Project Manager

About the role

VSA is a strategy and design agency that blends consumer insights and data with human-centered design to activate meaningful, motivating and measurable experiences. With offices in Chicago, New York and San Francisco, VSA offers branding, advertising, data science and technology capabilities. The Project Manager supports senior-level project managers on a given client, potentially across multiple clients, and manages smaller projects independently. They are responsible for overall project health including day-to-day communications, financial management, resources, risk mitigation, and internal and external relationships.

Responsibilities

• Support senior-level project managers on a given client/program or across multiple clients/programs and/or oversee and direct multiple individual projects
• Ensure projects meet or exceed internal team and client expectations, including being on time and on budget
• Interface with senior marketing, technical, and executive management at the client to ensure the solution is understood and addresses the customer's business requirements
• Contribute content and presentation of key client deliverables as needed to ensure relevancy, strategy, quality, timeliness, and adherence to SOWs
• Manage and control project scope and the change control process to ensure that projects are executed according to agreed-upon scope, schedule, and budget
• Supervise and raise awareness of all project issues and risks, working with appropriate team members to develop solutions
• Communicate relevant project information to the client, such as status, risk, issues, or deliverables
• Contribute to, review, and manage creation of client SOWs, ensuring accuracy and legal and financial compliance
• Collaborate with the project team to drive the approach, deliverables, schedule, and tools to deliver the project within established constraints; ensure accurate financial management of projects
• Coordinate activities of the project team and ensure project tasks, including scheduling and facilitating project-related team meetings (kickoffs, status, internal/client reviews), conveying action steps to the team, and delivering weekly status reports to project team, the client, and management
• Work with Accounting to manage project billing schedules, including reviewing invoices and tracking fees and expenses
• Develop, maintain, review, and/or disseminate project documentation, including status reports, invoices, change orders, project timelines, budgets, and sunset reviews
• Ensure project documentation is produced in the standard format, follows internal documentation processes, and is reviewed and approved
• Work with Resource Management to ensure projects are appropriately staffed, including both employee and contract resources
• Partner with, manage communications, and execute project scope requirements with sister agencies within contract parameters
• Additional responsibilities as assigned

Qualifications

• 3-5 years of demonstrated ability coordinating brand, marketing, campaign and digital projects, preferably in a consulting or agency environment
• Bachelor's degree in business administration with a concentration in project management, advertising/marketing, or related field
• Experience using project management methodology, including the ability to develop and track scopes of work, identify and resolve issues, mitigate risk, develop detailed task-based project plans and specifications, perform resource allocations, and lead team meetings
• Experience with project life cycles, print and digital production processes, and the delivery of solutions with creative and engineering components, advertising projects, brand strategy, and research projects
• Experience managing deliverables against a media plan is a plus

Skills

• Strong organizational and time management skills
• Strong team player; ability to assist with facilitating teams and clients
• Ability to be highly organized, accurate, and timely; able to prioritize
• Adaptability, flexibility, persistence, versatility, and ability to handle multiple projects and changing priorities
• Ability to organize information, pay attention to detail, accurately follow procedures, maintain confidential information, and remember important pieces of information
• Ability to maintain self-motivation and to work independently and in collaborative environments
• Ability to develop and demonstrate an understanding of the client's business, needs, expectations, and requirements
• Strong knowledge of one or more of the following: creative project management, web development processes and the delivery of solutions with creative and technology components, advertising, digital marketing, print, strategy, and brand research
• Strong digital literacy in Google Suite/MS Office (particularly Sheets/Excel), email, project, and team communication software (e.g., Workamajig, Smartsheet, Jira, Slack, DoneDone)
• Ability to interact at all levels of the company and with external parties in a professional manner, maintaining effective communication—both written and spoken

Pay

Chicago Estimated Salary Range: $70,000 USD - $90,000 USD

Schedule

Some evenings and weekend work may occasionally be required to meet deadlines.