Director of Agency Operations & People

Hollywood Branded•Torrance, CA

6h•$104,000 - $117,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Hollywood Branded is hiring a hands-on operations leader to own the day-to-day operations that keep the agency running smoothly. The role is responsible for how work moves across teams, how leaders make decisions, technology adoption, and how employees are supported and held accountable. The Director diagnoses root causes, recommends and implements practical solutions, and measures results. The position aims to reduce routine CEO and COO involvement while preserving leaders’ authority over their teams, clients, and areas of expertise. It reports to the COO and operates independently within approved policies, budgets, and decision rights. The role establishes operational standards and accountability, coordinates cross-functional execution, and oversees the operational journey from signed contract through closeout without personally managing every project. It governs business-side technology adoption and partners with technical staff on internal platforms. It measures capacity, utilization, delivery performance, and project profitability; improves processes and financial discipline; and directly manages the Office Manager and designated operations staff while coaching department managers. The Director leads HR strategy and policy, handles sensitive employee matters with appropriate confidentiality and guidance, and maintains employment compliance practices. The position delivers monthly operational reporting to the COO, including project health, capacity, profitability signals, tool adoption, people and HR trends, risks, and improvements. The first 90 days include auditing systems and workflows, establishing baselines and an issue tracker, implementing prioritized workflow improvements, defining decision rights, launching operational reporting, and documenting high-risk workflows and backup coverage.

Requirements

7+ years of operations experience and 3+ years directly managing people for Director level; candidates with 5+ years of operations experience and 2+ years directly managing people may be considered for Associate Director.
Demonstrated hands-on ownership of operations in a small or midsize business, approximately 10–75 employees, ideally an agency or professional services company.
Evidence of implementing cross-functional workflows, managing change, and holding peers accountable without relying on reporting authority.
Practical HR leadership, including sensitive employee matters, coaching, performance management, familiarity with California employment law, and judgment about when to involve counsel.
Experience leading software and AI tool adoption with measurable business outcomes.
Comfort with resource planning, utilization, project financial indicators, dashboards, spreadsheets, and actionable reporting.
Strong judgment, discretion, direct communication, prioritization, and ability to implement rather than only recommend.
Bachelor's degree.

Nice To Haves

Agency, entertainment, or marketing experience.
SHRM-CP, SHRM-SCP, PHR, or SPHR certification.
Hands-on administration or change management for HubSpot, Microsoft 365, BambooHR, monday.com, or similar platforms.
Experience helping an organization launch an internal platform or scale from founder-led processes to delegated operations.
Practical experience designing AI-enabled workflows with clear human quality controls.

Responsibilities

Establish and enforce companywide standards for task ownership, project visibility, deadlines, documentation, internal communication, and escalations.
Coordinate across Partnerships, Production, Marketing, Finance, and Administration to remove blockers and resolve cross-functional handoff failures while department leaders retain responsibility for their teams and client strategy.
Oversee the operational journey from signed contract through onboarding, resourcing, delivery tracking, client reporting, invoicing handoffs, and closeout, without personally managing every project.
Document recurring workflows, including the weekly Radar process, as decisions, owners, next steps, and follow-through.
Create a decision-rights and escalation matrix, including approvals reserved for executive leadership.
Identify single points of failure, train backup owners, and build continuity plans for multiweek executive absences.
Own business-side governance and adoption of the technology stack, including Microsoft 365, HubSpot, PandaDoc, monday.com, Canva, Fireflies, Timely, Claude, and BambooHR.
Audit tools, subscriptions, workflows, data quality, and user adoption; recommend what to retain, consolidate, improve, or retire.
Partner with the CEO/CTO and technical resources on operational requirements, testing, rollout, documentation, training, and adoption of [HB]Engine, [HB]Hub, and [HB]Box; engineering and architecture remain with the technical team.
Improve HubSpot operational reliability, intake and handoffs, data ownership, workflow visibility, and reporting consistency.
Introduce AI into repeatable workflows where it improves speed or quality; establish privacy, approval, and quality-check practices and measure outcomes.
Manage software licenses, renewals, vendors, access provisioning, and external technical support; maintain clear system ownership.
Measure staff capacity, utilization, workload balance, delivery performance, and project profitability with Finance and functional leaders.
Identify and correct avoidable rework, delays, margin leakage, redundant approvals, and unclear ownership.
Recommend automation or process improvements before new headcount and identify when specialist support or additional capacity is required.
Build a visible operating dashboard and weekly issue tracker with owners, actions, deadlines, and outcomes.
Directly manage the Office Manager and designated operations staff, and coach department managers on consistent management practices.
Maintain role definitions, onboarding standards, weekly 1:1 expectations, scorecards, and six-month performance and promotion review processes.
Assess role effectiveness against fair, job-related expectations and business needs; work with managers to address gaps, support development, and recognize strong performance.
Improve recruiting processes, structured interviews, practical candidate assessments, onboarding, and succession and backup planning.
Help managers provide timely feedback and document performance improvement plans; maintain appropriate approval and HR review before sensitive actions.
Lead HR strategy and policy while the Office Manager handles day-to-day HR administration, benefits and payroll vendor coordination, and recordkeeping.
Handle sensitive employee concerns, accommodations, leave matters, investigations, discipline, and separations confidentially, using consistent processes and appropriate legal guidance.
Maintain the handbook, required training, and compliance practices for California and federal employment requirements, including wage and hour and classification.
Partner with employment counsel or HR advisers as required and avoid independently making decisions reserved for counsel or executive approval.
Deliver a monthly COO report covering project health, capacity, profitability signals, tool adoption, people and HR trends, operational risks, and completed improvements.
Present recommendations, accountable owners, deadlines, and tradeoffs rather than only identifying problems.
Enforce approved operating standards across functions and route personnel decisions, strategic client decisions, exceptional financial commitments, and unresolved department-level conflicts through established approval paths.
Provide concise reporting to the CEO and COO, escalating urgent material client, financial, people, or compliance risks.
During the first 90 days, meet team leads; audit systems, HR risk, and core workflows; map recurring CEO/COO decisions; identify bottlenecks; launch an issue and ownership tracker; and establish measurement baselines.
During days 31–60, implement three prioritized workflow improvements, establish an initial decision-rights and escalation matrix, confirm owners and milestones for active projects, and begin manager scorecard and meeting standards.
During days 61–90, launch monthly operations reporting, document high-risk workflows and backups, demonstrate early time, error, or escalation improvements, and deliver a six-month improvement and executive-dependency roadmap.
Work toward reducing routine operational escalations to the CEO/COO by approximately 50% from baseline where practical; achieving assigned owners for at least 95% of active projects; and completing at least 90% of required 1:1s, scorecards, and reviews on time.
Deliver 3–5 validated improvements with measured time savings, accuracy, or cycle-time gains; issue all monthly operational reports on time with decisions and actions identified; and test and document core workflow coverage during a planned leadership absence.