Creative Operations Lead, Customer & Brand Partnerships

Salesforce•Chicago, IL

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Salesforce is seeking a Creative Operations Lead to join their Global Creative team within Marketing. This role will serve as the operational arm and strategic business partner to the Creative Lead for Customer & Brand Partnerships Creative. The primary responsibility is to drive the planning, intake, prioritization, and business-side management of core creative teams, ensuring operational rigor and enabling the team to focus on creating marketing content. The role involves translating business needs into operational plans, managing workflows, and collaborating with other Creative Operations partners to establish consistent processes and frameworks across global creative teams. Key areas of focus include budget management, creative intake workflows, and driving clarity, consistency, and connection across teams and output.

Requirements

5+ years in creative operations, marketing operations, business operations, or agency account management (experience in creative environments strongly preferred).
Demonstrated experience partnering with senior creative leaders or business leaders to run operational functions (planning, budgeting, resourcing, prioritization, process).
Strong understanding of creative workflows, intake, scoping, cross-functional partnership, and project lifecycle alignment.
Proven ability to navigate ambiguity, drive clarity, and create scalable structure in evolving or fast-paced environments.
Exceptional communication, negotiation, and stakeholder management skills.
Experience implementing and optimizing operational frameworks, processes, and measurement systems.
Experience working cross-functionally with PMOs, production teams, business partners, or agency structures.
BA/BS degree or equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

You understand creative teams deeply and know how to protect creative focus through strong operational partnership.
You build trust quickly, communicate clearly, and bring a consistent and thoughtful point of view to prioritization and planning.
You love to solve problems, reduce ambiguity, and make the complex feel manageable.
You believe that operational maturity is the key to unlocking creative excellence—and you’re excited to help us get there.

Responsibilities

Serve as the day-to-day operational and business management partner to Creative Leaders, assisting with planning, budgeting, prioritization, and measurement.
Support the Creative Leader in driving strategy, culture, structure, and management of the team, identifying efficiencies and opportunities for development, exposure, and retention.
Act as a translator between business and creative teams to align expectations, timelines, and priorities before work begins.
Lead quarterly and annual planning cycles for creative teams and internal partners, establishing priorities, intake pathways, and operational rhythms.
Own budget management for Leaders, including forecasting, opening POs, and tracking, in partnership with Creative Ops leadership.
Support various creative business areas as needed, such as Events and Experiences, Partnerships and Customer Marketing, Integrated Campaigns, and Brand Creative.
Be the first point of contact for all new work, partnering with Creative Leadership to validate scope, timing, resourcing, and alignment to business priorities.
Manage the implementation, adoption, and evolution of intake and triage workflows to ensure clarity and prevent overcommitment.
Evaluate incoming requests strategically to protect creative focus and ensure resources are allocated to high-value work, providing alternative solutions when necessary.
Represent Creative leadership with cross-functional partners (e.g., Real Estate, Events, HR, PMO) to ensure consistent engagement and operational clarity.
Partner with the PMO and Production Studio to hand off approved work, allocate resources effectively, and maintain workload visibility.
Drive standardization across planning, intake, capacity tracking, and measurement frameworks with Creative Ops leads.
Implement scalable processes to reduce operational friction and establish clear ownership.
Establish and maintain operational dashboards, reporting, and metrics for leaders to gain visibility into workload, impact, and ROI.
Use data to inform prioritization, operational planning, and business decision-making.