Director Creative Operations Jobs in Fairfield, CT

Creative Resource & Operations Manager

Freelance Talent, Capacity Planning & Creative Operations

We build experiences from the glass out. Cocktail Academy began behind the bar and has evolved into a full-service creative and experiential agency that connects brand ambition to real-world impact. Our work spans strategy, creative development, experiential concepts, design systems, global toolkits, and live execution—always through the lens of hospitality and guest experience.

Today, a lean internal team leads a fast-growing pipeline with the support of trusted freelancers, specialist partners, and production agencies across key U.S. markets. The model is intentionally agile: we build the right team around each brief rather than forcing every project through the same structure.

Cocktail Academy is hiring a hands-on Creative Resource & Operations Manager to own the agency's freelance talent and resourcing function. This person will translate a high-velocity pipeline—often 25 to 30 active projects in different stages—into clear staffing plans, assemble the right teams quickly, and build a deep, reliable bench across creative, strategy, production, and experiential disciplines.

This is not a passive traffic-management or internal recruiting role. It is an operating role for someone who has personally managed agency resourcing, understands how scopes, budgets, timing, skill sets, and team chemistry affect delivery, and can move from a briefing call to a staffed project without waiting for perfect information.

What You Will Own

• Own day-to-day resourcing across creative, strategy, copy, design, experiential production, 3D, motion, environmental design, account/project leadership, and specialist partners.

• Translate the project pipeline, incoming briefs, scopes, timing, and budgets into proactive staffing and capacity plans.

• Source, vet, negotiate with, onboard, and maintain relationships with high-caliber freelancers and partner agencies.

• Match talent to each assignment based on capability, availability, rate, budget, working style, client needs, and growth opportunity—not title alone.

• Maintain a searchable, current talent database covering skills, markets, rates, availability, contracts, past work, performance, and relationship history.

• Identify capacity gaps before they become emergencies and maintain credible backup options for critical disciplines and markets.

• Create clear visibility for leadership into who is staffed where, upcoming needs, freelance spend, and resource risk across the pipeline.

• Support briefing, scoping, and estimation conversations when fast turnaround requires resourcing decisions in real time.

• Ensure freelancers complete required contracts, confidentiality documents, onboarding, and offboarding steps before and after engagements.

• Strengthen practical resourcing processes inside Google Workspace and Function Point while respecting the agency's existing operating model.

What You Bring

• 6–8+ years of hands-on experience in creative resource management, studio management, production operations, or agency operations within an experiential, integrated, branding, advertising, or creative agency.

• Direct experience staffing high-volume, fast-turn agency work across multiple projects and disciplines simultaneously.

• An established network—and the relationship skills to keep expanding it—across creative, strategy, production, experiential, and specialist freelance talent.

• The judgment to distinguish an impressive résumé or portfolio from the right person for a specific scope, budget, team, and client.

• Working knowledge of agency scoping, rates, utilization, capacity planning, budgeting, estimating, contracting, and project lifecycles.

• Strong systems discipline: you keep details current, communicate changes quickly, and can answer leadership's staffing questions with confidence.

• Comfort operating in a lean, entrepreneurial environment where priorities shift, briefs arrive quickly, and ownership matters more than hierarchy.

• Fluency with Google Workspace and modern project-management tools; willingness to learn and work within Function Point rather than immediately replacing the technology stack.

• Practical comfort with AI tools such as ChatGPT or Claude for research, visualization, process support, and operational efficiency.

• U.S. residency and authorization to work in the United States; ability to collaborate across time zones, including meaningful overlap with Los Angeles business hours.

• Experiential, below-the-line, hospitality, spirits, lifestyle, or guest-experience agency work.

• A producer or project-operations foundation that strengthens your understanding of how work is scoped, staffed, and delivered.

• Experience in a freelance-forward or partner-agency delivery model, including rate negotiation and vendor relationships.

• A strong bench or market knowledge in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, and other major experiential markets.

Contact:
TONI CARROZZO | President

m: 732-512-7649

e: toni@thetmcgrp.com  

www.thetmcgrp.com 

Schedule a call: https://meetings.hubspot.com/toni-carrozzo 

• You are hands-on, resourceful, and low-ego. You solve problems without needing a large team or layers of approval.

• You are proactive without being rigid. You make a recommendation, explain the tradeoffs, and adjust as the work changes.

• You build trust with freelancers and internal leaders. People want to answer your call because the relationship is well managed.

• You know when to decide independently and when to ask a clarifying question before moving forward.

• You respect established systems and first learn why they exist; improvements come from evidence and understanding, not personal preference.

• You are calm under pressure and communicate early when timing, capacity, budget, or talent quality is at risk.

This is not a traditional corporate recruiting, HR, or traffic-coordination role; it is not a people-management position removed from day-to-day staffing; and it is not a mandate to replace Cocktail Academy's tools or redesign the operating model before understanding the business.

• First 30 days: You understand the active pipeline, current talent network, key disciplines, rate environment, leadership rhythms, and Function Point workflow.

• By 60 days: Leadership has a reliable view of availability, capacity, rates, contracts, and upcoming gaps; sourcing and onboarding follow a consistent process.

• By 90 days: Projects are staffed more proactively, credible backup options exist, and the Creative Director and