Studio Manager

Role Summary

The Studio Manager will lead Integreon's Manila design studio and will be accountable for its day-to-day operational performance, client delivery, staffing and capacity management, people leadership, quality, and overall studio governance.

The role requires a strong operational leader who can build and maintain a disciplined, scalable delivery environment while effectively managing a creative/design team. The successful candidate will be responsible for ensuring consistent service delivery, optimizing resources and utilization, strengthening leadership capability, managing client and stakeholder expectations, and driving continuous improvement across the studio.

The role will also support the evolution of the studio's operating model, including expansion from the current 16x5 model toward 24x5 and, where commercially justified, 24x7 operations.

Key Accountabilities

Studio Leadership and Operations

• Lead the Manila design studio as the senior operational leader for the site, with full-time presence from the Manila office.
• Independently manage day-to-day studio operations, ensuring effective decision-making, issue resolution, escalation management, and operational continuity.
• Build and maintain a clear operating structure across managers, team leaders, workflow coordinators, quality reviewers, and production teams.
• Establish clear ownership, escalation paths, performance expectations, and operating rhythms.
• Ensure consistent achievement of service levels, turnaround times, quality standards, and client commitments.
• Oversee workflow management, staffing allocation, capacity planning, utilization, and delivery performance.
• Strengthen quality-control and global-check processes across all workstreams, and ensure appropriate senior review is applied before client delivery.
• Lead the resolution of client escalations and recurring service issues.
• Maintain strong governance across the studio's client accounts.

Financial, Capacity and Productivity Management

• Monitor staffing costs, utilization, productivity, overtime, and operational efficiency.
• Partner with leadership and Finance to track studio performance against budget and identify areas for improvement.
• Drive productivity and margin improvement through effective staffing, utilization, workflow, and capacity decisions.
• Develop business cases and recommendations for capacity expansion, new services, and operational improvements.

Coverage and Scalability

• Develop and execute the roadmap to transition the studio from its current 16x5 model to 24x5, and ultimately 24x7, operations, where commercially justified.
• Design the required shift structures, leadership coverage, workflow support, escalation mechanisms, and quality controls.
• Ensure expanded coverage is implemented without compromising quality, employee sustainability, or client experience.
• Build scalable operating processes that support growth across multiple accounts and service lines.

Client and Stakeholder Management

• Act as a senior escalation point for key clients and internal stakeholders.
• Build confidence with clients through clear communication, reliable delivery, and proactive issue management.
• Build strong relationships with senior internal stakeholders and provide clear, proactive communication on studio performance, risks, capacity, and operational priorities.
• Develop managers and team leaders to become stronger client-facing operators.
• Partner with account leaders, sales teams, and senior management on client reviews, growth opportunities, and service improvements.
• Present studio performance, risks, improvement plans, and strategic recommendations to senior leadership.

Continuous Improvement, Innovation and Service Development

• Identify opportunities to improve studio processes, workflows, quality, productivity, and client experience.
• Partner with Creative, Technology, Sales, Marketing, and Operations teams on service improvements and new capabilities.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, automation, and AI-enabled workflows where they can improve efficiency, quality, scalability, or client value.
• Support business cases, pilots, and implementation plans for new services, tools, and operational improvements.
• Monitor the effectiveness and adoption of new processes, tools, and capabilities.

People Leadership

• Build, mentor, and develop a high-performing leadership and production team.
• Strengthen accountability, quality ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement across the studio.
• Lead workforce planning, hiring, succession planning, performance management, and leadership development.
• Ensure managers and team leaders are equipped to manage performance, coach employees, and handle client-facing responsibilities.
• Create a stable and professional work environment capable of supporting extended-hours operations.

Candidate Profile

• 10–15+ years of relevant experience in creative studio operations, production management, service delivery, shared services, outsourcing, or client-service environments.
• Significant experience leading large, multi-layered teams in a client-service or production environment.
• Demonstrated expertise in workflow management, quality control, SLA delivery, utilization, staffing, and client escalation management.
• Strong financial acumen, including P&L and budget ownership, cost management, productivity analysis, and margin improvement.
• Experience designing or managing extended-hours, multi-shift, or 24x7 delivery operations.
• Proven experience developing, launching, and growing products or service offerings, ideally including AI/ML-enabled solutions.
• Good understanding of creative production environments and technologies, including Adobe Creative Cloud, presentation production, multimedia, and emerging AI-enabled workflows.
• Strong understanding of product lifecycle management, market analysis, and go-to-market strategy.
• Proven ability to build operating structures, develop managers, and lead organizational change.
• Excellent strategic thinking, communication, judgment, stakeholder management, and
• problem-solving skills.
• Comfortable operating at both strategic and hands-on operational levels.
• Willing and able to work full-time from the Manila office.
• Demonstrated ability to independently manage day-to-day studio operations, make sound operational decisions, and lead through issues and escalations with limited day-to-day supervision.
• Strong understanding of creative/design production environments and the ability to balance creative quality, client expectations, deadlines, capacity, and operational efficiency.

Preferred Experience

• Experience with Adobe Creative Cloud and presentation-production environments.
• Exposure to UI/UX, digital design, motion graphics, multimedia, or technology-enabled creative services.
• Experience working in a global, multi-client, outsourced-services, or shared-services environment.
• Experience supporting service transformation, automation, or AI adoption.

Success Measures

• SLA and turnaround-time performance.
• Quality and first-time-right improvement.
• Client satisfaction and escalation reduction.
• Utilization and productivity.
• Gross-margin and budget performance.
• Leadership capability and team stability.
• Successful expansion of operating coverage (16x5 to 24x5 to 24x7).
• Adoption and effective implementation of new services, tools, automation, or process improvements.
• Improved scalability and operational discipline.

About Integreon

Integreon is a global provider of legal, creative, and business solutions. We help clients address complex operational challenges through specialist expertise, technology, and scalable delivery models. Our teams support leading organizations across industries by improving efficiency, strengthening quality, accelerating delivery, and enabling growth.