Sr Manager, Creative Operations & Project Manager

About the Team

Marketing brings our brand to life through deep expertise and an authentic love for pets. The team is dedicated to delivering personalized experiences for our consumers, supported by best-in-class, data-driven marketing capabilities.

The work spans key areas including Loyalty, Customer Analytics & Research, Brand Experience & Creative, and Omni-Channel Marketing. Each team member brings a unique perspective, working together to create meaningful and engaging experiences for both pets and pet parents.

Collaborative Work Environment: At Pet Smart, teamwork and connection are core to how we thrive. This role is based at our Phoenix Home Office, with an expectation of working a minimum of four days in the office each week. In a standard work week, associates may work up to one remote “flex day” (with leader approval). Our hybrid approach is designed to foster strong collaboration while also supporting flexibility and individual success.

Pet Smart is seeking an exceptional leader to oversee Creative Operations & Project Management for Brand Creative
—a critical role at the center of how major brand initiatives come to life across campaign, digital, and store channels.

This leader will drive the operational engine behind some of our most visible and strategically important work, including seasonal and big idea campaigns, toolkits, photo and video shoots, special projects, and integrated brand executions that connect across customer touchpoints. This role is responsible for bringing structure, visibility, rigor, and momentum to complex creative work while partnering closely with Creative, Marketing, Merchandising, Production, Digital, and Store teams.

This is not a traditional project management role. It is a high-accountability leadership role for someone who knows how to build order in complexity, manage large-scale cross-functional initiatives, improve workflows, elevate reporting, guide teams through ambiguity, and ensure business-critical creative work is delivered with excellence.

The right candidate is equal parts operator, strategist, cross-functional leader, and change agent
. They understand the realities of creative development, campaign orchestration, and production. They know how to align teams, anticipate risk, manage budgets, guide external partners, and keep highly visible work moving across multiple channels and stakeholder groups.

This role is foundational to successful brand execution. The leader in this seat must bring strong judgment, high standards, operational depth, and the presence to influence across functions and keep critical initiatives on track.

Reports to: Director, Creative Operations & Project Management

• Lead Creative Operations & Project Management for the Brand Creative function, owning the systems, workflows, planning, and operational rigor required to deliver complex brand work at scale.
• Independently own the full project lifecycle across major and minor initiatives simultaneously—from intake and scoping through development, production, and final delivery—in a fast-paced, high-volume environment.
• Drive the strategic and timely execution of seasonal campaigns, big idea brand initiatives, integrated marketing programs, toolkits, and special projects.
• Lead the operational planning and execution of photo and video shoots, partnering with internal teams, outside producers, photographers, agencies, and other vendors to ensure seamless delivery of assets for use across the organization.
• Manage projects that span channels and stakeholder groups, ensuring alignment and connectivity across Brand, Digital, Stores, Marketing, Merchandising, and Production.
• Develop, optimize, and scale creative operational processes, including intake, scoping, prioritization, scheduling, resource planning, reporting, documentation, and workflow management.
• Establish stronger visibility into project health through clear status reporting on milestones, capacity, deliverables, dependencies, budget, risks, and issues.
• Ensure projects are delivered on time, on budget, on strategy, and in alignment with marketing objectives and approved scope.
• Anticipate…