Client Operations Associate
Father Gabriel Richard High School - Ann Arbor, Michigan
Senior Manager, Design Operations
Yum! Center for Global Franchise Excellence
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Hybrid
Location: Plano • Texas • 🇺🇸 United States
Visit company websiteSalary
💰 $153,000 - $198,000 per year
Job Level
Senior
About the role
- Establish and lead the team operating cadence, including regular ceremonies such as design reviews, critiques, all-hands, milestone showcases, and retrospectives.
- Partner with design leadership to manage team-wide communications, meeting structures, planning cadences, and operational documentation.
- Drive visibility and accountability across strategic initiatives, design goals, and cross-functional engagements by managing progress tracking and alignment checkpoints.
- Help foster a cohesive and inclusive team culture through operational rituals, team engagement strategies, and internal storytelling.
- Lead the consolidation and governance of Figma across the organization, including shared libraries, permission models, taxonomy, and maintenance practices.
- Own the strategy, configuration, and administration of core design and research tools (e.g., Figma, UserTesting, Miro, Dovetail, Jira, Confluence), ensuring reliability, scalability, and adoption.
- Define access protocols, system roles, and training resources for tool usage across multi-disciplinary teams.
- Manage vendor relationships for design and research platforms, including contracting, license procurement, renewals, and cost forecasting.
- Partner with Legal, Finance, Procurement, and IT to ensure tool compliance, streamline onboarding/offboarding processes, and optimize spend.
- Audit existing tool usage to reduce redundancy, improve ROI, and guide long-term platform strategy.
- Build and scale intake, prioritization, and workflow systems to support how design work is requested, resourced, tracked, and delivered across product spaces.
- Standardize project management practices across design pods and functions, tailoring them to meet the needs of discovery, delivery, and strategy teams.
- Maintain clear and current process documentation, change logs, and learning resources that support team onboarding and evolution.
- Serve as a key operational partner to leaders in Product, Engineering, Brand, Franchise Ops, and Research—connecting design workflows to broader planning cycles and delivery milestones.
- Anticipate and coordinate cross-functional dependencies and roadblocks to keep execution on track and aligned with business goals.
- Help shape how the design team interfaces with the broader organization through repeatable engagement models and shared accountability frameworks.
Requirements
- 10+ years of relevant experience in design operations, program management, product ops, or operational leadership within creative or digital organizations.
- Experience driving enterprise-wide tooling consolidation (especially Figma) and managing the administration and governance of creative and research tools.
- Demonstrated success managing vendor relationships, procurement workflows, contracts, and licensing budgets.
- Strong operational planning and facilitation skills—able to lead team cadences, coordinate across functions, and translate vision into action.
- Deep understanding of design methodologies, product development life cycles, and how to scale human-centered design practices.
- Known for creating clarity, instilling structure, and enabling others to execute with excellence and autonomy.
- Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree or equivalent experience preferred.
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard skills
design operationsprogram managementproduct opsoperational leadershiptooling consolidationvendor managementprocurement workflowscontract managementlicensing budgetshuman-centered design
Soft skills
operational planningfacilitationteam coordinationclarity creationstructure instillationexecution enablementteam engagementcross-functional collaborationcommunicationstorytelling
Certifications
Bachelor's degreeadvanced degree
