Freelance Project Manager Jobs in Indiana (NOW HIRING)

Job Title: Director of Marketing Operations and Project Management

Reporting Relationship: Executive Director of Digital and Performance Marketing

Unit: Central Administration

Department: Marketing-IWU Marketing

Campus Location: Maxwell Center, Marion, IN

Summary of Position:    The Director of Marketing Operations and Project Management is responsible for the successful execution of all marketing projects across Indiana Wesleyan University's Marketing team. This individual leads the department's project management function, ensuring every marketing request is properly scoped, entered into the project management system, prioritized, assigned, tracked, communicated, and delivered on time and with high-quality.
This role oversees the Marketing brand manager team and establishes project management standards, monitors department workload and capacity, removes obstacles to execution, and ensures marketing projects move efficiently from intake through completion.
This position also helps maintain university brand standards and provides guidance to internal clients.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Marketing Operations & Project Management
  • Serve as the operational owner of the marketing department's project portfolio, ensuring every marketing project has a clearly defined scope, complete project information, appropriate prioritization, assigned resources, documented timelines, and proactive follow-up through completion. Hold project owners accountable for meeting deadlines, identify risks early, and ensure 100% of marketing projects are entered, managed, and delivered through the university's project management system
  • Lead the university's marketing project management function, ensuring consistent execution of all marketing initiatives
  • Oversee the intake, scoping, prioritization, scheduling, trafficking, and completion of every marketing project
  • Ensure all projects are entered into the project management system with complete, accurate, and actionable information before work begins
  • Establish project timelines, milestones, dependencies, and resource assignments
  • Monitor department workload and capacity to balance priorities across creative, communications, web, digital marketing, and video teams
  • Identify risks to deadlines early and proactively resolve scheduling conflicts
  • Develop operational processes that improve efficiency, accountability, transparency, and project throughput
  • Produce regular reports on project status, workload, turnaround times, bottlenecks, and team performance
• Team Leadership
  • Directly supervise two Marketing brand managers
  • Provide coaching, performance management, and professional development
  • Foster a culture of accountability, responsiveness, customer service, and continuous improvement
• Client Relationship Management
  • Serve as the primary operational liaison between university clients and the marketing department
  • Meet with clients to define objectives, gather complete project requirements, establish realistic timelines, and manage expectations
  • Communicate project status proactively throughout each engagement
  • Ensure clients receive exceptional service while balancing institutional priorities and available resources
• Brand Stewardship
  • Ensure projects align with university brand standards, messaging, and visual identity
  • Provide guidance to clients regarding appropriate marketing strategies and brand implementation
  • Coordinate with creative leadership to maintain consistency across marketing materials
• Vendor Coordination
  • Coordinate work with outside agencies, freelancers, printers, photographers, and other marketing vendors as assigned.
  • Monitor vendor timelines and deliverables to ensure projects remain on schedule

Qualifications: According to Indiana Wesleyan University employment policy all employees must possess a strong Christian commitment and adhere to the standards outlined in the IWU Community Lifestyle Statement.

Education

• Bachelor's degree in Project Management, or related field
• Bachelor's degree with project management certificate

Experience

• Seven or more (7+) years of progressively responsible experience leading marketing operations, project management, or agency account management
• Three or more (3+) years supervising employees
• Demonstrated success managing a high-volume marketing project portfolio
• Experience implementing or administering project management platforms such as Wrike, Asana, Monday.com, Jira, Workfront, or similar

Required Skills

• Exceptional organizational and project management skills
• Proven ability to manage dozens of concurrent projects with competing deadlines
• Strong leadership and people management abilities
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to influence without direct authority across multiple teams
• Skilled at identifying process improvements and implementing operational efficiencies
• Strong analytical and reporting abilities
• Experience developing workflows, SOPs, and project management standards
• Ability to remain calm and decisive in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment
• High attention to detail and commitment to quality

IWU Kingdom Diversity Statement

IWU, in covenant with God's reconciling work and in accordance with the Biblical principles of our historic Wesleyan tradition, commits to build a community that reflects Kingdom diversity.  We will foster an intentional environment for living, teaching and learning, which exhibits honor, respect, and dignity.  Acknowledging visible or invisible differences, our community authentically values each member's earthly and eternal worth.  We refute ignorance and isolation and embrace deliberate and courageous engagement that exhibits Christ's commandment to love all humankind.

LIMITATIONS AND DISCLAIMER

As a religious educational institution operating under the auspices of The Wesleyan Church, Indiana Wesleyan University is permitted and reserves the right to prefer employees on the basis of religion (42 U.S.C., Sections 2000e-1 and 2000e-2).

The above job description is meant to describe the general nature and level of work being performed; it is not intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties and skills required for the position. Employees will be required to follow other job-related instructions and to perform other job-related duties requested by their supervisor in compliance with Federal and State Laws.