ROLE: Sr. Production Director
REPORTS INTO: Head of Production
LOCATION: Hybrid in Los Angeles or NYC, NY
What Is a Sr. Production DirectorA Sr. Production Director is a seasoned, independent production leader who owns the full lifecycle of complex, high-profile projects and a defined client portfolio. You operate without needing to be managed. You see what's coming, you make the call, and you bring your team with you.
You sit between the hands-on execution world of a Production Director and the department-level leadership of a Group Production Director/Head of Production. That means you're the senior production authority on your projects, making high-stakes decisions independently, managing executive-level client relationships, and developing the Production Directors and producers in your orbit.
You are not running the department. You are running your portfolio at the highest possible level and doing it in a way that makes the people around you better. When things get complex, difficult, or high-pressure, your team and your clients look to you first. You are the steady hand that keeps things moving.
Roles & Responsibilities- You will work directly with our clients and client teams on a daily basis. Excellent client-facing communication and organizational skills is a must have.
- Inspire and lead the production team to manage and execute creative, results-driven events and programs that meet client objectives and deliver against project scope.
- Oversees the entire project planning process, setting goals, timelines, and high-level department strategies. Manages complex logistics for larger projects.
- Sets and stays close to project budgets, approving major expenses, and adjusting financial plans for high-profile or complex projects.
- Supervise cross-functional teams on projects, resolving conflicts, and optimizing team performance and collaboration.
- Lead, mentor, and support Production Directors and producers across your projects.
- Helps manage client relationships, balancing expectations and delivering strategic updates on complex or sensitive issues.
- Working with directors and creative teams to provide strategic input and ensure the project vision aligns with client and brand expectations.
- Support team resourcing (full time and freelance) to new projects, attending internal & external kick-offs and client calls/meetings as individual project needs require.
- Clearly define and maintain Roles & Responsibilities for the project team and partner agencies.
- Oversees risk management on projects, creating risk mitigation strategies for complex challenges.
- Manages large-scale and small-scale productions, quick turn and long lead, and prioritizes multiple projects at the various stages of a project life cycle.
- As a member of the Leadership team, you will work closely with the other senior leaders across departments to ensure synergy, collaboration, and communication.
- Set and stay close to project budgets - approving major expenses and adjusting financial plans as projects evolve
- Partner with finance and operations to reconcile budgets and protect margin goals
- Lead budget pressure conversations with clients and vendors with confidence and diplomacy
- Flag financial exposure early and bring solutions, not just alerts
- Bring collaborating agencies together to deliver premium work.
- Actively participate in production audits and production schedule reviews across all projects.
- Maintain regular touchpoints with your team - monitoring workload, performance, and morale to promote individual growth and development.
- Support the GPD and Head of Production on new business development - contributing to RFPs, pitches, and client growth within your portfolio
- Contribute to the evolution of Salt's production processes and standards
- As a full time employee, you will be responsible for managing full time (non project) staff at Salt. This would include ongoing company management, employee development, employee growth, and company culture.
- Support with developing, budgeting, and pitching RFP's and RFI's.
- Bring a positive, can-do attitude to our salt team!
- Foster unity and belonging within the team. Leverage project talent collaboratively to achieve outstanding results.
- Travel both domestically and internationally will be required.
- This job will require on-site and in person work.
Requirements- 10+ Years of experience.
- Hands on experience managing budgets over $5,000,000 and a nice to have of budgets over $10,000,000
- Confident proposing next steps and leading a team from a strategic thought through execution.
- Well-rounded experience in various facets of event production [Logistics, Fabrication, Graphics, A/V, Furniture & Decor, Food & Beverage, etc].
- Proven track record leading cross-functional teams and developing talent at the producer and director level
- Understanding of the experiential business and able to forecast potential fires on a project in advance.
- Comfort and confidence managing day to day project client relationships.
- Embody integrity and character, transparency and accountability, leading by example.
- Understanding of the creative process for large scale events.
- Comfortable having difficult conversations and adept at conflict resolution with teammates, vendors and clients.
- Able to kindly hold all parties accountable to deliver a great finished product.
- Proactive problem solver.
- Manage the timely delivery of a project while managing quality, budget and overall exceeding the expectations of the project.
- Executive Producer experience leading a multitude of diverse projects. B2B, B2C, quick turns, tours, simultaneous activations, etc.
- Approach projects as an opportunity to create premium work and develop client relationships and strong teams - it's not just about the end result but also the process and the people.
- Nice to have;
- A wiz at google docs, Slack and Excel
- Passionate about the experiential marketing world keeping up with the day to day news about successful projects going on around the world.
