Director of Operations

Director of Operations

MSM is a woman-owned, experiential agency bringing brands to life through strategy, award-winning experience design, and flawless execution for trade shows, events, environments, and customer engagements. We deliver with genuine passion and a commitment to exceeding customer expectations and creating exceptional customer experiences. Our employees support, promote, live, and breathe a service culture, where we:

• Thrive in a demanding environment

• Build meaningful relationships

• Demonstrate a positive attitude and adapt to change

• Set high standards and strive to exceed

The Director of Operations oversees and optimizes operational workflows for projects, including production planning and resource allocation, ensuring the efficient, high-quality, and timely delivery of trade shows and events.

As a key leader in the organization, Director of Operations will:

• Establish clear operational direction and standards across warehouse and production
• Inspire others with authentic enthusiasm and passion
• Set and uphold high performance standards across teams
• Have an unwavering commitment to the company's success

Ideal Candidate Attributes:

The right candidate for this role is more than an operational leader - they are a strategic thinker who thrives on designing and improving scalable systems while keeping the bigger picture in focus. They balance visionary thinking with disciplined execution, ensuring the organization operates at peak efficiency while remaining agile and innovative. The ideal candidate will:

• Think Strategically: See beyond day-to-day operations, connecting tactical decisions to long-term organizational goals and market opportunities.
• Focus on Process Excellence: Naturally identify inefficiencies, create streamlined workflows, and build repeatable, scalable systems without sacrificing creativity or quality.
• Embrace a Big-Picture Perspective: Understand how operations intersect with sales, client services, creative, and leadership to drive the agency's overall success.
• Lead with Influence: Inspire cross-functional teams through clear communication, empathy, and authenticity while holding high standards.
• Be Decisive yet Collaborative: Make confident, data-driven decisions while ensuring the right stakeholders are engaged throughout the process.
• Adapt and Innovate: Remain resourceful and composed in high-pressure situations, bringing forward innovative solutions to evolving challenges.
• Champion Continuous Improvement: Encourage a culture of learning, iteration, and process refinement that keeps the organization ahead of the curve.

JOB ACCOUNTABILITIES

IMPLEMENT DATA DRIVEN WORKFLOW AND PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS:

• Use existing and identify new operations data to create reports, predictive models, dashboards, forecasting tools, etc.
• Analyze project and production metrics to streamline workflows, reduce bottlenecks, and improve productivity.
• Build, refine, and maintain systems and tools to track workload, capacity, and operational performance across teams

RESOURCE ALLOCATION AND CAPACITY PLANNING:

• Forecast resource demand for current and future project pipelines, by analyzing past projects to predict staffing needs, production capacity, vendor resources, etc.
• Create workload contingency plans for production.
• Own end-to-end workload visibility and capacity planning across warehouse and production, using data to proactively balance work, identify risks, and drive resourcing decisions.
• Continuously assess team capacity vs. demand and make real-time adjustments to workload distribution across warehouse and production
• Determine when to leverage external partners vs. in-house production based on capacity, cost, and timeline

QUALITY AND COST CONTROL:

• Work as a key member of the Quality Team, focusing on project planning for production and vendor quality.
• Develop, monitor, and report key performance indicators (KPIs).
• Own overall operational efficiency and performance across production and warehouse, with accountability for throughput, quality, and on-time delivery

Key Responsibilities:

• Work closely with estimating & procurement to achieve the optimal balance in-house and outsourced production.
• Collaborate with project management and client services to capture project planning data to drive production scheduling decisions.
• Coordinate with project teams to identify opportunities to improve the data captured in CSI and  to implement process improvement and create better project information workflow.
• Monitor production status and adjust schedules as necessary to meet delivery deadlines.
• Manage external production partners, ensuring adequate vendor resources are available to produce high quality work.
• Use data and KPIs to drive operational decisions, including workload prioritization, staffing adjustments, and outsourcing strategy
• Contribute to budgeting and financial planning for production operations.
• Act as the central point of alignment between Warehouse and Production, ensuring consistent communication, prioritization, and coordination between…