Sr Manager, Creative Project Management

JCPenney•Dallas, TX

12d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Senior Manager, Creative Project Management is a senior operator, people leader, and trusted partner to the Creative team. This role leads and develops a team of Creative Project Managers while also directly managing complex, high-visibility creative projects from inception through delivery in support of JCPenney’s advertising efforts. Reporting to the Director, this role provides close process oversight and governance, brings clarity to complex work, solves problems, connects activity across campaigns and functions, and raises concerns early in a fast-changing environment. The ideal candidate enjoys building strong relationships, helping teams do their best work, and creating a clear path forward when priorities or inputs evolve. A key part of the role is connecting the dots across briefs, deliverables, stakeholders, and timelines: clarifying missing information, helping the Creative team and Creative Project Managers understand what is needed, and identifying upstream gaps before they create downstream issues in production. Projects may include paid media, email, print, video, e-commerce, collaborations, partnerships, and fully integrated 360 campaigns.

Requirements

Significant experience leading creative project management, integrated marketing, account management, campaign operations, or a comparable function in-house, at an agency, or in a similarly complex environment.
Proven people-leadership experience, including coaching managers and experienced individual contributors, setting performance expectations, providing candid feedback, and developing business judgment and leadership behaviors.
Strong understanding of creative development and production across multiple channels, with the ability to partner credibly with Creative leaders and translate marketing objectives into executable work.
Experience operating in a matrixed, fast-changing organization where priorities, inputs, and stakeholders may shift without a fully standardized upstream process.
Business acumen and the ability to understand how timing, scope, resources, dependencies, customer experience, channel roles, and strategic choices affect one another.
A proactive, structured approach to ambiguity. You can take imperfect information, identify what is known and unknown, establish a path forward, and keep others aligned as details evolve.
Clear, direct communication and strong executive presence. You are comfortable setting boundaries, handling pushback, and explaining the implications of delays, missing inputs, or changed requirements.
Experience with basic project and workflow-management tools; Workfront experience is preferred.
Bachelor’s degree in marketing, advertising, communications, business, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Nice To Haves

Workfront experience is preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead, coach, and develop a team of Creative Project Managers by setting clear expectations, providing direct feedback, building capability, and supporting their growth and self-sufficiency.
Maintain close oversight of the creative project-management process, including intake, scoping, briefs, project setup, kickoffs, milestones, reviews, approvals, production, and delivery.
Directly manage complex, high-visibility creative campaigns, including seasonal programming, integrated campaigns, collaborations, partnerships, and e-commerce initiatives.
Connect seasonal creative development, integrated campaigns, planned weekly production, and exception-based work so teams understand how individual deliverables fit into the broader creative environment and customer journey.
Maintain visibility into priorities, capacity, dependencies, risks, and cross-functional implications. Identify issues early, recommend tradeoffs, and escalate with options and a clear point of view.
Translate changing or incomplete inputs into clear actions: what changed, why it matters, who owns the next step, what may be affected, and what decision is required.
Help the team interpret briefs, clarify deliverables, and identify where missed steps or incomplete upstream decisions may create downstream production issues.
Partner across Marketing, Creative, E-commerce, Media, agencies, and other business teams to clarify objectives, channel needs, stakeholders, deliverables, deadlines, and decision rights.
Serve as a trusted Creative Project Management liaison and senior point of contact for E-commerce, connecting e-commerce priorities, site and channel requirements, customer experience considerations, and creative delivery across partner teams.
Protect strategic intent and Creative capacity by setting practical boundaries around feedback, proofing, approvals, late changes, and stakeholder participation while maintaining strong working relationships.
Coordinate recurring operating rhythms, status reporting, leadership updates, prioritization discussions, resource alignment, and escalation forums. Ensure information is accurate, timely, concise, and useful for decision-making.
Jump into complex or high-visibility work when needed to stabilize a plan, facilitate alignment, resolve an obstacle, or model the level of ownership expected from the team.
Identify opportunities to improve processes, tools, documentation, governance, and team practices. Develop and test practical solutions, follow through on results, and recommend changes through the established leadership model.
Serve as a visible leader in meetings by asking questions, naming implications, making recommendations, and ensuring decisions, owners, and deadlines are documented and followed through.