21GRAMS- Director of Transformation

Real Chemistry • Chicago, MA

5h • Hybrid

About The Position

Real Chemistry is looking for a Director of Transformation to join our growing team! 21GRAMS seeks a confident, empathetic, and highly organized Director of Transformation to partner with department leads within 21GRAMS and Room42 to drive operational change that sticks. In this role, you will work side by side with leadership to orchestrate improvement plans and follow through on the initiatives that bring agency excellence to life, from how we staff and scope projects to how creative work gets made to how AI and technology are adopted and how work flows across the agency. This position is integral to 21GRAMS, part of Real Chemistry, a healthcare advertising and communications firm dedicated to making healthcare more human through innovative, client-centered work conducted with integrity and excellence. You will build the plans, hold the timelines, manage the pilots, and check in with teams along the way so that change is not just announced but adopted. You will represent leadership in rooms they cannot be in, carrying their intent forward with clear communication, confidence, and teamwork. Success in this role looks like real, lasting change across the agency, not initiatives that fade once the initial excitement wears off. This role can be remote within the United States or based in any of our U.S. office locations, including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Lambertville, NJ, San Francisco, or Carmel, IN.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree from an accredited institution, or equivalent professional experience
• 8+ years of progressive experience in operations, change management, program or project management, or organizational effectiveness within an agency, consulting, or professional services environment
• Minimum 3+ years leading cross-functional change initiatives or operational programs
• Demonstrated experience partnering with senior department leaders across functions such as Account, Strategy, Creative, or Project Management to design and implement change
• Track record of implementing initiatives that measurably changed how teams work, and sustaining that change over time
• Strong understanding of agency operating models, including how Account, Strategy, Creative, Project Management, and studio or production functions work together
• Familiarity with staffing, scoping, and creative workflow processes within an agency environment
• Proficiency with project and program management tools such as Workfront, Smartsheet, or equivalent
• Working knowledge of change management frameworks and methodologies, such as ADKAR or Kotter's model, preferred
• Comfort evaluating AI tools and agents to improve team efficiency
• Confident and buttoned-up communicator, able to represent leadership credibly and clearly in their absence
• Empathetic listener who can hold space for team concerns while still moving initiatives forward
• Strong facilitation and relationship-building skills, with the ability to earn trust across departments without direct authority
• Comfortable pushing for progress and holding teams accountable, while remaining genuinely open to feedback and new ways of working
• Change-Positive, Growth-Oriented: You actively seek smarter, faster, and more effective ways to help the agency operate, whether that touches staffing, scoping, creative process, or the flow of work. You are not threatened by AI or new tools and new ways of working; you're energized by them. You challenge legacy processes thoughtfully, experiment with confidence, and view change as an advantage rather than a disruption. You don't defend the status quo because "it works"; you see every process and workflow as a candidate for improvement, and you stay current with better ways forward because you're genuinely curious, not because compliance requires it.
• Confident and Buttoned Up: You show up prepared, organized, and credible in every room, including the ones where you are representing leadership. You communicate with clarity and polish, and people trust that when you say something will happen, it will. You anticipate questions before they're asked and come to every conversation with a plan, not just an update. Your confidence is earned through preparation and follow-through, not bravado, and it gives teams and leadership alike the assurance that initiatives are in capable hands.
• Confident Driver of Progress: You embrace being a driver, not just a facilitator or administrator. You create momentum, push for clarity and decisions when you see ambiguity, hold teams accountable constructively without micromanaging, and move initiatives forward even when information is imperfect. You don't wait for consensus to act; you make smart calls and bring people along. You recognize that indecision is a decision, and you're willing to take that on.
• Empathetic Team Player: You lead with empathy without losing sight of the goal. You recognize when teams are stretched, resistant, or fatigued by change, and you adjust your pacing, tone, and support accordingly, without letting the initiative stall. You listen genuinely, make people feel heard, and build plans with input from the people who will live them day to day. You see yourself as part of the team you're helping, not above it, and you celebrate progress together rather than taking credit alone.
• Ownership Mindset and Creative Agency: You do not wait for permission to elevate the work. You bring forward ideas on how to run initiatives better, propose smarter ways of orchestrating change, and take responsibility for improving outcomes beyond your assigned scope. You see gaps and fill them. You spot inefficiencies and fix them. You don't assume "that's someone else's problem." You own whether change sticks across Account, Strategy, Creative, Project Management, and Room42, not just whether it was announced.
• Strong Judgment and Prioritization Instincts: You consistently make good calls under pressure and constraint. You distinguish signal from noise in a sea of competing priorities and initiatives. You make smart tradeoffs between speed, quality, and team capacity with sound instinct, not by formula. You prioritize effectively, recognizing which initiatives matter most right now and which can wait. You have good instincts about people, teams, and timing, and you trust those instincts while remaining open to new information.
• Courage and Comfort with Productive Discomfort: You are not afraid to push when it's uncomfortable, and you challenge constructively when you see a better path, while staying genuinely open to suggestions and new ways of working. You hold tension without smoothing it away prematurely, recognizing that some of the best solutions come from sitting with hard tradeoffs rather than resolving them quickly. You make difficult calls when needed, including hard conversations about resistance, missed milestones, or unrealistic expectations, delivered with confidence rather than approval-seeking. You bring backup, such as data, reasoning, and alternatives, to every discussion, but you're also genuinely open to being wrong and course-correcting when new information warrants it.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in a healthcare, pharmaceutical, or life sciences advertising or communications agency environment
• Formal change management certification, such as Prosci or ADKAR, or equivalent
• Experience partnering with internal production or studio functions similar to Room42
• Background in process improvement, organizational design, or agency operations
• Experience supporting new business transitions, account restructuring, or large-scale operational rollouts

