Creative Operations & Resource Management Lead, Marcom LA

Marcom LA is Apple’s Global Marketing Communications group creating and overseeing the world-class marketing and advertising driving Apple’s rapidly-growing Services sector including Apple Music, App Store, Apple Pay, iCloud, Creator Studio, Apple Arcade, Apple Sports, Apple News, Apple Books, Apple Podcasts, Apple Maps, and more. Whether we’re launching the Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show, introducing Messi to MLS, sharing the next generation of games in the App Store, or celebrating the seamless joy of using Apple Pay, Marcom LA’s mission is to build brand love for Apple every day. We do that with inspiring creative, a culture-first mindset, and the belief our Services make our incredible Apple devices even better.

We are looking for a Creative Operations & Resource Management Lead to join our Operations team. In this role, you will own a single, forecast-driven operating system for talent and creative operations, partnering with functional leads to assign sufficient and suitable resources to projects, while also filtering, developing, and up-leveling talent so the right creative capabilities are ready before the work arrives.

Description

The Creative Operations & Resource Management Lead for Marcom LA is the cornerstone that empowers our talent to do their best work across our services brands. By deeply understanding the creative journey, you know how to strategically forecast needs and build the right teams - and by holding a strong point of view on creative quality, you filter and prepare that talent before it ever reaches creative leadership. In our fast-paced environment, your clear communication, diplomatic leadership, and seamless planning will create the space where great ideas can come to life. This role reads the pipeline from Brand and Project Management, translates it into a forecast of creative capability needs, and closes the loop by developing, sourcing, and casting talent against that forecast, then reviewing quality before handoff to creative leadership.

Responsibilities Include:

Resourcing & Staffing

- Build strong relationships across creative, production, design, brand, strategy, operations leadership, and vendor partners.

- Partner with Marcom and Services resource managers to align strategies, share best practices, and maintain a big-picture view of our workforce.

- Lead weekly stakeholder check-ins to optimize talent utilization, assign projects efficiently, and address resource gaps.

- Manage contract, vendor, and full-time staffing, proactively overseeing agency relationships, resource burn, and contract lifecycles.

- Align individual skills and career goals with project needs, carefully balancing workloads across full-time and freelance teams.

- Oversee smooth onboarding and offboarding for all personnel (FTE, vendors, freelancers) in partnership with Associate Resource Managers.

Forecasting & Intake

- Maintain a forward-looking read of the Brand and Project Management pipeline, translating volume and complexity into a rolling forecast of creative capability, skill, and capacity needs across all three creative pods (design, copy, art direction).

- Forecast hiring and freelance needs for quarterly and fiscal year planning, factoring in project roadmaps and seasonality.

Sourcing & Talent Development

- Collaborate with staffing vendors and internal teams to source, review, and screen new talent, ensuring sourcing partners understand our unique needs and secure top talent across creative, production, design, brand, and strategy.

- Shift contractor and IC sourcing from reactive backfill to forward-facing recruiting aligned to future creative needs, building a sourcing pipeline matched to the studio’s evolving creative sensibilities.

- Own up-leveling of existing talent as creative needs evolve - shaping skill-building and inspiration programming proactively, tied to where the pipeline is headed rather than after gaps emerge.

Creative Quality & Orchestration

- Quality-gate every talent-to-assignment match before it reaches creative leadership for review, reducing Group Creative Director (GCD) workload by pre-filtering casting recommendations with a strong, consistent point of view on creative taste and quality standards.

- Organize and run creative reviews by project priority, and coordinate with GCDs on talent fit assessments.

- Establish and maintain shared operating playbooks across all three creative pods, connecting briefing, office hours, reviews, and intake into one coherent system rather than disconnected rituals.

- Run structured retrospectives that feed learnings back into the forecast, tightening casting accuracy cycle over cycle.

Operational Excellence

- Mediate resource-sharing challenges with functional and operations leads, conducting necessary risk and opportunity assessments.

- Continuously improve resource management processes and workflows using modern planning tools (i.e. Airtable) and AI-driven insights.

Minimum Qualifications

15+ years relevant experience in a resource or project management role within a creative agency or marketing communications organization.

Proven experience managing a contingent workforce.

Strong understanding of digital and creative campaign workflows, including key roles in design, conceptual advertising, and digital production.

Experience with budget allocation and proficiency in modern project management and workspace tools.

Demonstrated ability to build and manage a rolling capacity/demand forecast, not just respond to open requests.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience using and driving adoption of project resourcing systems.

Advanced Airtable skills; experience with AI-driven resourcing tools.

Experience sourcing talent at the convergence of creative craft and the effective application of technology.

Ability to assess and forecast longterm creative needs based upon industry wide trends and the evolving technology landscape.

Strategic and detail-oriented, able to balance daily operations with big-picture team efficiency.

Adaptable and proactive, thriving in dynamic environments while anticipating future needs and roadblocks.

Ability to analyze complex briefs, identify risks, and strategically match the right talent to the right project.

Exceptional organizational, diplomatic communication, and people management skills.

Strong point of view on creative quality and taste, with the judgment to filter and pre-vet talent recommendations for creative leadership.

Track record of building shared processes or playbooks across previously siloed teams or pods.