of spend-based campaigns, with particular attention to Baptist Health South Florida, which represents approximately 16% of spend and 22% lines under management in this revenue tier.
• Ensure accurate budget allocation, pacing, and spend reconciliation across all spend-based line items; own escalation and resolution of budget discrepancy issues.
• Act as senior operational point-of-contact for the primary client account, collaborating with account management on performance reporting, optimization strategy, and upsell opportunities.
• Develop and maintain pacing dashboards or reporting frameworks that give leadership real-time visibility into spend-based campaign health.

• Design, document, and implement standardized operating procedures for campaign trafficking, QA, optimization, and reporting across both sales models.
• Identify workflow inefficiencies and recommend tooling, automation, or process changes to increase team throughput, reduce error rates and utilize cross-functional team players.
• Build and maintain a playbook of best practices for line-item setup, targeting configuration, bid strategy, and troubleshooting.
• Establish clear escalation paths and SLA expectations for internal stakeholders and clients.

• Function as the programmatic SME for the team, staying current on platform updates (DSP/SSP), industry trends, and emerging ad tech capabilities.
• Develop and deliver training curricula for traders covering platform proficiency, optimization methodology, and…