Responsibilities

• Build trusted, collaborative relationships with leaders and teams across every department, serving as a consistent and credible partner throughout periods of change
• Translate leadership's vision and priorities into clear, actionable plans that department leads and their teams can understand and rally around
• Facilitate alignment across departments when an initiative touches multiple teams, ensuring no group is caught off guard or left out of the process
• Bring a point of view grounded in what is realistic and sustainable for teams, balancing leadership's ambitions with the day-to-day realities of the work
• Orchestrate change initiatives end to end, from initial planning through implementation, adoption, and long-term reinforcement
• Build clear project plans, timelines, and milestones for each initiative, and hold department leads and teams accountable to them
• Check in regularly on active initiatives to monitor progress, troubleshoot obstacles, and course-correct before momentum stalls
• Establish feedback loops that surface what is working and what is not, and adjust plans based on real input from the teams living the change
• Know when to push forward and when to pause, recalibrate, or bring in leadership for additional support
• Support initiatives that improve how the agency staffs projects, helping ensure the right people and mix of talent are in place from the start
• Help roll out scoping processes and tools that create clearer, more consistent project setups across departments
• Partner with Creative and Project Management leadership to improve creative process and the flow of work, reducing friction and rework
• Identify where current ways of working are creating bottlenecks, confusion, or inconsistency, and design practical solutions in partnership with the teams affected
• Ensure new processes and tools, including AI and other technology, are documented, communicated clearly, and easy for teams to adopt
• Communicate plans, decisions, and changes clearly and consistently across departments, adapting the message for different audiences and levels
• Serve as a calm, credible voice during periods of change, helping teams understand the reasoning behind new ways of working
• Escalate risks, roadblocks, and team concerns to leadership proactively, along with recommendations for how to address them
• Monitor adoption of new processes and initiatives over time, distinguishing between change that has stuck and change that is at risk of reverting
• Recognize when teams are overwhelmed or resistant, and adjust pacing, support, or communication to help change take hold
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement, empathy, and teamwork throughout every initiative
• Measure and report on the impact of change initiatives, using both team feedback and operational data
• Build long-term organizational muscle for change by equipping department leads with the tools and confidence to sustain new ways of working independently

Benefits

• Comprehensive benefits package
• Variety of programs designed to support employees' well-being, growth, and success
• Generous holiday and paid time off
• Options for private medical, dental, and vision plans
• Support in saving for the future
• Mental wellness coaching and support
• Access to more than 13,000 online classes with LinkedIn Learning
• Free snacks (in offices)
• Real Hybrid and Regional Teams (Real HART) approach designed to foster collaboration, learning, innovation, and meaningful relationships while providing flexibility where appropriate.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director