About TEGNA
TEGNA Inc. helps people thrive in their local communities by providing the trusted local news and services that matter most. With 64 television stations in 51 U.S. markets, TEGNA reaches more than 100 million people monthly across the web, mobile apps, streaming, and linear television. Together, we are building a sustainable future for local news.
We are looking for an experienced Director, Commercial Production to lead and evolve TEGNA’s commercial production organization across our local markets. This role will lead a team of approximately 5 Commercial Production Managers, who collectively oversee a distributed team of commercial producers, and will have responsibility for the broader operating model that enables the team to deliver high-quality commercial creative efficiently and consistently at scale.
The Director will set the strategy, standards, workflows, and tools for commercial production, with a focus on consistent creative quality, operational efficiency, resource optimization, and an exceptional experience for our sales teams and clients. This role will also oversee TEGNA’s network of freelance production resources, ensuring we have the right talent and capacity available to support changing business needs across markets.
The ideal candidate is an experienced people and operational leader who understands commercial video production but also knows how to build and improve systems at scale. This person will be a strong cross-functional partner to sales and other key stakeholders, a pragmatic problem solver, and an effective change leader who can bring teams along as workflows, technology, and expectations evolve.
This position can be located at any TEGNA station location.
Responsibilities
Leadership and Team Development: Lead, coach, and develop a team of approximately 5 Commercial Production Managers, establishing clear expectations and accountability while building strong, consistent leadership practices across the organization. Create a culture of collaboration, continuous improvement, accountability, and high performance.
Commercial Production Strategy: Establish and execute the strategy and operating model for commercial production across TEGNA markets. Translate business priorities into clear production standards, processes, resource strategies, and team priorities.
Quality and Creative Standards: Establish clear standards for commercial creative and production quality across markets. Build mechanisms for sharing best practices, reviewing work, providing feedback, and increasing consistency while preserving the ability to meet individual client and market needs.
Operational Excellence and Efficiency: Continuously evaluate how work moves through the organization and identify opportunities to simplify processes, reduce unnecessary work, improve turnaround times, increase capacity, and make better use of internal and external resources.
Resource and Capacity Management: Develop a holistic view of production demand and capacity across markets. Partner with Commercial Production Managers to balance workloads, deploy resources effectively, identify capacity constraints, and determine when work should be handled locally, shared across markets, or supported by freelance resources.
Freelance Network Strategy and Management: Own the strategy and operating model for TEGNA’s commercial production freelance network. Develop and maintain a strong bench of qualified creative and production partners, establish consistent standards and processes for engaging freelance talent, and ensure external resources deliver the expected quality, value, and reliability.
Production Technology and Tooling: Own the strategy, adoption, and optimization of tools and technologies that support commercial production. Evaluate opportunities to improve workflows through technology, automation, and AI-enabled capabilities, ensuring investments deliver measurable improvements in quality, speed, capacity, or cost.
Sales Partnership: Build…