Circulation Operations Manager

The Circulation Operations Manager is responsible for overseeing the strategic and day to day operations of multiple departments and is accountable for the financial integrity of the newspaper's circulation function. This role provides direct leadership to the Circulation Finance and Data Processing teams, ensuring accurate customer data, billing, cash application, reconciliations, fraud prevention, and audit readiness. The position plays a critical role in maintaining revenue integrity, operational efficiency, and compliance within a fast-paced media environment.

Responsibilities:

• Provide day-to-day supervision and leadership in the areas of performance management, task delegation, coaching, and professional development to ensure operational excellence.
• Manage scheduling, workload and resource allocation to ensure adherence to established department processes, deadlines, and service-level expectations.
• Foster a collaborative, accountable, and continuous-improvement-focused team culture by training and mentoring the team.
• Act as a senior advisor for escalated issues and provide strategic input to resolve matters effectively.
• Oversee circulation-related financial activities, managing all processes related to customer data, billing, cash application, refunds, credits, and variance resolution to ensure financial accuracy and compliance.
• Conduct daily, weekly, and period-end reconciliations of circulation-related bank activity, including credit card transactions, ACH, chargebacks, and returned items.
• Ensure all discrepancies are thoroughly investigated, documented, and resolved in a timely manner.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for circulation-related audits, including Financial, AAM (Alliance for Audited Media), and Sales Tax audits.
• Prepare, maintain, and deliver detailed audit documentation and reconciliations as required.
• Ensure circulation processes align with internal controls, accounting standards, and regulatory requirements through documented procedures, reconciliations, audit support, and cross-functional partnership with Finance and Accounting.
• Perform daily monitoring of credit card activity using fraud detection tools; escalate issues and coordinate blocking of bot attacks or suspicious activity as needed.
• Maintain detailed documentation of fraud-related system changes and communications with third-party payment processors.
• Partner with leadership to assess fraud trends, implement corrective action plans, and strengthen preventative controls to reduce organizational risk.
• Manage system-related initiatives to ensure operational efficiency, including clean-up efforts stemming from technical issues affecting cash postings, refunds, or escheatment processing.
• Drive continuous process improvement and system optimization initiatives across circulation and financial workflows. This includes proactively identifying systemic and operational challenges, leading root-cause analysis, and collaborating on the implementation of permanent, scalable solutions to maintain operational continuity and data integrity.
• Develop and maintain advanced formulas, macros, and automated workflows to improve efficiency, accuracy, and scalability.
• Partner cross-functionally with IT, Finance, Customer Service, and external vendors to resolve system issues and enhance circulation platforms.
• Develop, maintain, and regularly update Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to reflect current policies, processes, and system configurations.
• Perform training to all affected staff for changes to processes, SOP's and/or both to ensure staff is kept apprised of changes and understand the impact to their work.
• Ensure documentation supports training, audit readiness, and operational continuity in a dynamic environment.
• Undertake the responsibilities of the role using the tools, software or technologies that may be available or required at the time
• Achieve the outcomes and results of the role as described above using the most appropriate methodologies and best practices available or required
• Other duties as assigned.

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Business Administration, or a related field, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• 7+ years of progressive experience in circulation operations, revenue operations, finance, data processing, or a comparable transactional environment.
• 4+ years of demonstrated people leadership experience, including direct supervision of multi-disciplinary teams (e.g., finance, data processing, operations).
• Proven ability to lead, coach, and develop employees, including setting clear expectations, providing timely and actionable feedback, conducting performance reviews, and supporting career growth.
• Strong proficiency and experience managing workforce planning, including scheduling, workload balancing, prioritization of competing deadlines, and resource allocation in a deadline-driven environment.
• Demonstrated success in fostering a high-performing, accountable, and collaborative team culture, with an emphasis on continuous improvement and employee engagement.
• Proven experience leading teams through change, ambiguity, and evolving systems or processes, including driving adoption of new tools, workflows, or controls.
• Solid background in financial reconciliations, internal controls, audit support, and compliance, with the ability to clearly explain complex financial processes to non-finance stakeholders.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Excel, including complex formulas, macros, and data analysis, with the ability to translate data into operational insights.
• Experience identifying operational risks and partnering with leadership to implement preventative controls and corrective actions.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present findings, recommendations, and process improvements to leadership.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience leading teams within a newspaper, media, publishing, or subscription-based organization.
• Familiarity with AAM (Alliance for Audited Media) reporting requirements and circulation audit standards.
• Experience collaborating cross-functionally with Finance, IT, Customer Service, and external vendors to resolve system issues and drive operational improvements.
• Prior involvement in fraud prevention programs, payment processing oversight, or revenue risk mitigation initiatives.
• Knowledge of escheatment regulations, refund processing, and subscription lifecycle management.

The L.A. Times is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes all qualified applicants regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We actively work to create an inclusive environment where all of our employees can thrive. This Privacy Notice for Los Angeles Times sets forth how we will use the information we obtain when you apply for a position with us. Explore our company history, achievement, values, mission and more on our career site.

The pay scale the Company reasonably expects to pay for this position at the time of the posting is $120,000 to $130,000 and takes into account a wide range of factors including but not limited to skill set, experience, training, licenses, certifications, and other business or organizational needs. Compensation will be determined based on the above factors along with the requirements of the position. At the L.A. Times, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for the role. Please visit our career site to view the benefits available to our employees. We recommend adding our applicant tracking system domain (@dayforce.com) as a safe sender or contact, sometimes these emails get filtered to candidates' spam folders.