Seasonal Creative Operations Manager

This position is designated as a hybrid role based out of our headquarters near Portland, Oregon. The current expectation is for employees to work onsite four days per week, subject to change based on business needs.

About the role

The Marketing Operations Team believes that creativity thrives when structure supports it—not stifles it. Our mission is to empower our creative teams to do their best work by removing operational roadblocks, streamlining processes, and ensuring every project is delivered with excellence. We value clarity, collaboration, and craftsmanship, and we know that the right operational leadership can turn ambitious ideas into impactful realities.

As our Seasonal Creative Operations Manager, you’ll be the strategic backbone of our creative department—connecting people, processes, and priorities across multiple workstreams. You’ll turn big picture marketing strategies into actionable, achievable plans—managing scope, deliverables, and timelines with precision. Your leadership will ensure that our designers, writers, and production teams can focus on what they do best: creating exceptional work that moves our Brand and our Business forward.

Responsibilities

• Translate Strategy into Execution: Oversee the conversion of marketing strategies and initiatives into creative deliverables, ensuring alignment with channel-specific and regional requirements.
• Define & Align: Partner with creative leadership to establish project scope, deliverables, team assignments, and success metrics for campaigns and brand initiatives.
• Synergize Creative Workstreams: Streamline workflows and foster collaboration between our Agencies, Internal Design, Photo Studio, and eComm Creative to ensure seamless, integrated output.
• Optimize Creative Operations: Manage seasonal project intake and prioritization to maximize efficiency without compromising creative quality, leveraging our systems to support and enhance processes.
• Own the Workback: Build and maintain detailed workback schedules that map every milestone deliverable from kickoff to delivery, ensuring alignment and visibility across marketing, creative, and production teams.
• Drive Accountability: Track progress against timelines, proactively identifying risks and implementing solutions to keep projects on track—holding teams accountable to dependencies, decisions, and deadlines.
• Facilitate Communication: Ensure stakeholders are informed, aligned, and empowered to make timely decisions and action through clear, consistent communication.
• Continuously Improve: Lead post-project retrospectives to capture learnings, refine workflows, and elevate operational excellence across the creative organization.

Requirements

• Extensive Experience: 8+ years in creative operations, program management, or production management, ideally with agency experience and a proven ability to navigate complex, fast-paced environments.
• Leadership Across Complexity: Skilled at guiding multi-stakeholder projects from concept to consumer.
• Workback Mastery: Deep and proven expertise in building and managing complex workback schedules for omnichannel and regional nuanced campaigns.
• Tool Proficiency: Mastery of project management platforms such as AirTable, with a talent for turning complexity into clarity.
• Exceptional Communicator: Able to translate creative vision into actionable plans, keeping diverse teams aligned and accountable.
• Proactive Problem Solver: Anticipates challenges before they arise and implements solutions that keep projects moving forward.
• Creative Champion: Passionate about supporting creative talent and enabling them to deliver their best work.
• Change Leader: Experienced in driving change management and evolved Ways of Working to improve transparency, efficiency, and collaboration.

Benefits

Columbia Sportswear is proud to offer regular full-time employees a benefits package that includes a variety of services and products to help make your life and work more rewarding. Our benefit programs contribute to overall employee well-being by aligning those programs with the fundamental elements of well-being: physical, social/emotional, financial, career, and community.

• 401k plan with a generous company match to help protect your family’s financial future and save money.
• Medical, dental, vision, life insurance, and disability coverage.
• Flexible spending accounts and health savings account.
• Assortment of voluntary benefit offerings (accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and legal services).
• Free and confidential 24/7/365 counseling services through EAP+.
• Extensive wellness benefits and employee discounts.
• Generous time off program.

Schedule

Hybrid role based out of our headquarters near Portland, Oregon. The current expectation is for employees to work onsite four days per week, subject to change based on business needs.