Creative program Manager

Ada Rumford

Hello there! I’m Ada, a tech-oriented creative program and project manager. I delight in turning ambitious ideas into measurable successes and optimizing workflows. This space is here for you to see what I can bring to the table for your marketing, communications, and product design.

People know me as a calm and steady presence, bridging content and design with business strategy. I delight in helping teams produce and launch their best work under less stress. My passion for streamlining and simplifying workspaces led me from the worlds of graphic design and event management to creative program management. By integrating new technologies into the day-to-day workflow, I enhance teams and departments while guiding our focus to a data-informed strategy. I lead projects from initial briefing to release and monitoring with direct responsibility for processes and workflow, team and client communication, budgets, and performance reports.

Explore my work and career to see how I can bring vision, organization, and results to your team.

 
Ada Rumford headshot

Specialized Skills

MarTech and Tools Integration

I specialize in optimizing creative operations by introducing MarTech platforms, systems, and tools, thereby streamlining processes to ensure accountability and measurable results.

At eBay, I optimized multi-channel creative workflows with Monday.com, successfully implemented DocuSign, and introduced Bynder, a comprehensive DAM system to the Communications department. I love researching the best AI tools available to contribute to a company’s Martech stack with efficiency and improved outcomes.

Process Optimization and Change Management

I excel at optimizing creative processes, designing and managing workflows, and managing change to empower teams and elevate operational excellence.

By building models like value chain diagrams and wireframes, I lean heavily on the first rule of project management, feedback and team participation! My ability to redefine workflows, implement production systems, and support team members allows me to go beyond traditional project execution with innovation and impact.

Data-Driven Decision Making

I bring a data-driven approach to creative program management, developing reporting systems and trend analysis to ensure projects, teams, and portfolios align with strategic goals. By gathering clean, relevant metrics along with human-to-human conversations, the aggregate data insights inform decisions, forecast trends, and improve team performance.

With experience in building analysis systems and monthly reports at eBay and my MBA training in big data best practices, I align creativity with data-backed strategies.

Project Management

I love project management. My process for designing/running campaigns relies on the logical framework model: First, identify and state the big-picture goals and how we will measure success. Identify and analyze risk, then lay the path and proactively focus on building and assisting high-performing teams.

I create briefs, work breakdown structures, lead sprint cycles, define critical paths, and conduct earned value analyses. I love diving into the intricacies of Scrum from the position of Scrum Master.

 
 

Touchstone Projects

Production Board Redesign

The Creative Content team’s production board was overly complex, leading to partial adaptation and producing unreliable datasets. The task was to create a more user-friendly interface, catering to the diverse needs of multiple creative workstreams, from video to content strategy to social media engagement to design and writing. These disciplines have drastically differing work processes, complexities, and project timelines.

I replaced monthly production boards with a universal board divided into project stages and customized dashboards that displayed only relative info to each workstream. This allowed for a single unified system that all teammates could quickly update while tracking project progress and provided a centralized hub for project communication.

The redesign improved efficiency by eliminating data collection that did not inform specific program strategy questions. No more collecting data for the sake of it. Project team friction was reduced with enhanced transparency from simple, work-stream-customized status displays. The project-intake and production boards heavily utilized automation and I championed the continued integration of automation tools into the Monday.com ecosystem. I ran team training and change-management initiatives with detailed visual instructions and worked with teammates to elevate their comfort with the new system.

Monday.com production board

Luminary Awards

For eBay’s Luminary Awards, I spearheaded the planning and execution of this three-staged program. The program consists of an online nomination and voting campaign for 20k+ global employees, winner vetting and gift package sourcing, a global surprise celebration, and a branded video with user-generated content that was released within 24 hours of winner announcements.

For this project, maintaining a comprehensive Work Breakdown Schedule and Project Brief was paramount. I led meetings with cross-functional global teams and tracked progress on multiple deliverables such as site development, copy translation, and leadership sign-offs, to name just a few. My role involved managing the program brand development, production of three micro-sites, a cross-platform internal global marketing campaign, and the video production, to be presented by the CEO at a global all-hands. Employing a design vendor and buyers in addition to internal teams, I maintained the project budget and led communication on several fronts and time-zones.

The program was a great success, generating 7-8 thousand daily participants on average. I successfully negotiated a reworked timeline that made the complexities of the program feasible. Winner gift packages proved surprisingly challenging. As it turns out, sourcing gifts (including the production of a bespoke notebook) was an unexpected hurtle due to pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions. Increasing time and cost while maintaining scope and performance proved the best solution.

NEW TECHNOLOGY MARKETING CAMPAIGN

One of the more exciting projects I managed at eBay was a marketing video for the launch of 3D True View, eBay’s proprietary technology enabling 360° views of collectible sneakers. As the creative project manager, I drove the cross-functional effort to produce the video, from brief to delivery, ensuring alignment with go-live dates across departments.

