Interim Associate Director, Creative Resources

Temporary leave coverage for a multidisciplinary healthcare communications agency. This contract is anticipated to be over several months with possibility for extension.

Role overview

We are seeking an experienced Interim Associate Director, Creative Resources to lead day-to-day staffing, capacity planning, and resource coordination across a multidisciplinary creative organization.

Role overview 

We are seeking an experienced Interim Associate Director, Creative Resources to lead day-to-day staffing, capacity planning, and resource coordination across a multidisciplinary creative organization. 

This person will maintain a clear view of current and upcoming demand and ensure the right people are aligned to the right work based on skills, experience, availability, client continuity, timing, budget, and development opportunities. 

The role requires someone who can operate confidently in a fast-moving agency environment where active client work, launches, pitches, internal initiatives, time away, freelance support, and changing priorities regularly intersect. 

The opportunity 

The interim leader will strengthen visibility, planning discipline, and documentation. Success depends on understanding both people and business realities, then turning incomplete information into clear staffing decisions. 

Key responsibilities 

Creative staffing and allocation 

• Own day-to-day and weekly staffing across active brands, launches, pitches, internal initiatives, and emerging business needs. 

• Maintain a current and accurate view of creative allocations, availability, workload, time away, leaves, and upcoming demand. 

• Match creative talent to assignments based on skill set, experience, seniority, availability, client knowledge, budget, and professional development. 

• Support staffing across copy, art, design, digital, UX/UI, motion, video, production, and creative leadership. 

• Identify staffing conflicts, coverage gaps, and workload imbalances before they affect quality, delivery, or team health. 

• Recommend clear solutions when multiple teams are competing for the same people. 

• Protect continuity on priority accounts by reducing unnecessary resource changes and ensuring clear ownership. 

Capacity and workforce planning 

• Build and maintain a rolling 8-to-12-week view of creative capacity and anticipated demand. 

• Partner with department and business leaders to understand upcoming launches, pitches, major deliverables, project expansions, and potential changes in scope. 

• Translate forecasts and business plans into realistic staffing requirements. 

• Distinguish between temporary capacity needs, capability gaps, scoping issues, prioritization problems, and sustained needs that may require hiring. 

• Identify where workload is concentrated too heavily on individuals or teams and recommend rebalancing. 

• Support recommendations for new roles, backfills, freelance support, or organizational changes. 

• Help leadership evaluate staffing scenarios and understand the consequences of different choices. 

Resource meetings and cross-functional coordination 

• Lead recurring staffing and allocation meetings with Creative, Project Management, Client Services, and other agency partners. 

• Ensure staffing discussions result in clear decisions, owners, timing, and follow-through. 

• Create visibility into open staffing needs, upcoming risks, and unresolved decisions. 

• Translate changing client and business priorities into actionable staffing plans. 

• Raise issues early when available talent, scope, timing, or budget does not support the requested work. 

• Work closely with project and account leaders to validate actual workload rather than relying only on high-level forecasts. 
• Communicate staffing decisions clearly and respectfully to managers and team members. 

Manager accountability and leave coverage 

• Partner with people managers to plan for vacations, parental leaves, extended absences, and other coverage needs.