Principal Media Operations Manager

About the role

Horizon Media is seeking a Manager, Principal Buying Operations & Process Transformation to strengthen the processes, systems, controls, reporting, and training that support Media Exchange (MX), Horizon's proprietary principal media buying model.

The Manager will partner across Media Investment, Operations, Billing, Accounts Payable, Client Finance, Technology, Application Support, and external platforms to translate business needs into practical workflows and system solutions. This role will help identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency, support business readiness, and drive continuous process improvements across the MX ecosystem

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

Process Mapping, Operational Design & Workflow Governance

• Map and standardize MX workflows from deal ideation and client eligibility through trade execution, billing, reconciliation, and close.
• Identify bottlenecks, control gaps, and manual handoffs; design scalable procedures to replace offline workarounds.
• Maintain safeguards for principal pricing, vendor costs, and commercial margin data across systems and reporting environments.
• Maintain SOPs, process flows, exception matrices, decision logs, and operating documentation

Billing, Reconciliation & Financial Systems Alignmen t

• Analyze recurring billing variances, clearance discrepancies, and vendor payment issues to identify root causes and drive process improvements.
• Ensure buy structures, estimate setup, and system handoffs align with MX processes and NetSuite workflows.
• Partner with Client Finance, Billing, and Operations teams to investigate exceptions, document business requirements, and support workflow improvements.
• Support controls for governance, audit readiness, and contract compliance.
• Identify opportunities to improve financial process efficiency, reporting accuracy, and operational transparency across MX workflows.

Systems Enablement & Operational Readiness

• Gather and document business, operational, system, and reporting requirements from Investment, Finance, Billing, and leadership.
• Translate pain points into BRDs, user stories, process rules, acceptance criteria, and test scenarios.
• Partner with Technology, Application Support, and vendors to evaluate solution options, automation opportunities, and existing platform capabilities.
• Coordinate UAT, defect triage, retesting, business-readiness sign-off, deployment, production validation, pilots, and post-go-live stabilization.
• Work with Application Support, Technology, and vendors to investigate production issues, defects, reporting discrepancies, data variances, reconciliation exceptions, and workflow failures.
• Translate recurring issues into sustainable process, data, reporting, or system improvements and maintain requirements traceability, change request logs, and decision registers.
• Develop training materials, job aids, user communications, and supporting documentation that promote operational readiness and adoption of new processes and system capabilities.
• Partner with stakeholders to support change management efforts associated with process improvements, system enhancements, and business transformation initiatives

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, Finance, Accounting, Information Systems, Communications, or related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience: 8-10 years in business operations, media operations, agency finance, business analysis, process improvement, systems implementation, application support partnership, or business transformation.
• Process & Analysis: Strong process mapping, requirements documentation, workflow design, issue triage, rootcause analysis, and control-gap identification skills.
• Media Operations Acumen: Working knowledge of media investment operations, agency billing cycles, vendor AP, reconciliation, and reporting workflows.
• Systems Experience: Experience with Mediaocean/Prisma, FreeWheel/SBMS, DSPs, and/or ERP systems such as NetSuite; application support partnership preferred.
• Training & Change Enablement: Experience creating SOPs, job aids, training materials, user communications, and onboarding support.
• Communication: Strong written and verbal skills, including meeting facilitation and translation of technical concepts for business stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with principal buying, trade/barter models, or inventory arbitrage workflows.
• Hands-on involvement with NetSuite implementations, integrations, reporting remediation, or media platform migrations.
• Lean, Six Sigma, Agile/Scrum, CBAP, or PMI-PBA certification preferred

Core Competencies

• Operational Ownership: Owns process performance, issue coordination, documentation, and follow-through.
• Analytical Thinking: Breaks complex problems and reporting discrepancies into structured, solvable components.
• Operational Rigor: Maintains focus on detail, data integrity, confidentiality, auditability, and repeatability.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Builds trusted working relationships across Investment, Finance, Billing, Application Support, Technology, and vendors.
• Adaptability & Drive: Thrives in an evolving environment and drives work to completion.
• Continuous Improvement: Identifies opportunities to streamline workflows, strengthen controls, reduce manual effort, and enhance operational effectiveness through process and technology-enabled solutions.

Salary Range $120,000.00 - $140,000.00

A successful applicant's actual base salary may vary based on factors such as individual's skill sets, experience, training, education, licensure/certifications, and qualifications for the role. As an organization, we take an aptitude and competency-based hiring approach.

We provide a competitive total rewards package including a discretionary bonus and a variety of benefits including health insurance coverage, life and disability insurance, retirement savings plans, company paid holidays and unlimited paid time off (PTO), mental health and wellness resources, pet insurance, childcare resources, identity theft insurance, fertility assistance programs, and fitness reimbursement.