Creative Operations Manager

XPRIZE OVERVIEW 

XPRIZE is an established global leader in designing and executing large-scale competitions to solve humanity’s greatest challenges. As a 501(c)3, our unique model democratizes innovation by incentivizing crowd-sourced, scientifically viable solutions to create a more equitable and abundant future for all. Since our founding in 1994, we’ve awarded over $500M in prize purses, inspired thousands of global innovators, and collaborated with the most forward-thinking changemakers of our time. We operate across 5 areas of impact, including:

• Energy, Climate & Nature 
• Food, Water & Waste 
• Deep Tech & Exploration 
• Learning & Society 
• Health 

Join XPRIZE to help empower humanity to achieve breakthroughs and architect a more equitable and abundant future for all.

Position Description 

The Creative Operations Manager is the central point of coordination for XPRIZE Marketing’s production pipeline. This role functions as air traffic control: capturing incoming work, routing it to the right owners, tracking it through delivery, and keeping platforms clean, current, and reliable.

The ideal candidate brings real experience from a high-output agency environment, trafficking deliverables and scheduling resources across multiple workstreams simultaneously. They're technically comfortable with platforms like Airtable and digital asset management tools, but what sets them apart is their ability to operate at tempo. They've worked in fast-moving, multi-stakeholder production environments and they thrive in that pace. This isn't an on-the-job training role. This is someone who already knows how to keep a pipeline moving, communicate across departments, and give leadership clear visibility into what's on track and what's at risk.

A core pillar of this role is project management discipline across complex, multi-stakeholder work. Tracking milestones, dependencies, and long-range initiatives with enough flexibility to adapt as priorities evolve, while keeping work visible and moving through the system.

Responsibilities:

Intake, Routing, and Pipeline Coordination

• Own the input of all deliverables into the tracking system, working within approved campaigns to assign deadlines, coordinate resourcing, and engage external vendors as needed.
• Capture incoming marketing and production requests, ensuring they are logged with complete information and routed to the appropriate owners across all Marketing disciplines.
• Capture and track campaign and ad hoc asset requests across both long-term initiatives and short-term needs, ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.
• Track status across active workstreams, flag risks early, and ensure follow-through from intake to delivery and archive.
• Monitor schedules, deliverables, and timelines across active workstreams, keeping production on track and flagging slippage early.
• Support weekly status/production meetings and reporting, providing concise visibility into what's in motion, what's blocked, and what's at risk.
• Maintain milestone visibility across active initiatives. Track dependencies, flag timeline impacts when priorities shift, and surface schedule risks before they become problems.
• Communicate regularly with key stakeholders to keep them informed on progress, upcoming milestones, and potential risks.

Platform Administration and Workflow Operations

• Manage and maintain the operational systems that track work and store assets, ensuring teams can rely on accurate and current information.
• Ensure data integrity across fields, statuses, naming conventions, and handoff requirements so reporting and tracking stay reliable.
• Support onboarding for new users, including staff, freelancers, and vendors, into systems, standards, and best practices.

Media Asset Support and File Governance

• Maintain folder structures, naming conventions, version control practices, and storage standards for creative work and final deliverables.
• Guide stakeholders toward correct approved versions through consistent standards and platform usage, reducing duplication and rework.
• Support ongoing improvements to digital asset management practices in coordination with Creative Operations, Marketing, and IT as needed.

Qualifications:

• 7 to 9 years in a role that blends project coordination, trafficking workflow operations, and cross-team communication. Examples include creative operations manager, traffic coordinator, content operations, or production coordinator.
• Project management experience supporting complex, multi-stakeholder initiatives. Comfortable tracking milestones, dependencies, and timelines across long-range work while adapting to change.
• Hands-on familiarity with project management and workflow platforms like Airtable. Experience building forms, views, dashboards, and maintaining data integrity to keep work trackable and reporting reliable.
• Familiarity with digital asset management platforms and the principles behind them: taxonomy, metadata, naming conventions, versioning, and findability.
•  Exposure to or comfort working alongside creative production, video production, and post-production workflows. Enough fluency to keep files, statuses, and stakeholders aligned, even if not hands-on in the tools.
• Extremely organized, detail-oriented, and consistent. Able to keep systems clean while operating at speed.
• Clear, proactive communicator who can work across creatives, producers, marketers, vendors, and technical stakeholders.
• Comfortable navigating ambiguity. Able to take a loose problem and turn it into a trackable system with accountable owners.

Competencies required for this role:

•  Project Management Fundamentals: milestones, dependencies, long-range tracking, flexibility under change
• Platform Fluency: Airtable preferred, plus comfort with DAM and MAM platforms
• Workflow Operations: forms, views, dashboards, data integrity
• Intake Management: request logging, routing, follow-through
• Cross-Team Communication and Stakeholder Service
• File Organization, Naming Standards, and Version Control
•  Pipeline Visibility, Reporting, and Risk Flagging
• Process Documentation and Light Training
• Vendor and Freelancer Onboarding into Tools and Standards

The anticipated base salary for this position is $100,000 to $115,000 and may also qualify for an annual incentive. This role is eligible for our extensive benefits package and generous paid time off including vacation, sick, and holidays. The actual base salary offered will depend on a variety of factors including the qualifications of the individual applicant, years of relevant experience for the role, level of education attained, and certifications and/or other licenses held. XPRIZE is a remote-first environment.

The XPRIZE FOUNDATION is an equal opportunity employer and does not unlawfully discriminate in employment. Equal access to employment, services, and programs is available to all persons. Those applicants requiring reasonable accommodation to the application and/or interview process should notify a representative of the organization. 

Please note: Though submitting a resume to the XPRIZE FOUNDATION implies that you are interested in a position(s), it does not imply that you are an applicant. You are not considered an applicant until you have been contacted directly by a Talent Acquisitions representative requesting that you begin the designated application process, which may involve phone and/or in-person interview(s), job-related testing, and background checks.