Associate Director, Program Operations & Client Delivery

Bully Pulpit International is an outcomes agency made up of strategists, data scientists, and artists. We come from politics, brands, and government and we communicate without barriers and measure what matters. We have more than 350 team members in six countries and thirteen offices — Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, D.C., London, Los Angeles, New York, Oslo, San Francisco, and Zürich. We apply our unique expertise across strategic communications, public affairs, research, and digital marketing to create sophisticated and customized strategies that make change possible for both American and European clients.

In this role, you will be the operational leader responsible for the execution of BPI's largest and most complex client engagements - driving effective, modern and strategic public affairs and corporate reputation marketing campaigns. Focused on our Fortune 100 client portfolio, you will ensure the seamless delivery of multi‑million dollar national and international campaigns, with a focus on large‑scale creative and media delivery.

You will manage the entire operational lifecycle of projects, serving as a senior client‑facing voice that ensures efficiency, financial discipline, and a large volume of on‑time, high‑quality deliverables both internally and externally. You will also coordinate closely with internal creative and media teams.

• Starting Salary Range: $90,000 - $100,000
• Location:
  
  Expectation to work from one of the offices (DC, NY, Chicago or SF, with East Coast working hours preferred) at least 3 days a week

• Strategic and Creative Operational Management
• External Workflows:
  Design, implement and streamline workflows between BPI and client‑side creative and marketing teams, particularly around production budget management and creative asset production for large‑scale media campaigns.
• Internal Workflows:
  Design, implement and streamline workflows within BPI, both within account teams and between creative, media, client services and finance teams. This includes:
  • Production Quality Assurance (QA):
    Oversee all stages of production from the account team‑side to ensure consistency and quality standards are met
  • Tool & Tech Integration:
    Research and champion the integration of new technologies and operational best practices, including company AI tools, to maximize the speed and quality of creative asset tracking, reviews and approvals.
• Financial Management and Project Oversight
• Serve as the operational lead across a portfolio of complex campaigns, serving as a senior client‑facing voice to keep all projects on track
• Financial Management:
  Develop and manage project budgets, meticulously track invoicing, budget burn rates, and overall finances, and ensure projects are completed within financial constraints — particularly those involving significant creative production and external vendors
• Tracking Timelines and Deliverables:
  Rigorously manage and enforce project timelines, milestones, and deliverables across all client‑facing and internal production teams. Proactively and diplomatically communicate to client contacts when deadlines are missed and/or timelines impacted
• Staff Bandwidth and
  
  Hours:
  
  Oversee and track dedicated staff hours and bandwidth across multiple project teams to ensure efficient resource allocation and proactively flag capacity constraints to senior account leadership.
• Client and Senior Project Leadership
• Foster strong client‑side relationships and serve as the senior, client‑facing program operations lead across a portfolio of complex, large‑scale campaigns for Fortune 100 clients.
• Act as a senior point of escalation, proactively identifying risks and leading discussions with clients and internal leadership to keep all projects on track
• Ensure a high degree of standardization and operational excellence across all deliverables to maintain BPI's reputation for quality
• Work collaboratively with cross‑team members to ensure all timelines, quality expectations, and operational controls for client deliverables are met

• 7+ years of experience in program management, operations, or integrated production leadership within an agency or…