The project required navigating a technically complex asset pipeline and stakeholders and an external vendor that did not have a strong prior relationship with our department. The 3D sneaker visuals were rendered using proprietary software, making them incompatible with standard editing platforms like Adobe Premiere Pro. There was no established pipeline for translating these assets for marketing use—and without them, we couldn’t visually demonstrate the innovation.

Acting as a liaison between technical and creative teams, I clarified our needs, translated constraints to engineering, and worked hand-in-hand with production to ensure raw 3D assets were converted into usable formats. I strongly advocated for not just marketing’s asset requirements, but prioritizing their timely delivery, as many people underestimate the time needed to produce a video with a compelling and accurate story.

The final video showcased eBay’s 3D True View and was delivered on time for launch, helping position eBay at the forefront of innovation in sneaker resale, and giving sneakerheads a new way to experience authenticity.

Global Reports

eBay publishes over two dozen reports detailing the company's operation and progress toward stated goals. By coordinating across departments—PR, marketing, finance, customer engagement, subject-matter experts, creative, development, and legal—my role was to organize the production of cohesive, visually engaging, and informative reports with supporting materials from concept to delivery.

With limited staff resources, one of the main challenges of report season is to manage the capacity of our creative team, who are tasked with overlapping milestones for each report.

Starting with workback schedules and comprehensive project briefs, I created an integrated calendar to drive home the importance of meeting milestones with our project owners and key stakeholders. I led progress meetings, managed risk, and took meeting notes. Sourcing images and release forms highlighted the need for a sophisticated DAM system.

Over six months, I oversaw the production of the Impact Report, Recommerce Report, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Report, Circular Commerce Methodology Report, and the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. These pdf releases were accompanied by websites, videos, and cross-platform PR releases.

resume

eBay, Communications content Studio Program Manager

August 2021 - October 2022

  1. Spearheaded the onboarding of MarTech tools including DocuSign and Bynder, reducing content-retrieval times and improving team efficiency.

  2. Developed the Content Studio’s first data analysis system and delivered monthly reports, enabling trend analysis and strategic decision-making. Spearheaded weekly department-wide status reports to senior leadership, ensuring transparency and alignment with company core values and guiding principles.

  3. Managed high-profile projects such as the Employee-of-the-Year campaign, global reports, and cross-channel internal and external messaging, leveraging Agile methodologies.

  4. Led change management initiatives and optimized workflows on Monday.com, simplifying project intake, status, and communication processes.

AR Design, Marketing Producer

October 2017 - August 2021

  1. Designed digital marketing materials, brand identities, and websites with tools like the Adobe Creative Suite and WordPress. Advised on project scope and user journies, iteratively refining products.

  2. Prioritized clear client communication, designing work to prioritize business objectives and legibility. Established release schedules and managed scope creep.

  3. Integrated Google Analytics and SEO into site builds to better understand audiences. Troubleshooted technical challenges, conducted usability tests, and connected email clients.

Bank of America, Digital Art director

October 2015 - September 2017

  1. Designed and produced 100+ digital marketing assets annually for Enterprise Creative Services, BofA’s in-house agency. Owned email campaign production for several brands. Enhanced consumer engagement and brand consistency with creative campaign solutions for the BofA suite of products.

  2. Improved operational efficiency through technical and creative leadership by aligning processes and production timelines to deliver on-time projects while ensuring stakeholder alignment.

Freelance, Graphic Designer

December 2007 - May 2015

  1. Managed up to 10 concurrent projects across tech, media, real estate, and agency sectors, aligning cross-functional teams to deliver great work on schedule.

  2. Revitalized underperforming projects by quickly identifying challenges, optimizing workflows, and reestablishing timelines and quality standards.

  3. Ensured clear stakeholder communication, serving as a liaison between clients, creative and technical teams to consistently meet client expectations.

Independent, Advertising production assistant

June 2010 - October 2012

  1. As first assistant for the Art Department, directed a team of four to produce advertising set builds, strikes, and management of prop logistics and backstage productions. Pre-pro and production on nine video advertising shoots, including Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards, L’Oreal, TJ Maxx, and Olive Garden, as well as 10 live show productions.

  2. Maintained accounts and communication with vendors and contractors; provided payroll accounting, First-in, last-out duties.

 

Education

Thunderbird School of Global Management
Arizona State University, Phoenix

MBA Global Business Management
Graduated May 2018, Cum Laude with honors

Creative Academy
Seattle Central College, Seattle

A.A.S. Graphic Design
Graduated June 2007, Cum Laude

University of Washington, Seattle

B.A. Interdisciplinary Creative Arts
Graduated January 2004

Technical

Project Management

Monday.com (used extensively), Asana (studying and using), Trello (used), Notion (studied), Sharepoint (used)

Workflow Automation

Make (studying)

Asset Management

Bynder (studied extensively), Dropbox (used extensively), Google Workspace (used extensively), DocuSign (used)

Content Tools

Adobe Creative Cloud (used extensively), Frame.io (used), Excel (studied extensively), Canva (used), Grammarly (using)

Analytics & Reporting

Monday.com (used), Tableau (studied), Google Analytics (used)

ConnEct