Production Manager

This job posting is for a current vacancy with our client.

Our client, a leading content and creative production organization, is seeking a Production Manager to join their Retail & Commercial Operations team. This opportunity is ideal for an experienced production leader who thrives in fast-paced, high-volume retail, agency, studio, or integrated content production environments.

This is a hands-on leadership role focused on overseeing the people, capacity, workflows, quality, and day-to-day production execution supporting a major national retail client and broader commercial programs. The successful candidate will lead multidisciplinary production teams while improving operational visibility, productivity, quality, and scalability across the production environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead high-quality production delivery across complex, high-volume retail and commercial programs.
• Manage day-to-day work allocation across creative, data, studio, production, digital, photography, and quality assurance resources.
• Translate production demand and volume forecasts into effective capacity, staffing, and resource plans.
• Monitor work-in-progress, throughput, utilization, turnaround times, quality, rework, and production bottlenecks.
• Lead and coach production teams, establishing clear expectations around quality, productivity, collaboration, and accountability.
• Establish and maintain production standards, quality gates, checklists, and escalation processes across workflows.
• Identify workflow inefficiencies and implement process improvements, automation, and AI-assisted solutions to improve productivity and reduce avoidable work.
• Manage production staffing and delivery decisions against approved budgets, margin expectations, and volume forecasts.
• Partner closely with account leadership, project management, and functional teams to address production priorities, capacity risks, and delivery requirements.
• Support the continued transformation and scalability of the production operating model.

What They're Looking For

• 7+ years of experience in production management, creative operations, studio operations, or integrated content delivery.
• Experience within a high-volume retail production, retail media, advertising agency, studio, or content production environment.
• Experience supporting major retail clients or complex, high-volume commercial programs.
• Strong people leadership experience managing multidisciplinary production resources.
• Demonstrated experience with capacity planning, resource allocation, workflow management, and operational forecasting.
• Strong understanding of production workflows across creative, digital, studio, photography, e-commerce, and related content functions.
• Proven ability to improve quality, productivity, turnaround times, utilization, or operating efficiency.
• Experience using operational data and performance metrics to identify risks and drive improvements.
• Strong technology orientation with experience or interest in workflow automation and AI-enabled production.
• Calm, organized, and decisive leadership style with the ability to manage competing priorities in a fast-moving environment.

Non-Negotiables

• 7+ years of relevant production management, creative operations, or studio operations experience.
• Experience in retail production, retail media, an advertising/creative agency supporting large retail clients, or a comparable high-volume content environment.
• Strong hands-on experience with resource allocation, capacity planning, workflow improvement, and operational performance.
• Proven people leadership experience managing production teams and day-to-day work allocation.
• Experience establishing and maintaining production standards, quality controls, and escalation processes.
• Demonstrated ability to manage high-volume production while maintaining quality and delivery standards.
• Experience making staffing and delivery decisions against budgets, margin expectations, and volume forecasts.
• Strong technology skills with the ability to leverage automation and AI to improve workflows and reduce inefficiencies.
• Comfortable working on-site in North York, Toronto.

Nice to Have

• Experience supporting Walmart or another large national retailer.
• Experience managing integrated creative, studio, digital, photography, data, and quality assurance functions.
• Experience with e-commerce content, digital asset management, or retail media production workflows.
• Experience implementing new workflow technology, automation, or AI-assisted production tools.
• Experience managing offshore, freelance, or hybrid production resources.
• Experience helping transform or scale a production operating model.

• Our specialized recruiting professionals apply their expertise and utilize our proprietary AI to connect exceptional talent with outstanding career opportunities.