Studio Manager at Sparks in London, England, GB

About Us

Sparks is a leading global brand experience agency, specializing in the design and execution of award-winning experiences that forge deep connections between brands and audiences. Recognized by Adweek as Experiential Agency of the Year, we bring a unique blend of strategic insight and execution excellence to every brand activation, corporate event, trade show exhibit, and immersive experience. Our commitment to creativity, innovation, and flawless execution drives us to craft impactful experiential marketing solutions that deepen relationships, inspire action, and build trust—all around the world.

Summary

Great creative only succeeds when it is delivered on time, in full, and without anything being lost between handoffs. The Studio Manager keeps the creative team moving smoothly, guiding each brief from idea to final delivery without missing a beat. This is a workflow role: the focus is on how work moves once it reaches creative, from brief intake through production to final delivery. You’ll work closely with the Executive Creative Director, Creative Leads, and Resource Manager to keep the right work moving at the right pace, with nothing lost along the way.

This position will support our EMEA Creative team and is eligible to work a hybrid schedule, generally requiring work in-office one day a week (typically Wednesdays) at our London location.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Workflow & Traffic Management

• Own the day-to-day flow of work through the creative team, from brief intake to final delivery
• Maintain live visibility of every creative job's status, priority and deadline
• Keep the queue of live briefs sequenced by priority and deadline, giving the Resource Manager full visibility to allocate people accordingly
• Flag capacity conflicts to the Resource Manager rather than resolving them directly — who works on what sits solely with the Resource Manager
• Flag workflow bottlenecks and deadline risks early, and escalate where needed
• Own and maintain the creative team's workflow/traffic tool, keeping it current and accurate

Briefing & Handoffs

• Ensure every job entering the creative team arrives with a complete, actionable brief
• Track that PO paperwork for creative freelancers is raised and approved ahead of their start date, chasing whoever owns it if it's at risk of holding up the work — freelancers won't raise these themselves, so this is a workflow gate, not a finance task
• Coordinate handoffs between creative disciplines (for example, concept to design, design to motion)
• Run regular traffic meetings with Creative Leads to review priorities, status and risks

Quality & Process

• Build review and approval checkpoints into the workflow so work is checked before it moves downstream
• Maintain and refine SOPs for how work flows in, through and out of the creative team
• Identify and implement process improvements that increase creative throughput and quality

Team Coordination

• Act as the day-to-day point of contact for the creative team on workflow questions
• Support new creative team members in onboarding to workflow tools and processes
• Coordinate creative team meetings, reviews and internal presentations

Education & Experience

• 3–5+ years in a studio, traffic or workflow management role within a creative, design or in-house creative team
• Strong organisational skills, comfortable balancing multiple concurrent creative jobs and shifting priorities
• Confident communicator, able to coordinate across designers, Creative Leads and account or production teams
• Proficiency with workflow or project management tools (for example, Monday.com, Asana, or similar)
• A clear understanding of the creative process, and what "good" looks like at each stage
• Experience within an experiential, events, exhibition or brand experience agency, nice to have
• Familiarity with design software workflows (Adobe Creative Cloud, Figma) sufficient to understand handoff requirements
• Background in traffic or workflow management within an in-house creative team or agency studio

Certificates, Licenses, Registrations

PMP preferred.

Travel Requirements

Travel up to 25%

What We Offer

The Freeman Company provides benefits that aim to empower our people and their families to thrive mentally, physically, and financially. These are a handful of the types of programs and benefits our full-time people may be eligible for. There may be some variances in specific benefits across regions.

• Medical, Dental, Vision Insurance
• Life, Accident and Disability
• Retirement with Company Match
• Paid Time Off

Diversity Commitment

At The Freeman Company, our commitment to diversity and inclusion is helping us to create not only a great place to work, but also an environment where our employees, our customers and our communities around the world can reach their goals and connect with each other. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, veteran status and other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.

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