Creative Account Manager

Mary Kay•Town of Addison, WI

3h•Onsite

About The Position

The Creative Account Manager serves as the strategic connector between internal business partners (Marketing, Brand, Product) and the in-house creative team, ensuring work is clearly scoped, prioritized, and delivered with excellence. This role owns the end-to-end management of creative initiatives, from intake through delivery, translating business objectives into actionable creative briefs, aligning timelines and resources, and keeping work moving efficiently through the agency. The Creative Account Manager leads multiple complex projects simultaneously, managing workflows, timelines, and delivery of creative deliverables for both the end consumer and the Independent Beauty Consultant. With full fiscal accountability, this role ensures projects are delivered on time and within budget while maintaining strong client partnerships and a high standard of creative quality. The Creative Account Manager proactively identifies risks, removes barriers, and influences cross-functional teams to achieve shared goals, building trust through clear communication and a deep understanding of client needs.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree (or equivalent) in Communications, Marketing, Advertising or Business
5+ years of experience in the marketing/advertising field
Must have demonstrated leadership skills, typically acquired through 5 or more years of experience leading projects and influencing cross-functional teams within a creative services environment.
Proven experience in managing accounts at an advertising agency or marketing communications environment. Familiarity with creative development process from creative development through creative execution is essential.
Must be able to cultivate effective partnerships. Must be able to build strong and high-trust relationships in a dynamic environment. Must be able to operate with customer-centricity in a matrix environment, while ensuring projects deliver on a broader business agenda.
Influencing abilities are essential to drive alignment between Client and internal business partners across all levels. Must be assertive, results-oriented, solution-focused and possess good business judgment to effectively lead projects.
Project management experience required to manage multiple projects and timelines, ensuring accuracy, documentation, and timely follow-through using Workfront (or similar project management tools) and best practices.
Must be able to navigate through ambiguous situations. Ability to be adaptable and flexible.
Experience in managing budgets. Demonstrated ability in managing against a budget and maintaining documentation throughout the year to report variances.
Must have excellent interpersonal, oral, and written communication skills.
Ability to build effective and trusting relationships throughout the organization.
Must be able to facilitate productive meetings with clients and internal partners, capturing and distributing clear recaps of outcomes, decisions, and next steps.
Ability to work through emotionally charged situations while remaining professional. Ability to remain calm when dealing with a crisis.
Ability to resolve conflict and create win-win solutions. Remains neutral and unbiased.
Excellent analytical, organizational and project management skills to prioritize conflicting deadlines and needs. Must also possess strong attention to detail as well as maintain accurate documentation. Possess exceptional follow through skills.
Ability to multi-task and manage multiple priorities and country needs is also critical.
Consistently advocates for the Client; Client focused and provides excellent customer service.
Leverage data and AI tools to generate insights, optimize resources, and support decision-making.
Adapt to changing priorities, solve problems proactively, and maintain quality under pressure.
This job requires on-site work at Mary Kay's Global Headquarters in Addison, TX.

Responsibilities

Manages Client initiatives beginning with brief through execution of final deliverables. Consistently uses the latest account management tools and processes.
Based on the scope of the project, determines resources and workflow prioritization.
Clarifies Client goals (quality, deliverables, timelines, desired outcomes) and translates into project objectives.
Proactively seeks out Client feedback and uses feedback to strengthen relationships and and makes recommendations to improve processes (toolkit, region specific projects).
Understands and can communicate the Brand divisions global strategy.
Develops a working knowledge of the Client’s business and/or brand and serves as a true partner.
Facilitates meetings to gain critical approvals from Client on concepts at key stages of development in order to ensure project goals are achieved.
Identifies areas of risk and communicates appropriately. Identify bottlenecks and refine workflows to increase efficiency within the internal agency.
Facilitates cross-functional team alignment across key stakeholders to support projects and programs.
Maintains a detailed oversight of the project and proactively involves others to solve project challenges as they arise.
Works effectively with internal partners (Creative team, etc.) to achieve Client outcomes and has a clear understanding of team roles and responsibilities.
Responsible for providing analysis and updates to key stakeholders regarding project spending on a monthly basis and providing general estimates for key projects at all time.
Manages projects within budgetary guidelines.
Partners with clients and internal teams to manage scope changes, assessing budget impact and securing alignment before work proceeds.
Provides clear financial visibility to stakeholders to support informed decision-making and prioritization.
Responsible for providing variance justification for all projects.
Identifies and offers cost saving recommendations and/or increased sales ideas.
Act as the primary contact for internal stakeholders, understanding their needs, gathering requirements, and providing status updates.
Communicates changes in direction and communicates critical information to all stakeholders. Serves as communication liaison between all stakeholders, facilitating open communication regarding project expectations, direction, timing, etc.
Facilitates all project meetings and communicates updates to Clients and leadership on progress.
Escalates issues and resolves project roadblocks to ensure deadlines are met.
Communicates and effectively delivers feedback as necessary to keep the project on track.
Keeps Client informed on all important issues around deliverables; Regularly checks in with Clients to ensure project is on track and meeting expectations.
Notifies Client of any potential delays and/or changes in deliverables or cost.
Engages with agency at project inception; keeps agency on track.
May manage external agencies to facilitate creative development along with internal team.
This role will periodically lead and support agency-wide initiatives that improve how the in-house creative agency partners, operates, and delivers work.
Ensures projects follow established intake, prioritization, and workflow processes to support efficient agency operations.
Partners with agency leadership to support resource planning and capacity awareness across active projects.
Identifies opportunities to improve agency processes, tools, and ways of working, contributing to continuous improvement efforts.