Vice President, UTA Advisory Business Operations

United Talent Agency • New York, NY

22d

About The Position

UTA Advisory seeks a Vice President of Business Operations to build and lead the operating capability that connects commercial demand with workforce capacity, resource deployment, engagement execution, and profitability. The role is the central operating partner to Advisory leadership, establishing the processes, systems, and accountability needed to operate as an integrated business and deliver consistently as the portfolio grows. It translates booked work and qualified pipeline into staffing and delivery plans, coordinates capabilities across teams, and identifies operational and economic risks before they affect execution.

The role owns operating integration, capacity visibility, deployment coordination, and the evidence supporting staffing recommendations. Business leadership retains client relationships, commercial strategy, and delivery quality; Finance retains budgets, financial forecasting, accounting, and financial controls; People retains organization design, workforce strategy, and talent decisions; and Creative leadership retains creative strategy and quality. Final workforce investment approval follows existing company governance.

The position builds and improves the engagement lifecycle; leads pipeline, resource, delivery, operating, and capacity reviews; forecasts demand and workforce capacity; coordinates enterprise staffing; and supports workforce investment requests. It partners with Sales, business leaders, subject-matter experts, and Finance on commercial planning and engagement economics. It maintains portfolio visibility, coordinates delivery handoffs and readiness, establishes practices for shared capabilities, and captures lessons and actual-versus-plan results. It also leads business requirements and adoption for connected Salesforce, Hive, and Finance reporting workflows, builds dashboards, validates system functionality, and develops the approved team while coordinating dotted-line operating relationships.

UTA Advisory combines insight, strategy, creativity, activation, and measurement to help consumer and enterprise clients build relevance, revenue, and measurable impact through UTA’s talent, creator, partnership, and platform ecosystem.

Requirements

• Substantial progressive experience in business operations, resource management, or professional services delivery, including senior leadership responsibility in an agency, consultancy, or comparable client-service business.
• Proven ability to build an integrated operating model across teams or business units and lead implementation through influence as well as direct authority.
• Strong command of capacity forecasting, utilization, staffing models, engagement economics, and contractor-versus-permanent workforce tradeoffs.
• Experience connecting CRM, resource or project management systems, and financial reporting; comparable platforms are relevant.
• Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with business leadership, Sales, Finance, People, Legal, Creative, and technology teams.
• Excellent analytical, communication, executive presentation, and people-development skills.
• Comfort operating through ambiguity and managing sensitive business information.

Nice To Haves

• Salesforce and Hive experience.
• Experience in marketing, media, entertainment, sports, creators, or culture-driven advisory businesses.

Responsibilities

• Build and continuously improve the engagement lifecycle from qualified opportunity and scope development through staffing, kickoff, delivery, economic review, and closeout, including handoffs, stage gates, and escalation paths.
• Connect Advisory capabilities and relevant agency resources around client demand to enable coordinated delivery and service expansion with commercial and account leaders.
• Lead weekly pipeline and resource reviews, delivery reviews, monthly operating reviews, and quarterly capacity reviews, ensuring decisions have accountable owners and are followed through.
• Maintain a rolling 90–180-day view of demand, headcount, utilization, chargeability, skills, availability, and contractor requirements across Advisory.
• Translate qualified opportunities into resource requirements by capability, level, skill, timing, duration, geography, and shared-resource dependency, and compare probability-weighted demand with available capacity.
• Coordinate enterprise staffing and resolve resource conflicts using business priorities, delivery risk, and economics; assess redeployment, staffing mix, shared resources, work sequencing, and flexible capacity before recommending permanent headcount.
• Lead operational evidence reviews for workforce investment requests; partner with Finance and People on affordability and organization design, track time-bound approvals, and coordinate revalidation within 90 days or earlier when assumptions change.
• Partner with Enterprise Sales, business leaders, and subject-matter experts to validate delivery feasibility, staffing assumptions, timing, shared-resource needs, and resource costs before significant proposals or statements of work are finalized.
• Partner with Finance to monitor engagement margin, revenue and margin per head, staffing mix, utilization, resource cost, and scope variance, and coordinate corrective action with accountable leaders.
• Identify under-scoping, resource inefficiencies, and avoidable external spending; provide staffing scenarios and operational recommendations to support sustainable growth and profitability.
• Maintain a consolidated portfolio view of active and upcoming engagements, staffing, milestones, dependencies, and delivery risks; coordinate Closed-Won handoffs, kickoff readiness, scope-change escalation, and closeout.
• Establish intake, prioritization, workflow, and deployment practices for Creative and other shared capabilities, balancing competing demand and internal versus external resource use.
• Capture delivery lessons and actual-versus-plan results to improve future scoping, staffing, forecast accuracy, and readiness for client expansion.
• Lead business requirements and adoption for connected Salesforce, Hive, and Finance reporting workflows in partnership with system owners; define resource taxonomy, data standards, project setup, and reporting responsibilities.
• Build reliable dashboards linking pipeline, capacity, utilization, engagement economics, headcount, contractor spend, and delivery risk; present executive recommendations with clear implications and tradeoffs.
• Validate available system functionality before designing automation, including skills-based resource matching; simplify processes and lead adoption across legacy teams.
• Assess existing resources and capabilities before proposing the function’s team structure; develop and lead the approved team while coordinating dotted-line operating relationships.
• Apply critical thinking and strategic judgment to connect commercial, workforce, and delivery signals, anticipate issues, and recommend practical solutions.
• Communicate with clarity and executive presence, adapting detail to the audience and making decisions, ownership, and next steps explicit.
• Build trust and accountability across teams, navigate competing priorities, invite constructive challenges, and resolve disagreements with evidence and sound judgment.
• Coach and motivate team members through clear expectations, timely feedback, learning, and recognition; delegate responsibility and create talent-development opportunities.
• Maintain fluency in culture, the marketplace, and agency capabilities, and help junior colleagues understand how their work connects to client outcomes and business performance.

Benefits

• Access to tools, leadership, and resources needed to create and drive a center of excellence.
• Opportunity to do the best work of your career.
• Inclusive and diverse company culture.
• Competitive programs to support well-being.
• Collaborative environment with room to grow.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed