Design Studio Manager

Role Overview

• Own and manage day-to-day resourcing across Design, Edit, and Motion departments.
• Allocate projects based on skills, availability, development opportunities, and project requirements.
• Maintain accurate short, medium, and long-term resource plans across all studio teams.
• Lead daily or weekly studio traffic and resource meetings.
• Manage project scheduling, timelines, and workload distribution to support high-quality creative output.
• Identify and resolve resource conflicts, bottlenecks, and scheduling risks proactively.
• Build and maintain accurate capacity forecasts across all studio disciplines.
• Work closely with Client Service and the wider Anthesis team to forecast upcoming work and resource demand.
• Support effective prioritisation of projects and changing business needs.
• Anticipate future hiring and freelance requirements based on pipeline and business growth.
• Act as a key operational partner to Heads of Department.
• Build strong relationships across departments to ensure smooth collaboration and delivery.
• Support a positive, solutions-focused studio culture with clear communication and fair workload management.
• Escalate risks, delivery challenges, or resourcing concerns proactively.
• Monitor and improve studio utilisation, chargeability, and operational efficiency.
• Support profitable project delivery by tracking allocated hours against budgets and timelines.
• Partner with Finance and Client Services teams to monitor project profitability and resource performance.
• Produce regular reporting on utilisation, capacity, freelance spend, recoverability, and workflow trends.
• Help ensure projects are scoped realistically and resourced appropriately.
• Manage the sourcing, onboarding, allocation, and offboarding of freelance across Design, Edit and Motion teams.
• Maintain accurate records of freelance bookings, costs, contracts, and performance.
• Ensure freelance support is aligned with budgets, timelines, and profitability targets.
• Ensure freelancers are effectively integrated into project teams and workflows.
• Build and maintain a strong network of trusted freelance partners and specialist contractors.
• Continuously improve studio workflows, processes, and ways of working.
• Champion best practice in planning, resource management, and timesheet accuracy.
• Drive consistency, transparency, and operational discipline across the studio.
• Help create efficient processes that enable creatives to focus on high-quality work.

Requirements

• Experience in Resource Management and/or Studio Management, Traffic Management, or Creative Operations within a creative, design, content, or integrated agency environment.
• Proven experience managing workflows across Design, Edit, & Motion teams.
• Strong understanding of studio operations, creative production workflows, and agency commercials.
• Experience managing utilisation, chargeability, forecasting, and project profitability.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong organisational skills with exceptional attention to detail and accuracy.
• Ability to manage multiple fast-moving priorities in a deadline-driven environment.
• Commercially minded with strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

Benefits

• Work within a highly motivated team in an innovative and rapidly growing global company
• Opportunity to have a direct impact and be a key part of the growth and development of the business and the team
• Competitive salary in line with education, experience and skills
• An opportunity to participate in the Anthesis Employee Participation Plan (EPP), an industry-pioneering employee incentive plan that allows all employees to be rewarded for the growth in the equity value of Anthesis.
• Cooperative, supportive and open working atmosphere.