Studio Operations & Traffic Lead

Work set-up: Hybrid (4 days per week in-office, 1-day WFH)

Our client, a corporate communications and technology consultancy that helps organisations improve stakeholder engagement through communication strategy, branding, digital platforms, intranets, apps, and communication-focused technology solutions, is seeking an experienced Studio Operations & Traffic Lead to serve as the control tower of the agency.

In this role, you will be responsible for overseeing every active project, resourcing commitment, and potential bottleneck across the studio. You will have the authority to identify risks, flag issues, escalate where necessary, and coordinate across teams to ensure work progresses efficiently and deadlines are met. 

This is not an administrative role. It is a hands-on operational leadership position with significant influence over how the studio functions on a day-to-day basis.

What you will do:
Traffic & studio visibility:

• Own and maintain the studio job board - ensuring every active job is tracked, updated, and visible to leadership at all times.
• Run regular (daily or weekly) traffic and capacity check-ins with creative, production, and AM teams.
• Be the single point of escalation when priorities conflict, facilitating resourcing decisions that individual AMs cannot and should not make alone.
• Monitor studio capacity in real time, flagging over-allocation, bottlenecks, and resourcing gaps before they impact delivery.
• Ensure jobs move smoothly from brief to delivery, with clear handoffs and no stage sitting idle without reason.

Resourcing & capacity management:

• Maintain an accurate, up-to-date view of team utilisation across creative and production.
• Surface over-servicing risks and unprofitable job patterns to senior leadership.
• Work with AMs and department leads to sequence work realistically against available capacity.
• Support resource planning for upcoming projects, ensuring the studio can commit to timelines with confidence.

Operational systems & process:

• Own the project management infrastructure (e.g. Magnetic, ClickUp), ensuring it is set up correctly, adopted consistently, and maintained as the source of truth.
• Build and improve agency-wide workflows, SOPs, and handoff processes between departments.
• Prepare operational reports and dashboards for leadership: job status, utilisation rates, capacity forecasts, and delivery health.

Cross-functional coordination:

• Act as the connective tissue between Creative, Client Service, Accounts, and Production - aligning teams and keeping communication flowing.
• Identify and resolve coordination failures before they escalate to the MD.

• Proven experience in a Traffic, Studio Management, or senior project management role in a creative or production environment.
• Strong understanding of how creative agencies function - briefs, production stages, client delivery cycles.
• Confident facilitating prioritisation conversations with senior stakeholders.
• Systems-minded: able to build and maintain operational infrastructure, not just use it.
• Calm under pressure, clear communicator, comfortable with ambiguity.
• Experience with Magnetic and/or ClickUp.
• Exposure to capacity planning, utilisation reporting, or resourcing models.
• Familiarity with Google Workspace and Slack.
• Studio and traffic visibility.
• Cross-team coordination.
• Capacity planning and resourcing.
• Operational systems ownership.
• Stakeholder communication.
• Process design and improvement.
• Calm under pressure.
• Influential without direct authority.

Candidates must be legally authorized to live and work in the country where the position is based, without requiring employer sponsorship.

HelloKindred is committed to fair, transparent, and inclusive hiring practices. We assess candidates based on skills, experience, and role-related requirements.

We appreciate your interest in this opportunity. While we review every application carefully, only candidates selected for an interview will be contacted.

HelloKindred is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.