Studio Director

• Lead day-to-day studio operations, holding overall accountability for delivery standards, team performance, and operational health
• Act as the primary escalation point for production, workflow, and resource challenges across the studio
• Partner with Global Studio leadership to align local operations with wider business priorities and standards
• Foster a collaborative, accountable, and solutions-focused culture that supports high performance and team wellbeing
• Support the development and growth of team members through coaching, mentoring, and structured enablement

• Design and maintain a robust resourcing rhythm, weekly planning, daily triage, utilisation tracking that ensures predictability and strong delivery outcomes
• Conduct weekly resource reviews to identify gaps and ensure the team is fully utilised; proactively redeploy resource to support other regions or accounts where capacity allows
• Work closely with Producers and Sales Market Leads on forecasting and capacity planning
• Source, contract, and onboard freelance and ad hoc resource when demand requires

• Serve as the escalation point for production queries from Regional Producers, IPMs, and Creative teams
• Maintain working knowledge of all channel-specific workflows and production requirements
• Proactively identify production risks and implement mitigation plans to protect quality and deadlines

• Act as the first point of contact for Cape Town teams on workflow, automation, and production tooling issues, triaging and coordinating resolution
• Coordinate the implementation of global workflows, ensuring IPMs adhere to production and automation standards
• Maintain workflow documentation and version control; provide structured feedback to the Global Ops team
• Deliver practical training and enablement programmes, including buddy systems for new hires
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives focused on efficiency, quality, and scalability

• Oversee studio-level production and resource budgets, including freelance spend and cost planning
• Present budget performance to OLIVER stakeholders; flag risks early and drive corrective action where needed
• Drive cost efficiencies across studio operations without compromising delivery quality or team capacity
• Hold overall accountability for the financial health of the Cape Town studio 

What you need to be great in this role: 

• Proven track record leading creative production, studio operations, or project management teams in a fast-paced environment
• Strong resource planning and forecasting capabilities, with experience managing complex, multi-function workloads
• Deep understanding of production workflows, channel-specific requirements, and operational improvement methodologies
• Experience sourcing and managing freelance and contingent resource models
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills and able to influence and partner at all levels
• Confidence managing studio-level budgets, reporting on financial performance, and driving cost efficiency
• Fluency with production terminology and methodology across multiple channels and formats
• Familiarity with production tooling, workflow automation, and project management platforms
• Strategic use of AI tools to enhance studio operations, team efficiency, and delivery quality
• Experience setting AI governance and quality standards at team or studio level
• Agentic leadership approach: systematic, goal-oriented problem-solving for complex operational and business challenges
• Drive for AI innovation with an appetite to share best practice and build capability across the OLIVER network

Req ID: 18643

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