The Senior Manager, Marketing Operations serves as the operational leader responsible for maximizing the effectiveness, efficiency, and scalability of Central Marketing's delivery model. This role provides the governance, project management discipline, and operational intelligence needed to align business demand with available resources and ensure marketing investments deliver maximum value.

Leading a team of Project Managers and Production Coordinators, this role oversees demand planning, capacity management, portfolio governance, project and program management excellence, and operational performance across Central Marketing's Creative and Digital functions. Working closely with Marketing Business Partners, divisional marketing teams, and Central Marketing leaders, this role ensures approved business priorities are translated into executable work and delivered efficiently through effective planning, governance, and resource management.

Success in this role requires balancing business demand with available capacity, improving operational performance, and providing leadership with the data and insights needed to make informed decisions regarding priorities, staffing, outsourcing, service levels, and future investments.

What You Will Do at Graco

Demand Planning & Capacity Management

• Establish and maintain enterprise demand planning and capacity management practices across Creative and Digital functions.

• Develop forecasting and reporting models that provide visibility into demand, capacity, workload, utilization, throughput, backlog, and resource constraints.

• Partner with Creative and Digital leadership to understand team capacity, delivery risks, and resource requirements.

• Identify operational bottlenecks and recommend solutions that improve efficiency, scalability, and service delivery performance.

• Evaluate business demand against available resources and communicate associated risks, tradeoffs, and service implications.

• Provide leadership with fact-based insights that support staffing, outsourcing, resource planning, and investment decisions.

• Support long-term workforce planning and organizational scalability.

Portfolio Governance & Business Impact

• Lead portfolio planning and governance processes that align Central Marketing resources with business priorities.

• Partner closely with Marketing Business Partners to transition approved business needs into executable programs and projects.

• Ensure work entering Central Marketing is properly scoped, prioritized, and aligned with organizational objectives.

• Facilitate discussions regarding priorities, capacity constraints, resource allocation, and delivery tradeoffs.

• Monitor portfolio health, project dependencies, delivery risks, and resource impacts.

• Promote transparency, accountability, and alignment across the marketing portfolio.

• Drive operational discipline that enables consistent and predictable delivery performance.

Project & Program Management Excellence

• Serve as the functional leader for project and program management within Central Marketing.

• Establish and continuously improve project management methodologies, planning standards, governance practices, and execution frameworks.

• Define expectations for project planning, estimation, resource coordination, scheduling, risk management, and stakeholder communications.

• Ensure project plans appropriately account for capacity constraints, dependencies, review cycles, production requirements, and business priorities.

• Coach and develop Project Managers to strengthen planning quality, stakeholder management, business acumen, and execution effectiveness.

• Drive consistency and discipline in how work is planned, governed, executed, and measured.

• Build scalable program management capabilities that support an increasingly complex and evolving marketing organization.

Operational Performance & Continuous Improvement

• Lead the operational framework that enables Central Marketing to efficiently deliver work across Creative and Digital functions.

• Partner with Creative and Digital leaders to improve workflows, governance standards, service levels, and handoff processes.

• Establish and monitor key performance indicators that measure operational effectiveness, resource utilization, throughput, and delivery performance.

• Develop executive dashboards and reporting that provide visibility into capacity, demand, operational performance, and business impact.

• Deliver actionable insights and recommendations that improve organizational effectiveness and resource efficiency.

• Lead continuous improvement initiatives that enhance throughput, reduce inefficiencies, and improve stakeholder experience.

• Support annual planning, budgeting, and operational reviews through data-driven analysis and recommendations.

Team Leadership & Organizational Development

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of Project Managers and Production Coordinators.

• Build organizational capabilities that strengthen governance, project management excellence, resource planning, and operational performance.

• Establish measurable performance expectations and accountability standards.

• Assess organizational needs and recommend improvements to team structure, staffing, processes, and operating models.

• Foster a culture of collaboration, accountability, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.

What You Will Bring to Graco

• Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business Administration, or a related field; an MBA or equivalent advanced degree is preferred. 

• 8+ years of experience in marketing operations, PMO leadership, portfolio management, creative operations, agency operations, or related operation disciplins.  

• Excellent leadership skills; 5+ years of people leadership experience preferred, with demonstrated success building and leading high-performing teams.   

• Proven experience managing enterprise portfolios, demand planning, capacity management, workflow governance, and operational reporting. 

• Demonstrated experience establishing project management standards, governance frameworks, and delivery methodologies. Strong analytical, financial, and business acumen with the ability to translate operational data into actionable business recommendations.

• Ability to work through ambiguity and drive strategic operational effectiveness.  

• Strong skills in KPI development and tracking, performance reporting, and data analysis. 

• Excellent collaboration, communication, and problem-solving skills, with experience working with cross-functional teams in a matrixed or federated organization model. 

• Ability to travel approximately 10% of time, both domestic and international 

Accelerators

• Global industrial manufacturing experience and knowledge

• Project management and six sigma/black belt training or certification 

• Experience influencing senior leaders and driving organizational change within matrixed or federated organizations.

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