Creative Operations Manager, Applecart
$95-115k
+ Discretionary annual cash bonus and equity compensation
More information about location
3 days a week in office
Social graph platform for marketing
Be an early applicant
Social graph platform for marketing
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
$95-115k
+ Discretionary annual cash bonus and equity compensation
More information about location
3 days a week in office
201-500 employees
Company mission
To provide the intelligence that sophisticated organizations use to power their strategy for winning over key decision makers.
Role
Who you are
- The ideal candidate is organized, proactive, calm under pressure and comfortable working in a fast-paced environment where priorities can shift quickly
- You should be able to manage the details of daily production, while also identifying opportunities to make the overall workflow more efficient, transparent, and scalable
- 4+ years of experience in managing creative operations and workflows, creative project management, production management, agency operations or a similar role at a fast-paced agency, media, campaign, performance marketing or client service environment
- Strong understanding of creative production processes, including intake, briefing, production, review, revisions, delivery and file handoff
- Experience with paid media, digital advertising, programmatic display, social ads
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to give clear status updates and surface risks early
- Experience working with designers, creative leads, account/client service teams, media teams and external vendors
- Comfort managing both day-to-day project details and broader process improvements
- Strong attention to detail and a high level of accountability
- Ability to stay calm, organized and solutions-oriented under pressure
- Experience with project management tools such as Asana or similar platforms
- Familiarity with Adobe Creative Cloud workflows, source-file management and digital asset organization
- Experience supporting political, advocacy, public affairs, issue-based or other fast-turn campaign work a plus
- Experience managing creative workflows with remote, offshore or vendor-based design teams a plus
- Experience building creative operations processes in a growing or evolving function a plus
What the job involves
- We are looking for a Creative Operations Manager to help build and manage the day-to-day operating system for our growing creative function
- This is a hands-on operations role that includes daily project management of the creative queue, intake prioritization, workflow visibility, deadline tracking, creative production coordination and process improvement
- The person in this role will work closely with the Design Director, Client Services, Media, Account leads and other internal teams to ensure creative work is properly scoped, assigned, tracked, reviewed and delivered
- Our creative work moves quickly and is directly tied to client delivery, campaign launches and business growth
- Manage the day-to-day creative queue, including intake, task setup, prioritization, assignments, status updates and delivery tracking
- Review incoming creative requests to confirm scope, assets, specs, timing, priority and required context before work moves into production
- Partner with the Design Director to triage standard, rush and same-day creative requests based on business need, capacity and delivery requirements
- Maintain clear visibility into what is assigned, in progress, at risk, ready for review, delivered and awaiting feedback
- Coordinate with designers to ensure work is moving through the queue accurately and efficiently
- Track asset counts, deliverables, due dates, revision rounds and handoffs across multiple active requests
- Help manage rush requests by clarifying priorities, surfacing tradeoffs and communicating timing clearly
- Ensure working files, source files, final exports and supporting assets are organized and accessible in approved systems
- Help enforce intake standards, file management requirements, version control and creative workflow expectations
- Identify bottlenecks, recurring issues and process gaps, then recommend practical improvements
- Track and report on creative volume, capacity, turnaround, rush requests, revision and workflow trends
- Partner with Client Services, Media and Account leads to clarify expectations, reduce unnecessary back-and-forth and improve handoffs
- Help onboard new designers, vendors or contractors into the creative workflow and production process
- Support implementation of new tools, templates and processes as the creative function scales
Our take
Applecart uses publicly available data, both online and offline, to create a map of real-world interpersonal relationships. Allowing clients to run more effective advertising and marketing campaigns by leveraging social influence, or word of mouth, which Applecart believes is the most powerful motivator.
Initially focused on political campaigns, Applecart worked to increase voter engagement and turnout. However, in recent years, it has expanded into commercial work, partnering with organisations such as Boeing and nonprofits like The Business Roundtable.
A key backer of Applecart is Ari Emanuel, CEO of Endeavor, a global entertainment and media agency that owns the UFC. While it's unclear if the UFC is currently a client, Emanuel's involvement signals the high-profile clients Applecart is now attracting. Further success has come in the form of Blackstone's impressive $100 million investment in Applecart, setting up 2026 to be a year of further growth for the company.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
55% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Jan 2026
$100m
LATE VC
Feb 2023
$10.4m
LATE VC
Total funding: $114.5m
Company benefits
- 35 days of Paid Time Off: 20 vacation days, 10 personal days, 5 sick days
- 14 company holidays
- Bereavement leave
- 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave inclusive of birth and adoption for primary and secondary caregivers
- Frequent company-wide and team social events such as games nights, cooking classes, summer boat cruises, paint & sip, karaoke, escape rooms, bowling, team dinners, baseball games, holiday parties, and plenty more
- Stocked fridge full of drinks and plenty of healthy (and less healthy) snacks
- Weekly happy hour and bagel breakfast
- Pre-tax commuter benefits
- $300 workstation budget to personalize your at-home or in-office space
- Hybrid in-office setup: we work from our offices in midtown Manhattan every Tuesday - Thursday and give the option to work from anywhere on Monday and Friday
- Applecart pays 75% contribution towards Medical, Dental and Vision
- 401(k) with 4% company match
- HSA and FSA
- OneMedical: On-demand primary care free to all employee whether you take our insurance or not
- Health Advocate: Personal healthcare concierge
- Teladoc: Network of virtual healthcare providers
- Talkspace: Online mental health therapy
- Headspace: Full access to the meditation app
- Kindbody: Fertility and gynecology services
Company HQ
Midtown South, New York, NY
Leadership
Matthew Kalmans
(Co-Founder & Co-CEO)Forbes 30 under 30. Co-founded Applecart while an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania.
Sacha Samotin
(Co-Founder & Co-CEO)Forbes 30 under 30. Along with co-founder and co-CEO Matthew Kalmans, studied at the University of Pennsylvania, where Applecart was first launched.
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