Senior Manager, Creative Services & Creative Operations

Elanco•Indianapolis, IN

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

At Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) – it all starts with animals! As a global leader in animal health, we are dedicated to innovation and delivering products and services to prevent and treat disease in farm animals and pets. At Elanco, we are driven by our vision of Food and Companionship Enriching Life and our purpose – all to Go Beyond for Animals, Customers, Society and Our People. At Elanco, we pride ourselves on fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. We believe that diversity is the driving force behind innovation, creativity, and overall business success. Here, you’ll be part of a company that values and champions new ways of thinking, work with dynamic individuals, and acquire new skills and experiences that will propel your career to new heights. Making animals’ lives better makes life better – join our team today! Your Role: Senior Manager, Creative Services & Creative Operations As the Senior Manager of Creative Services & Creative Operations, you will be a pivotal leader responsible for building, leading, and scaling a modern in-house creative agency organization. In this role, you will partner with the US Pet Health and Farm Animal Marketing teams to deliver high-quality, high-velocity creative content production across all channels. You will serve as both a creative authority and a systems architect, blending creative direction with operational excellence to transform how Elanco’s marketing content is planned, produced, and delivered, and build a future-ready team that effectively integrates AI-enabled tools into everyday creative production while operating within a regulated environment.

Requirements

Education: Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing, Business, Communications, or a related field.
Experience: 5+ years of experience in creative, content, or digital marketing roles, with proven leadership of in-house agencies, content studios, or creative operations teams.
Strong understanding of digital content creation, web development processes, and lifecycle marketing.
Top Skills: Creative direction and brand stewardship across digital channels, with experience designing and scaling content production workflows and operating models with agility and speed.
A tech-first approach with demonstrated ability to integrate new technologies—including AI—into creative or marketing workflows, backed by experience with marketing and creative operations technologies (e.g., DAM, CMS, MRM, workflow tools).
An entrepreneurial mindset with strong stakeholder management, leadership capabilities, and excellent communication skills with the ability to simplify complex concepts.

Nice To Haves

Experience working in regulated industries (healthcare, pharmaceutical, or life sciences).
Hands-on experience piloting or scaling generative AI tools for creative or content production.
Background in content strategy, modular content systems, or personalization at scale.
Experience driving operational efficiency while improving creative quality.

Responsibilities

Creative Leadership & Content Strategy Establish and evolve the creative vision, standards, and content frameworks across US Pet Health digital initiatives. Ensure consistent brand expression, storytelling quality, and customer experience across channels. Act as a senior creative authority, reviewing and guiding high-impact work and resolving creative challenges. Partner with brand and marketing leaders to align creative output with business objectives and demand generation strategies.
Content Factory & Workflow Design Design and optimize scalable, end-to-end content production workflows (from intake and ideation through production, versioning, review, and distribution). Transition the organization from campaign-based execution to always-on, modular content production. Implement systems that enable content reuse, personalization, and lifecycle marketing. Identify bottlenecks and continuously improve speed-to-market, throughput, and quality.
Technology, AI & Creative Operations Leadership Own the creative and content operations technology roadmap, including DAM, CMS, workflow automation, and collaboration tools. Identify, pilot, and scale AI-enabled creative workflows (e.g., ideation, copy generation, design assistance, localization, versioning, QA). Establish governance, best practices, and guardrails for responsible AI use in partnership with legal, compliance, and IT teams. Evaluate new tools and vendors, build business cases, and lead adoption across the creative organization.
Team Leadership & Capability Development Lead and grow a multidisciplinary in-house team including writers, designers, content strategists, and creative operations specialists. Define future-state skill sets and hiring profiles aligned with AI-enabled and system-driven creative production. Champion upskilling, training, and change management to help the team adopt new tools and ways of working. Foster a collaborative, innovative, and high-performance creative culture.
Stakeholder Partnership & Business Impact Drive adoption of in-house agency services by clearly articulating value, capabilities, and service models. Build trusted partnerships with marketing, brand, lifecycle, and channel teams to understand needs and prioritize work. Manage demand intake, capacity planning, and prioritization across the organization. Deliver measurable improvements in efficiency, cost effectiveness, speed, and creative quality.
Quality, Governance & Delivery Ensure all creative output meets brand standards, regulatory requirements, and internal quality benchmarks. Oversee quality assurance throughout the creative process and hold final accountability for delivered work. Establish and track KPIs related to delivery, quality, efficiency, and stakeholder satisfaction. Utilize project and workflow management tools (e.g., Jira, Confluence) to ensure transparency and accountability.