Sr Project Manager [AQ-15000]

Aquent is seeking an exceptional project management leader to partner with a prominent client in the defense and aerospace sector. This is a unique opportunity to embed within their Managed Services team and drive high-impact communications initiatives that shape critical outcomes. If you thrive on strategic challenges, excel in dynamic environments, and are passionate about making a tangible difference, this role offers the platform to elevate your career and influence enterprise-level success. Join Aquent Studios and embed directly within our Managed Services team, supporting a leading organization within a critical industry. In this pivotal role, you will lead end-to-end project management for high-priority communications initiatives, impacting multiple business units, functions, and Centers of Excellence. Operating in a central project management capacity, you will be instrumental in managing governance for enterprise-level intake, leading strategic priorities review processes, overseeing cross-functional resource allocation, and optimizing overall operational workflows. This is your chance to make a significant impact, shaping critical outcomes and influencing enterprise-level success through your leadership and strategic vision. The ideal candidate is a proactive problem-solver with strong executive presence who thrives in a fast-paced environment, navigates changing priorities with agility, and is confident engaging directly with senior leadership and external partner agencies. Key Responsibilities Lead high-priority communications initiatives from initial intake through final execution, translating strategic objectives into detailed project plans, milestones, dependencies, and decision points.Facilitate high-level cross-functional collaboration, serving as a confident daily point of contact for senior leadership, key enterprise stakeholders, and external agency partners.Establish project governance, meeting cadences, decision rights, and clear escalation paths for complex, multi-discipline efforts.Maintain portfolio visibility into project health, status, scope, and critical decisions while developing polished, executive-ready dashboards, status reports, and briefings.Proactively address bottlenecks, scope creep, resource constraints, and competing priorities before they create downstream delays.Serve as the project management lead for the client’s strategic priorities review process, managing intake, pre-read development, meeting logistics, and decision documentation.Track initiatives from planning through execution and evaluation, maintaining accountability across action items, timelines, and dependencies.Identify recurring bottlenecks in processes to continuously refine governance, workflows, and resource alignment.Act as the primary project management point of contact for enterprise strategic requests that fall outside standard business or account team alignment.Assess incoming requests for scope, urgency, complexity, dependencies, and resource requirements to help leadership determine ownership and governance paths.Maintain visibility across the enterprise portfolio to identify competing demands, resolve resource conflicts, and consolidate overlapping efforts.Coordinate cross-functional resources across internal teams, account leads, creative leads, and external agency vendors.Partner with discipline leads to assess capacity constraints, establish production timelines, and balance workloads.Utilize enterprise project management tools to drive team accountability, workflow efficiency, and transparent reporting.Manage project administrative needs, including cost estimates, vendor requirements, procurement processes, and archive documentation.Conduct post-initiative evaluations to capture performance outcomes, metrics, and lessons learned.Remain agile and receptive to shifting plans, identifying operational patterns across intake, resourcing, and execution to propose systemic solutions rather than quick fixes. Required Qualifications 8+ years of senior project management experience within an agency, managed services environment, or embedded corporate model, including experience collaborating with external agencies and vendor partners.Highly polished, articulate, and well-spoken, with no hesitation in communicating with, influencing, and presenting to executive-level stakeholders.Exceptional organizational and problem-solving skills with a track record of identifying operational bottlenecks, resolving complex conflicts, and staying flexible through changing project scopes.Advanced proficiency in enterprise project management tools (e.g., Workfront) and comfort working within a virtual environment.Willingness and ability to undertake up to 25% domestic travel as required by project demands and executive syncs. Client Description Aquent Studios is a global creative studio that delivers scale, speed and efficiency to the world’s most recognized brands. We create the work that matters the most to them—work that has a real impact on their business. As an Aquent Studios team member, you’ll have the opportunity to engage with the largest and most influential companies in the world, solving design challenges and extending their brands across tactic types and platforms, including digital design, UI/UX, video, motion, content, print design, web development, and more. If you want to do work that matters in a collaborative setting that values ingenuity and personal growth, you have found the right place!