VP, Creative Agency Partnerships

Job Description:

Role Summary/Purpose:

The Creative Agency Partnerships leader is responsible for overseeing the governance and financial management of external creative vendors and in-house contractors supporting the agency. This role ensures vendor partnerships remain strategically aligned, cost-efficient, and operationally effective, while strengthening Goldmind’s position as a creative center of excellence by focusing on engagement, advocacy, and enablement to drive smarter creative sourcing decisions across the organization. Acting as a bridge between Sourcing, Finance, Creative Operations, and functional teams, this role will strategically evaluate agency capabilities, assess gaps, manage purchase orders and invoices, review scopes and change orders for fairness, and strengthen accountability across the creative supply chain.

Our Way of Working

We’re proud to offer you flexibility. At Synchrony, our way of working allows you to have the option to work from home near one of our Hubs or come into one of our offices. Occasionally you will be required to commute or travel for in person engagement activities such as business or team meetings, training and culture events. 

*Field Sales and some Commercial team roles may have varied location requirements based upon partner obligations or preferences. 

Key Responsibilities:

• Partners with business and marketing leaders early in campaign planning to influence creative sourcing decisions and advocate for in-house creative capabilities

• Establishes strong enterprise relationships to help shift behavior toward more effective and efficient use of internal creative resources

• Collaborates with business stakeholders to identify external creative vendor needs while maintaining alignment with enterprise Sourcing policies

• Leads the vendor evaluation process from a creative perspective, ensuring all external partners meet clear business objective needs, and quality and pricing standards

• Develops and maintains a preferred vendor list, ensuring that the roster remains optimized by capabilities and pricing, and does not expand without clear business justification

• Partners with Sourcing, Finance and functional teams to ensure external agencies are charging fair market value, providing accurate scopes, and justified in change orders

• Develops standardized agency scorecards to conduct regular quantitative performance measurements that include but are not limited to capabilities, price fairness, delivery quality, and overall value to the business

• Identifies, implements, and enforces process controls to match business function needs with the appropriate creative partners, and identify capabilities gaps across our creative ecosystem

• Captures patterns and insights from external agency engagements to inform creative leadership of emerging demand trends, perception gaps, and capability opportunities

• Provides actionable strategies from qualitative feedback on selection criteria of external agencies where our in-house agency may need additional positioning or enablement support

• Provides visibility into creative spend across external agencies and in-house contractors, strategizing opportunities for cost savings or consolidation

• Champions the value of vendor governance by engaging and influencing senior leaders

• Creates, tracks, and manages purchase orders for in-house contractors, and reviews and approves invoices to ensure accuracy and alignment with contract terms and work output

• Supports strategic decision-making by providing reporting and analysis on vendor utilization, engagement costs, and external agency services

• Champions process improvements across vendor evaluation and onboarding, agreement consistency, partnership accountability, scope review, and change order management

• Perform other duties and/or special projects as assigned.

Required Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Marketing, Finance, or related field. In lieu of degree, a high school diploma and 8+ years of work experience in business, agency process management, project management or business operations

• 5+ years of experience in vendor management, procurement, or creative operations (agency or in-house experience preferred)

• 3+ years of experience in change management to shape enterprise behavior or adoption

• Strong ability to navigate organizational hierarchy in a matrixed environment to influence cross-functional stakeholders

• Strong ability to communicate with senior leadership (SVP/VP) in a polished and diplomatic manner, ensuring alignment, trust, and increased utilization of Goldmind’s capabilities

• 4+ years of strong understanding of marketing and creative campaign lifecycles

• 5 + years of strong financial acumen with hands-on experience managing purchase orders, contracts, and invoice processes

• 4+ years of proven ability to lead vendor evaluations and enforce best practice standards

• Ability to assess creative partner capabilities and ensure alignment with creative standards

• Ability and flexibility to travel for business as required

Desired Characteristics:

• Strong attention to detail and ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously

• Excellent cross-functional communication, organizational, conflict resolution and problem-solving abilities

• Strong computer skills, particularly in MS Office, web-based applications, and project management software

• Well-organized, flexible and identifies opportunities to take initiative

Grade/Level: 12

The salary range for this position is 110,000.00 - 185,000.00 USD Annual and is eligible for an annual bonus based on individual and company performance.

Actual compensation offered within the posted salary range will be based upon work experience, skill level or knowledge.

Salaries are adjusted according to market in CA, NY Metro and Seattle.

Eligibility Requirements:

• You must be 18 years or older

• You must have a high school diploma or equivalent

• You must be willing to take a drug test, submit to a background investigation and submit fingerprints as part of the onboarding process

• You must be able to satisfy the requirements of Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.

• New hires (Level 4-7) must have 9 months of continuous service with the company before they are eligible to post on other roles.  Once this new hire time in position requirement is met, the associate will have a minimum 6 months’ time in position before they can post for future non-exempt roles.  Employees, level 8 or greater, must have at least 18 months’ time in position before they can post.  All internal employees must consistently meet performance expectations and have approval from your manager to post (or the approval of your manager and HR if you don’t meet the time in position or performance expectations).

Legal authorization to work in the U.S. is required.  We will not sponsor individuals for employment visas, now or in the future, for this job opening. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status. 

Our Commitment:

When you join us, you’ll be part of an inclusive culture where your individual skills, experience, and voice are not only heard – but valued. Together, we’re building a future where we can all belong, connect, and turn ideals into action. More than 50% of our workforce is engaged in our Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), where community and passion intersect to offer a safe space to learn and grow.

This starts when you choose to apply for a role at Synchrony. We ensure all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status. We’re proud to have an award-winning culture for all. 

Reasonable Accommodation Notice:

• Federal law requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities. Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job or to perform your job. Examples of reasonable accommodation include making a change to the application process or work procedures, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.

• If you need special accommodations, please call our Career Support Line so that we can discuss your specific situation. We can be reached at 1-866-301-5627.   Representatives are available from 8am – 5pm Monday to Friday, Central Standard Time

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