Director, Creative Strategy

Job Description

We are seeking a dynamic and visionary Director, Creative Strategy to lead our Creative team in delivering innovative and strategic communication solutions for our diverse client base.

In this role, you are the creative force leading teams comprised of designers, writers, art directors, film makers to create world-class concepts and articulate the power of those ideas to clients. You are confident and capable of juggling many workstreams at once. You are a thoughtful leader, mentor, manager and motivator of a creative group who feel unified in your vision to deliver exceptional work for our clients. You can pivot from re-branding an educational institution to developing dynamic VR content for a household technology brand. You can seamlessly bounce from creating elegant content for a beauty brand to conceptualizing and building a podcast series about human rights violations. You understand how great creative can extended across owned and paid channels, and know when and how to strategically integrate other services within our agency. You effectively win pitches and gain client confidence as a leader who can be relied upon to manage large, cross-channel deliverables.

The Director, Creative Strategy is responsible for developing work that has meaningful and measurable impact, achieves marketing/strategic goals, tracks toward set KPIs and satisfies client brand requirements. You will work to understand our clients' objectives, help shape the strategy and lead the team in overseeing the creative vision and execution of projects, as well as oversee the design, tone, and direction of work from concept to execution. We're looking for you to seek out new innovations and technologies to cultivate new concepts and promote exciting fresh ideas. You will also work in tandem with project managers to ensure the timely execution of plans, campaigns and projects to assure earnings, growth and profit goals are achieved.

This role is responsible for understanding the latent challenges and needs behind client work with the ability to suggest ideas that are innovative and expand beyond what is outlined in briefs or requests.

Expectations:

Creative & Visionary Leadership Leadership
• Entrepreneurial and ready to roll up one's sleeves and help us scale and build a dynamic creative team!
• Leads, collaborates and inspires a group of talented specialists including copywriters, designers, strategists and integrated project managers that make up the creative services division within the public relations agency of SSM&L.
• Builds, leads, and mentors a team of strategists and partner leads to be the first point of contact for all work coming through the creative team.
• Provides strategic leadership and creative insight to seamlessly integrate marketing strategies for a diverse portfolio of clients including brand development, social media marketing, digital production, web development and content development.
• Spearheads creative ideation for multi-faceted client campaigns; working with high-level executives and creative stakeholders, leads the development of extensive, nationally integrated marketing campaigns, with measured impact across multiple channels.
• Translates client goals and performance needs into big ideas that garner results; using creative tools, vendors, contacts and expertise

Business Acumen
• Responsible for the overall fiscal vitality and business practices of the creative services division; builds, manages and improves upon all staffing, a detailed P&L and departmental budget.
• Responsible for new business development; cultivating and leading opportunities both within the company eco system and outside. Ability to speak to and sell in effective social and digital strategies as an extension of creative work is a plus.
• Responsible for ideation and creation of new business proposals and campaigns for the client. These will include the big idea, the tactical execution and the overall look and feel.

Resource Management
• Manage project timelines and budgets effectively, ensuring the highest quality of work within specific constraints.
• Optimize resource allocation to ensure efficient project delivery and client satisfaction
• Build and cultivate relationships with freelance creatives – from designers, programmers, illustrators, video teams and many other creatives to support our efforts where needed. This person is responsible for identifying talent and managing the creative team to ensure that the work is up to high standards and the projects are delivered on time.

What We Are looking For
• An entrepreneurial spirit who is excited to build a strong, dynamic creative team
• A creative leader with 8-10 years of experience with a portfolio that showcases strategic direction and creative output for clients and demonstrated versatility across all media
• An experienced presenter who is as comfortable directing their team as they are presenting to clients or senior level executives. A persuasive and effective communicator who can lead the selling and execution of the work.
• An integrated problem solver who can sync up brand strategy, communications, content, product, channels, and user experience.
• A natural storyteller who inspires others to join and participate in your vision.
• A confident people manager who can inspire and nurture talent and push a team to think above client expectations.
• A natural collaborator, comfortable working iteratively within different subject areas
• A strong relationship builder who can forge effective internal partnerships, leading collaboration across integrated teams
• An effective multi-tasker who can lead a team while executing their own project workstreams and manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• A naturally curious student of the world who is fluent in new technologies and trends, including social platforms, mobile, tech, and social change.
• A strong writer – persuasive, concise, creative, and quick.
• Someone who enjoys overdelivering rather than meeting expectations and takes genuine pride in being part of something good.
• Someone who can be comfortable being uncomfortable – pushing themselves and others out of comfort zones to think differently and be innovative in what we deliver and how we deliver it
Other:
• Ability to travel as needed
• Hybrid work; minimum of two days in the office

$125,000 - $150,000 a year

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-ro25k6-18-188-161-182-42 in your application.