Senior Project Lead

The Senior Project Lead serves as a strategic partner and operational leader, bridging higher education clients and cross-functional teams to deliver high-impact marketing initiatives that drive enrollment growth, strengthen brand equity, and deepen student engagement. Acting as both a trusted advisor and an advocate for client success, the Senior Project Lead shapes the client experience through foresight, prioritization, and proactive communication across marketing, creative, and operational teams. As the architect of client engagement, this role translates vision into execution with precision and agility—ensuring initiatives are delivered on time, on brand, and on budget. Beyond execution, the Senior Project Lead fosters collaboration, cultivates long-term partnerships, and influences strategic direction, elevating both client outcomes and organizational growth.

Responsibilities:

• Client Relationship Management 
  • Develop and steward a deep institutional knowledge base for each client, synthesizing insights on goals, audiences, competitors, and market position to guide high-value, integrated solution delivery
  • Serve as strategic point of contact and trusted advisor for assigned clients, fostering enduring executive-level relationships and proactively anticipating emerging needs, challenges, and opportunities
  • Champion the alignment of client objectives with institutional and organizational priorities, ensuring deliverables consistently achieve measurable impact 
  • Lead strategic communications and performance engagements, including status updates, mid-cycle and annual performance presentations, and strategic planning sessions, leveraging insights to shape proactive active plans
  • Partner with Account Directors and Portfolio Leaders to drive sustainable growth, strengthen renewals, and identify opportunities for expansion
• Integrated Client Delivery Leadership
  • Provide strategic leadership across complex accounts, balancing scope, cost, time, and quality while holding project managers and divisional teams accountable for the effective delivery of integrated solutions
  • Drive cross-functional coordination and transparent communication, ensuring client priorities are consistently advanced, brand integrity is upheld, and outcomes exceed expectations
  • Manage client onboarding, integrated project timelines, and key delivery milestones in coordination with project managers on solution-specific deliverables
  • Champion innovation and adaptability, proactively identifying strategic opportunities, navigating ambiguity, and guiding creative problem-solving to adjust priorities and scope
  • Forecast, monitor, and optimize project performance and profitability, enabling effective resource allocation and collaboration with department leads
  • Facilitate high-impact internal and client-facing engagements, including project reviews, approval milestones, and strategy calls that drive engagement, alignment, and effective decision-making 
  • Model and lead organizational change, guiding teams through process transitions and operational evolution with clarity, resilience, and accountability
  • Exemplify gray zone leadership, confidently navigating complexity and uncertainty while fostering collaboration, trust, and momentum across stakeholders 
• Timeline and Integrated Solution Delivery Management 
  • Provide strategic oversight of complex, multi-workstream projects, ensuring timelines, budgets, and deliverables remain aligned with client objectives in partnership with solution PMs
  • Track, analyze, and optimize project performance, leveraging data to identify patterns, anticipate and mitigate risks, and implement efficiency improvements to elevate outcomes
  • Drive quality assurance across all outputs, reviewing creative and strategic deliverables with a critical eye to ensure accuracy, brand alignment, clarity, and consistency with client marketing strategies
  • Champion operational excellence and process discipline, streamlining workflows and fostering alignment across internal teams and client stakeholders to accelerate progress toward project and organizational goals
  • Manage complex projects from inception to closure, balancing quality, resources, and scope, while tracking revenue performance and burn rate to ensure the overall project remains profitable and within approved budgets
• Risk and Escalation Oversight 
  • Drive a proactive risk culture by anticipating and addressing project and client challenges before escalation
  • Lead resolution strategies for complex client and operational risks, escalating issues to leadership as needed
  • Monitor and mitigate  relationship risks, maintaining and strengthening strong internal and external partnerships
  • Flag potential revenue, budget, or timeline impacts to divisional leaders and project teams
  • Align cross-functional teams through regular, outcome-driven updates that anticipate stakeholder needs and manage expectations effectively
• Leadership and Team Development
  • Provide leadership and mentorship to project leads and project teams, guiding cross-functional collaboration, elevating best practices, and fostering a culture of accountability and innovation
  • Provide input on Project Lead training programs and skill development initiatives
  • Support hiring and onboarding activities for Project Leads

Qualifications:

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, to be utilized in multi-modal internal and client communications 
• Advanced proficiency in account and project management tools, techniques, and processes, including Google Suite and Asana, with advanced knowledge of Google Sheets and Google Slides
• Advanced strategic understanding of integrated marketing approaches, including how brand and multi-channel marketing solutions align and work together to achieve client objectives
• Expert-level project management and coordination experience with the ability to organize and lead multiple specialized teams through established Project Manager structures, high attention to detail, timely decision-making, and scaffolded prioritization of simultaneous projects
• Experience or interest in using AI tools, with a willingness to learn how AI can impact and appropriately enhance the client experience 
• Exceptional relationship-building skills, cultural competency, and the ability to communicate effectively with diverse groups of people and roles 
• Demonstrated ability to lead through ambiguity, change, and continuous process improvements
• High levels of integrity, emotional intelligence, autonomy, and self-motivation
• Due to the remote environment, effective communication and time management skills are required, as well as the ability to use/learn multiple technology platforms and switch between them on a regular basis
• Physical requirement: Must be able to work at a computer for prolonged periods

Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree
• 6-9 years of higher education, marketing, or agency experience, with increasing responsibility and complexity
• Minimum 3 years experience coordinating cross-functional teams and managing complex, multi-workstream client relationships
• PMP, Agile, or equivalent project management certification preferred

You Should Join Us!

We’re a fast-growing and innovative company, set apart by our incredible people. We’re a supportive, fun-loving group with diverse interests and talents. In addition to getting to work with fantastic people and do work you love, here are some items you can list in your “pros” column:

• Private health/dental/vision
• 401(k) with company match
• Generous holiday and PTO package
• Flexible work environment (remote, in-office, and hybrid roles)
• Half-day summer Fridays
• Fun company events and laid-back culture
• Opportunities for advancement
• Industry exposure and professional development
• Growing company with a family feel
• Entrepreneurial approach and spirit

About Carnegie

For more than 30 years, Carnegie has been a leader and innovator in higher education marketing and enrollment strategy, offering groundbreaking services in the areas of Research, Strategy, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Slate Optimization, Student Search, Website Development, and Creative that generate authentic connections.

Learn more about who we are, what we do, and what we care about.

 

No phone calls or unscheduled visits to the office, please. Carnegie is an equal-opportunity employer.