Kim Vara Email & Phone Number

Williamsville, New York, United States

United States

Developed and managed a team of two direct reports, a Traffic and Production Manager, as well as managed schedules for a creative team of up to 30 designers, editors, videographers, and photographers to ensure projects were delivered to the highest standard within the agreed upon budget and timeframe.• Implemented a creative workflow from the ground up including a streamlined intake process thru the customization of a project management system to address specific needs and trained users on usage which delivered strategic alignment across multiple stakeholders and improved consistency, efficiencies, and adherence to timelines allowing for more projects in the pipeline with existing resources.• Championed documentation of key workflows, communicated updated processes and ensured cross-functional users were adhering to standardized practices resulting in clear expectations, improved resource planning, collaboration and transparency across teams and increased productive capabilities.• Managed the production and installation of large scale environmental projects with outside vendors while maintaining budgets and timelines.

Assigned, coordinated and tracked all incoming job requests for members of the creative staff which entailed processing incoming requests, negotiating deadlines, setting schedules, following up on approvals while monitoring and adjusting timelines as needed.• Ensured the team was adequately staffed as business grew and assigned tasks according to the capabilities of each team member and engaging specialized freelance contractors as needed to supplement skills.• Managed and promoted smooth workflow and communication between internal departments.

Served as a liaison between account executives, creative team members and production managers. • Created detailed schedules and set deadlines for projects to ensure on time deliverables. • Distributed assignments to creative team members based on availability and priorities.• Managed freelancers when additional resources were needed to meet workload and deadlines. • Addressed a wide variety of requests from multiple clients and account executives with competing deadlines and limited resources.

Involved in capital investment projects whose goal was to increase brand awareness and revenue within the US retail branch network by creating a consistent customer experience and journey in the retail space.

Managed and tracked the design, proofreading and approval processes of collateral, print, direct marketing and interactive campaigns for all agency clients.